When I went to Australia a while back, there were some aborigines hanging around in a city parking lot ear a little grocery store, kebab place, and laundromat.
One of them, a woman, kept making these weird high pitched sounds when people came by. It sounded like she might have been saying a word or two in English. To me, it seemed like she might be mentally ill, making weird noises without actually speaking to someone. But then I wondered if that was just a cultural thing. There was a man and two women. The man kind of handled one of the women roughly and it looked like he might be cussing at her. I think that was the one that later called him her husbnad.
After observing them for a while, while waiting on my clothes, I figured the woman might not be mentally ill. They may just make those high pitched noises to get attention. A white Aussie at the hotel told me it was rude in their culture to directly look at and address a stranger.
I felt bad for them. Their ancestors probably used to hunt and fish near that beautiful river that cut through town, before white folks who came from the same place as some of my ancestors, invaded and took over, and built cities that displaced them. Now it is all built up. And then they live by begging. They wore western clothes. I did see some Aboriginal-looking youths hanging around in an underground arcade there who seemed a lot more assimilated.
I tried to talk with an Aussie accent to a group of teens. The one who looked Aboriginal told me I sounded like a New Yorker. I said, "A New Yorker" or a 'new ocker'. An ocker is the cultural equivalent of a redneck. Paul Hogan used to put on a fake fat belly and play and ocker character on TV before he found international fame playing Crocodile Dundee. _________________ Link |
Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11846 9/30/17 2:01 am
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