Culture, Wentworth, Singing, and Eating

1. Saw a small kangaroo in my dream. He begged for food.

2. Started to write kangaroo in my room, rather than in my dream. I'm glad I caught that. Otherwise people might wonder. Or at least they'd be confused.

Though I wouldn't be too surprised if I saw a kangaroo in my room. I've been having hypnagogic auditory hallucinations, and I even had one visual one recently. So one day, I might wake up and see a kangaroo.

3. Started watching Wentworth, but didn't get very far. It was a busy morning.

4. Had debate with Tim that started with a discussion about how Australians eat with their cutlery differently than Americans do.  Then Tim said that Australia is more homogeneous than the US.  I said, I didn't think that was true. Then I struggled to find statistics with my phone. That's not easy, because we were in the car. I can't do much reading in the car, because I'll eventually get carsick.

But I did find something that said Australia has 26% foreign born citizens, and something else that said the US has 13% foreign born folks.  That doesn't prove I'm right, though, because as Tim reminded me, you can be born in Australia or the US, but still belong to a culture that's not part of the mainstream culture.

5. Tried to find website I saw on phone, but can't find it. I found this one instead. It also says the statistic for the US is 13%.

6. Saw from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, that Australia comes in second place, in terms of foreign born population. The country with the highest percentage is Luxembourg. They're at 36.2%

Now if you want to talk about a homogeneous country. Japan would fit the bill. They're at 1.7%. Mexico has even less foreign-born folks. They're at .5%

7. Thought about the whole homogeneous thing. I was going to look up second-language statistics, thinking that might give a clearer picture of the heterogenous level of Australia and the US. But I'm not sure that would give a clear picture.  Someone might speak Chinese at home, but be very much a part of the mainstream culture. They might dress like most everyone else. They might eat the same foods. They might watch the same TV shows and listen to the same music.

And what IS the mainstream culture?  I don't really know.

Maybe some of our countries are so heterogeneous that it's hard to define a central culture.

But even with places like Japan and Mexico. Although most people are born there, and there are less immigrants; there still might be a huge variety in culture.

8. Thought about how I saw something from an Australian yesterday saying it was fine to eat a meat pie while walking, and Andrew (another Australian) commented on my last post that he thinks it's quite disgusting to do that. They're both Australians, but they have different ideas of what is rude and what is not.

That's just one example of how two people from the same culture can strongly differ.

Even within a single family, people can differ. For example, I believe people should wash hands with soap and water (if available) after changing a soiled diaper. My sister thinks it's okay to use antibacterial gel.  

9. Confused. Very confused about culture.

10. Came to the conclusion that it's easier for a country to be ethnically/racially homogeneous. It's much more difficult to be culturally homogeneous.

Or maybe each country has a central/mainstream culture, and then you have a bunch of subcultures.

11. Wondered...in terms of eating and walking, is being disgusted by it, part of the mainstream Australian culture? Or are those disgusted by it, part of a subculture?

12.  Watched more of Wentworth and saw that Kate Atkinson plays one of the guards. She's very nice so far. But I have a feeling she's going to be someone who's nice sometimes, and horribly mean at other times.  I predict she's going to be a bit psycho.

I'll see if I end up being right or wrong....

13. Changed my mind about Atkinson's character. Because Catherine McClements character just told her to stop being friends with the prisoners. So that gives me the idea that Atkinson is soft rather than psycho.

14.  Finished watching the first episode of Wentworth. It was intense.

15. Impressed with Jack's homemade boomerang-like toy.  It didn't do the come-back thing, but it flew well. And it's failure to come back might have been due to us not throwing it right. We bought a boomerang in Australia, and, from what I remember, we didn't get that coming back to us either.

16. Sang along to "Surrender" by Ball Park Music. I love that song.

17. Sang along to "From Afar" by Vance Joy with my sister, friend, and mom. They weren't too happy with the song until I told them it was by the same guy who sings "Riptide".

18. Excited about watching another episode of Wentworth tomorrow.