Australia: I Say "Tomato" You Say "To-maa-to"

Most Americans get British and Aussie accents mixed up. Being Chinese obviously qualifies me to decipher the Aussie accent for you. Early settlers in Australia back in the late 1700s were British who, not surprisingly, edged out the Aborigines* and claimed it as a Crown Colony; ergo, Australians speak English. Australian English (AusE) shares the same spelling with British English (BrE) but has a variation in pronunciation, though still a lot more similar than American English (AmE). Americans, on the other hand, have taken out or changed letters from certain words altogether.

1. Brits and Aussies spell words like Color with a "u" as in Colour and Analyze with an "s" like Analyse.
2. Americans have taken out the "i" completely out of Aluminum as in AL-lu-MIN-ium
3. Aussies also pronounce words with "a" the same way Brits do, as in Ba-naaa-na or To-maa-to or Daaance or Baath. While we say AD-ver-tise-ment, they say ad-VER-tise-ment.
4. "R"'s aren't really pronounced the way we do as in Earth or Father. Take the city of Melbourne, Americans say "Mel-born" when in fact it should be pronounced "Mel-bin."
5. And when a word has an "o" as in No, it sounds like there's an extra half syllable in it as if they are saying No-ii. It isn't a full extra syllable but still detectable. Can you imagine all the words with an "o" sound, like no, don't, both, snow, know...now have an extra half syllable? It's a little inefficient if you ask me.
6. Aussies also like adding "y" or "o" at the end when shortening words, like Footy for football, Brekky for breakfast, Telly for television, and Arvo for afternoon, which is kind of cute and endearing.
7. Some words they use are not the same as what we use. For example, do NOT ever say "What team do you root for?" In AusE, root means f*ck or screw. I learned that the hard way, but we'll just leave it at that. (They always get a kick out of Canadians who wear Roots t-shirts - Roots is a popular clothing chain in Canada.)
8. Furthermore, they don't call cell phones cell phones, they say mobile, elevator is lift, and no one uses fall for the season - please say autumn instead. Well, that's about all for now. I'm sure I'll have a lot more Aussie words and colloquialism to share in the near future.

I have a blind date tonight with a local! My friend Debbie from LA hooked me up with her friend Tamie who lives in Melbourne and we are meeting for dinner tonight in the city. Since we don't know what each other looks like, we had to describe ourselves over email. I will be holding a single long stem rose.

*Aborigines are indigenous Australians and are the first human inhabitants from 50,000 years ago who still live in Australia today.

Photo of Melbourne courtesy of National Geographic.

Why Australia?

My response is, "Well, why not?" But before I start blogging about this country I now call home, let me explain what brought me here in the first place. It all started with a dream about koala bears and kangaroos. They are being slaughtered and eaten alive by hungry carnivorous Aussies so I must make it my life mission to save them...Ok seriously, I am not big on animals so couldn't really care less even if I did have that dream. But I did meet a bunch of fun-loving meat-pie-eating never-without-a-beer-in-hand Australians when I was working in Tokyo (see pics). Throughout most of 2006, we worked together, ate most of our meals together, spent countless late nights partying or singing karaoke together, explored Tokyo together, practiced our Japanese with each other, and lived in the same apartment complex (some of us even lived on the same floor creating a very collegiate dormitory environment). It was a gray, melancholy day when I left Tokyo and had to say goodbye. Since then almost everyone else has left Tokyo one by one. A few remained, some returned home, while others looked for job opportunities in cities around the world.

After a year has gone by, swiftly if I might add, as Justin and I were thinking about where to start our next adventure, my best Aussie pal Ben informed me about a new Work and Holiday visa that President Bush just passed in October (well I guess he did something right). This new visa allows Americans to live and work in Australia for up to 12 months. I submitted my application online and was approved within a week. Even though I had never stepped foot there, I knew it wouldn't be too difficult to adjust. At least this time around language lessons won't be necessary to get around. Since Ben would also be returning home to Melbourne after a year in London, he has generously invited us to stay with him at his house. That's when we decided that when ski season ends, we would pack up our bags and move to Melbourne where we will settle down, get a job, visit friends in Sydney and Perth, backpack around the outback, and explore New Zealand where Lord of the Rings was filmed. Still no luck with the job thing, but this weekend I am being initiated into my first AFL game (Aussie rules football) aka "footy." Oh goody! Hey that rhymes.

G'Day from Down Unda!

After weeks of agony, I mean preparation, I have finally made my way (a very long way) across the Pacific to Australia. During my last week in Breckenridge, I scrambled to pack up the rest of my belongings and finished up my shift at Ski School (and even got into a fist fight with a grumpy old fart of a coworker who wanted to switch standing posts with me but I refused at the request of our other colleagues. Oh the drama of being a ski school host! See left picture of my work.) Then the day before my flight, Justin, Kevin, and I consumed our special homemade chocolates and took a day trip sunbathing outside on our deck for the entire afternoon (right pic). Bluebird sky and unseasonably warm at 60 degrees, it was the perfect way to spend my last day in Colorado. The next morning Justin drove me to the airport with eight pieces of luggage PLUS a bike box that I had to somehow manage all by myself. That son of a bitch is staying for another month to finish up ski season - leaving ME to go to Australia by myself with OUR luggage. I couldn't wait to go with him because my visa will expire if I don't arrive by the Eyes of March whereas his visa is valid until mid-April.

When I finally got to Melbourne after a 20-hour flight with layovers in San Francisco and Sydney, it took about another hour and a half to get through customs / immigration / baggage claim. And let me tell ya, flying coach across the world is NOT the way to go. (Boy do I miss flying business class on the company dime.) Then my dear friend Ben (left pic0 who is housing us for the year in Melbourne picked me up at the airport. The weather was a cool 100 degrees and gave my body quite a shock as I went from the freezing point in Colorado to boiling point in just two days. When we arrived at his house which was an old remodeled monastery (right pic), I realized quickly he wasn't kidding when he said there was nothing there. Ben had also just moved back to Melbourne from London, so the house was completely empty except for his bed and a couple dressers. I have been sleeping on the futon until my bed arrives in a couple weeks. We didn't even have electricity so we have been living by candlelight and bathing in the river. Just kidding about that one. But we did spend the entire week shopping for necessities like pots and pans and got ourselves a nice outdoor dining set which we sanded and stained. We now have a TV and a couple camping chairs as our temporary couch.

But it hasn't been just all work - during my first week here, we've already attended a wedding where we "bush danced" (left pic), a BBQ, a St. Patty's party in the park with a U2 tribute band (right pic), Ben's friend's band, The Tom Kline Set's live performance at the Espy pub in St. Kilda where Green Day and U2 have played, and a comedy show. Next week my job search begins...

Colorado: Skiing Mishaps

When you're skiing or boarding, mishaps on the mountain are bound to happen. I, for instance, got my head knocked out by the chair lift a few days ago and didn't realize I was bleeding until I got home and took off my hat and goggles. Justin once dropped his cell phone while on the ski lift and had to backtrack to find it. And two of Eve's little 5-year-old ski school students fell right off the lift. Luckily the snow was soft so no one got hurt. But no story I've heard can top Justin's hilarious skiing mishap (he has not granted me permission to retell it but hey, it's my blog.)

A few seasons ago, Justin and our roommate Kevin went skiing in the back country when all of a sudden nature called and Justin couldn't hold it in any longer. With his skis still fully intact, he popped a squat right there in the snow covered woods, making an unseemly brown mark on an otherwise pristine trail. When he was done, he caught up to Kevin who had skiied ahead to give him some privacy and the two drove home with their skis tucked neatly inside Justin's rental car. During the hour-long ride, Kevin started detecting a foul odor which he immediately likened to feces, but neither one of them knew where it came from. When they got home and opened the back door to get their skis out, Justin noticed a big patch of mud stuck to the tips of his skis and some of it had melted onto his car. So naturally he used his glove and tried to wipe it off with some snow. It turned out the patch of mud wasn't mud at all. It was his smelly response to nature's call earlier. He must have missed and got shit all over his own skis and trapped the smell inside the car while the two of them were driving along - Dumb and Dumber style. Smooth move, Exlax. Good thing it was a rental car...

Colorado: 10-Step Program to Become a Ski Bum

As a poser ski bunny, I will never understand the obsession that true diehard ski bums feel for their sport. But living with Justin and our roommate Kevin, two fanatics whose ski pass is more valuable than gold, I get to witness it on a daily, nay, hourly basis. I’ve also met many fellow fanatics since moving here who share the same maniacal passion. They are ski snobs who spend a fortune on equipment and refuse to ski on shitty conditions (like on the East Coast) or on the weekends when it’s packed with tourists. They wear a permanent goggle tan and have ski report's phone number on their speed dial. Their conversations revolve solely around snow and skiing. They follow the weather forecast as religiously as Hillary’s aides follow Obama’s polls. When there’s even an inkling that snow is coming, everyone rallies at the crack of dawn to listen to the snow report and see just exactly how much snow has fallen and what the conditions are. And that will determine whether it will be a ski day or a work day.

As far as I can see, the local ski bums (which does not include tourists or weekend skiers from Denver) fall into several categories. They are either unemployed living off of their savings / trust funds / unemployment (aka Justin), or own their own business where they can take off at the drop of a hat (a la Kevin - left pic), or work two to three part-time jobs to make ends meet (as in the case of most everyone else). And don’t be surprised if the hostess at the local restaurant holds a Master in English and also teaches at the community college (like our friend Rachel). Or if the waitress is a medical student who is also a ski instructor (like our friend Eve). Or if the stoner working at a coffee shop has an Engineering degree. Breckenridge is a very highly educated town where the number of residents who hold a college degree or higher is way above the national average. But you’d never know judging by the occupations they hold. That’s because they are all here for one purpose and one purpose only: to ride or die. Literally.

Case in point: a couple months ago when Vail had a massive dump and snow was measured in feet and not inches, Justin and Kevin woke up at six in the morning to drive 45 minutes out to be the first ones on the ski lift and skied all day until the very last lift. Eight days in a row, they skied themselves to their death bed because on the ninth day, they were both bedridden for a week with a fever of 101. But to them, it was all worth it. They couldn’t stop grinning or talking about it for weeks. Every jump they launched, every rope they ducked, every out-of-bounds terrain they skied down…The way they described their experience with minute detail, it was as if I was there. (I, of course, was the responsible one and worked during those eight days.)

Since I am now an expert through osmosis, here is a 10-step program to become a ski bum for those of you who are considering:

Step 1: Relocate to a ski town and get at least two part-time jobs.
Step 2: Buy a ski pass and make friends with local ski bums.
Step 3: Learn ski lingo like powder and groomed and whiteout.
Step 4: Watch the weather forecast every hour.
Step 5: If the snow is good, go to Step 6. If the snow is average, go to Step 7. If the snow is no good, go to Step 8.
Step 6: Ditch work, do some hippie speed balls*, and ski all day. Go to Step 9.
Step 7: Go for a few runs anyway. That’ll be your exercise for the day. Go to Step 9.
Step 8: Go to work. Then do something else like cross-country ski. Or watch free porn on the Internet. Or go bowling. Or attend pottery class and make a bong or a plate or a butt plug. Go to Step 9.
Step 9: Attend après-ski happy hour with friends. Meet a fellow ski bunny/ski bum and get laid.
Step 10: Repeat Steps 5 through 9 until the end of ski season (April 20th).

*Recipe for hippie speed balls: 1 cup of black coffee followed by 3-5 bong hits.

I Left My Heart in San Francisco…(and DC)

An all-expense-paid business trip to San Francisco afforded me the cherished opportunity to hang out with my fun loving Bay Area friends once again. This is my third trip to my second hometown in three months; I haven’t been back this often since I lived, in my opinion, in the greatest city in the U.S. many years ago. At the peak of the Internet boom circa late 90’s, my first job out of college sent me straight to the Golden Gate City where money was thrown at us like rice at a wedding and where I met lifelong friends. We partied like it was 1999…and in fact it was. A big group of us spent most of our days together – cooking dinner and eating out, watching movies, playing the stock market, shopping religiously, snowboarding at Tahoe, clubbing every weekend (sometimes even on a Monday night) and most definitely, getting piss drunk every chance we got. I experienced what every recent college grad with fast money and new friends should, and I got to do it in a laid-back city that’s got a lot of culture, first-rate cuisine, and exceptional nightlife. Even when I left San Francisco, through no choice of my own, I visited once or twice a year to see friends I’d left behind. And now that I’m moving to Australia, I said goodbye to my friends who’ve endured our quarter-life crisis together and so much more.


I then made a pit stop in the hometown I grew up in, where my family still resides and where I keep all my belongings. This past week has been extremely hectic – attempting to pack for an entire year and tying up loose ends while juggling lunch and dinner dates with family and friends to bid adieu. I haven’t had a moment to just sit and relax. Even though I’m usually gone ten months out of the year, I never get homesick because I always visit every other month. And quite frankly, I really enjoy being the guest of honor every time I come home (especially since it means a lot of free meals). This time, however, since we can’t afford any return trips from Australia, I am heartbroken to leave my family for such an extended period of time, especially my mommy. I am missing her even before I leave. I won’t get to hear her snoring away in the next room. I won’t get to eat her home cooked meals or be her guinea pig as she experiments with food. I won’t get to help her shop for an outfit for her next party. I won’t get to listen to her practice goo jung (Chinese harp) before her debut recital. I won’t get to pick her up from the Metro station after she gets off work. I won’t get to mediate when my parents bicker over the stupidest things. I won’t get to laugh every time she tells me about some public sex scandal but would never say the word “sex” and instead uses phrases like “they were doing that thing” or “play together.” I won’t get to hear her gossip about the family, HK celebs, and her coworkers (“Oh my god! Their daughter got knocked up and is having the bastard child??!!” “His naked pictures of celebrity girlfriends are all over the Internet??!!”) But I like this new emotion I’m feeling – missing my mom and being homesick – because now I won’t take her for granted…as much. And now we’re ready to leave everything we know behind for a year-long experiment living in a strange land with strange animals where they speak a strange language and all the seasons are reversed as is the flow of water when you flush the toilet. G’day Mate! She’s apples! Say what?