When I first arrived in Australia, my school took all the international students on a weekend orientation trip to the beach. Part of the orientation consisted of a few presentations discussing what our study abroad experience might entail. The presenter, Steve, talked to us about the W curve of culture shock that many abroad students experience. He told us that the people, rules, culture, and places here in Australia might clash with the culture we’ve have grown up. Steve urged us to never use the phrase “wrong” when discussing these clashes. He asked us not to say “they drive on the wrong side of the road” or “they say tomato wrong.” Instead he told us to simply say “hm interesting cultural difference.” We all laughed at this, thinking of how seemingly ridiculous we would sound saying “hm interesting cultural difference.” I’ll be honest with you I didn’t take Steve too seriously. I presumed that apart from the funny accents and strange love for Vegemite that the Australian culture would be very similar to the American culture I had grown up in. After spending 5 months there, I came to find a lot of interesting cultural differences. I found that Steve was right, they were not good, bad, or even wrong, but simply interesting and I had to learn to adapt and cope with things not being as I thought they should.
Having gone to GW, a very politically aware school, for two years, parts of the culture in Australia did shock me a bit. At times it can feel like they are at least 10 years behind the United States when it comes to social liberties and politically correct statements and phrasing. This put a strain on the identity that I had built up and created for myself back at school. The community at GW had made me feel like I could be and do whatever I wanted without fear for judgment from my peers, but when I got to Australia I began to feel those pressures to not be weird or different, a lot of the same pressures I had felt in the south.
A phrase I hear a lot here is “that’s so gay.” I hadn’t heard that phrase since middle school. It may seem so meaningless and arbitrary, but for me the phrase leaves me with this underlying taste of fear that my sexuality is something to be ashamed of. I had come from a very open and accepting environment in DC and this was a very different atmosphere.
At first I was scared and I kept that part of my life hidden away, but I found community in my fellow international students and even the Australian friends I made and I learned to forget that underlying fear. I decided that it was better to loose a few friends than to live with secrets and fear.
GW was a safe place for me and going to Australia meant leaving my comfort zone in a lot of different ways. I found a lot of interesting culture differences that could have left me afraid and unhappy, but instead I used those differences to inspire me to push my limits and understand other peoples points of view. I learned to never change myself for the benefit of others, something I have been working on for years. I mean I even walked around Sydney in overalls and a tie dye hat, something I thought I’d only dream of.