On (29 Mar 95) Bob Lawrence wrote to Keith Richardson...



 BL> The Chinese know less about Australia than America.



 KR> dont you believe it bob, i've been both to china and the us in

 KR> the last 18 months, and i do not perceive that chinese

 KR> ignorance of australia to be any more than yank ignorance.



 BL>   This only says that zero is the limit.



true, but the chinese have some excuse, the yanks with the greatest fact

gathering networks in the history of the world at their disposal have

none.



 KR> you are letting your emotions show, the yanks are more like us

 KR> so they must be better.



 BL>   I was not making a moral judgement at all. I am perfectly happy for

 BL> Asians to strangle their babies (I would make it compulsory).... but

 BL> this does demonstrate a different mindset between Asia and Europe,

 BL> which is the point I was making. We don't understand each other.



of course there is a difference in mindset, that is what makes asia such

an interesting place to visit, but there is no reason at not to

understand it, if you are willing to put the effort in.



 KR> the yanks shoot each other for the flimsiest of reasons, and

 KR> seek to impose their view of the world on all sorts of people

 KR> who dont want it.



 BL>   Of course, Communist China and Japan are nothing like that. Changi

 BL> and WWII were just an honest misunderstanding.



where does communist china get into changi and wwII? i thought that

their only excursions abroad were into korea (at the request of their

allies) and tibet. what the japs did in the war was unforgivable from

the western perspective, but the firebombing of tokyo was a clean and

humane action, including the first use of that friendly substance napalm

used later with such care in vietnam.



 BL> They really do understand our sense of humour. They like us. I

 BL> had a fascinating insight when I was working for Astec.



who? the chinese, the japs, or the yanks, i have found personally the

the reaction of all three to any degree of subtlety to be similar - blank

stare.



 KR> you weren't dealing with the average yank, i spoke to dozens at

 KR> least, few knew where australia is



 BL>   I have already admitted this, and in fact I said it first. I am

 BL> talking about the yanks as *people*. Australians and Americans have a

 BL> natural affinity. Of course, you will find someone you hate, but apart

 BL> from the accent we are basically the same people -not jsut racially but

 BL> culturally. You can't say this for the average Asian.



well there are those that would say that we are on a par with the yanks

culturally ie none at all (: as people, they are, in the most part, open

and friendly, i have worked closely with them from the middle sixties

on. back in those days i was doing a very small part to help in their

space effort, and dealing with them both face to face, and by phone the

whole of my work day (or night). they found it difficult to accept that

we could do a top job, and have fun at it. to them, work was serious,

and fun was separate, you can see the same thing in their tv programs,

they have rarely managed the pommy trick of being funny and serious at

the same time.



 BL>   I'm not actually being racist in this, because I believe that the

 BL> difference is cultural, not genetic, but the fact remains. It would be

 BL> impossible for us to form union with Japan for instance, but there

 BL> would be no problem in Australian becoming of the the united states of

 BL> America, or Canada... or any European nation.



japan no - they wouldn't want to unite with anyone, oriental, or

occidental, canada - probably, but quebec would be a problem, europe,

with germany - probably not, with france - definitely not, with the poms

- yes, but only if they could go on top  (: with the others - who knows.

uniting with new zealand would even be difficult, and they should be the

easiest of all.



 KR> their knowledge of australia was matched by mine of outer

 KR> mongolia



 BL>   I agree, and this terrifies me. I could probably name the capital of

 BL> most states of America and most of their Presisdents. I know how their

 BL> legal system works... which is more than can be said of Americans. They

 BL> know *nothing* of us. They simply assume we are honorary Americans.



they are an inward looking nation, such nations are not uncommon, what

is unusual about the yanks is that they do it voluntarily.



 KR> the only reason that the social comment in "the simpsons" gets

 KR> away with it is that no-one there understands it.



 BL>   You make a bad mistake in characterising yanks and dickheads. In my

 BL> experience, they are exactly the same as us. How can you criticise the

 BL> Wilsons when we make Neighbours?



in the simpsons, the yanks have a crock of gold but only about 10% of

them realise it (it was, in fact, a pom, tracy ullman, who discovered

them), we have a crock of shit, but 90% of the population know it.



 BL>   Exactly right, for Hong Kong, at least. The French convert them, the

 BL> English exploit them, and the Yanks can't undersatand why everyone

 BL> isn't like them. This is our strength with the USA. We *are* like

 BL> them... or close enough, anyway.



it goes further than that, the yanks want everybody to be just like them

whether the others want to or not. i met a scary guy at a bbq. he is a

yank who makes a lot of money (3 houses in newport/palm beach, and a 47

foot yacht) selling us franchises in oceania, and se asia. his avowed

intention is to get australians eating like yanks, home cooked food

becomes much less important, you eat out in semi-fast food places at

least 50% of the time. the scary bit is that this is like a religion to

him, he feels that he needs to destroy part of our culture, and replace

it with his.



 BL>   I was excited by the discovery. Australia is a hybrid of people who

 BL> can get on with almost anyone. We understand cricket, and basketball

 BL> too... but we play our own game.



we are certainly more flexible that a lot, or even most nations, but i

dont think that the abbos, or the local asians would completely agree

with you.



 BL> This is what I meant when I said the yanks consider us "one of

 BL> theirs." We don't seem foreign at all, and neither do they.



maybe it's just me, but the yanks that i met in america didn't consider

me "one of theirs". not that they put me down or anything like that, but

i was just as exotic as the europeans that i was with (actually more so,

they had met many more europeans than australians), they were interested

in the cultural differences, and were surprised that we aren't just like

them.



 BL>   Who were you dealing with? I spent two years dealing with a variety

 BL> of engineers, face-to-face and by FAX. The US engineers were *exactly*

 BL> the same as Australian engineers. Their world-view was somewhat different, 

 BL> but you have to expact that. The Pommies in Hong Kong were just Pommies, 

 BL> but I could make no sense of the Chinese at all. It was inmpossible to 

 BL> create any personal connection; it was like dealing with the Public 

 BL> Service.



at work, i was dealing with the usual middle class techies that i work

with here. but outside work, of course, there was a tremendous range,

from dumb shits who found it an enormous chore to deal with someone

different, to intelligent and articulate people, who amazed me with

their lack of knowledge of the world. they seemed genuinely interested

to hear about places like australia, i cannot understand why they knew

so little.



 BL>   I'm not talking about US policy, keith, I'm talking about *people*.

 BL> I agree with all you say about US policy. They are the greatest threat

 BL> the Australia next to Japan, and I believe that when Japan joins China

 BL> in the next Asian Coprosperity Sphere they will invade us again. But

 BL> this has nothing to do with the people themselves.



the trouble is that the whole is more than the sum of the parts, a mass

of, in the main, pleasant people unfortunately add up to a somewhat

belligerent, and unpredictable country. i cant see the japs invading

anybody in the foreseeable future, they have found better ways of world

domination, they could pay the chinese to do it for them i suppose, but

that would be bad for trade, the chinese are well enough armed to take

on some of their neighbours, but not to have a go at us. 



 KR> there are all size fish in the ocean, each fills it's niche in

 KR> the scheme of things, thats what we need to do - find our niche

 KR> and fill it well, see an opportunity and exploit it.



 BL>   No. You create the niche and the big boys come along and take it off

 BL> you. It leaves you having to continually create new niches, and it is

 BL> specious to think that Oz can out-create the entire world. The only

 BL> thing that works is closed markets and tariffs. You talk about

 BL> history - look back and see what worked for a small population like

 BL> Australia, or Holland or Sweden.



not completely true, it depends on how you do it, if you base your niche

on a natural advantage, or you find one that is not worth the

aggravation to the big boys to take it off you, then it can work.



                        Keith



... Visit Tokyo - its a gas!



--- PPoint 1.88