Kangaroos and boomerangs...these are the mantle piece above the complex economic and social phenomenon of a sunburned land. The proportion of first generation immigrants making up the work force of this extremely wealthy and strategically rich mineral land echoes of the great era of American history; a time when the United States was a land of opportunity. Pakistanis drive the taxis, Indians run the convenience stores, Lebanese work in factories, Irish dig the trenches, and seas of Chinese keep the university education industry afloat. Currently the Australian currency is 1:1, if not slightly stronger, than the American dollar, but worker wages are roughly 50% higher than American jobs of equal demand (e.g. a job paying $12 hourly in the US pays $18 here). Construction & demolition workers take home $1000 per week, even after a 29% tax, and up to $1500 weekly with a specialization ticket such as scaffolding, rigging, or asbestos certification. The unions are very strong, providing high wages, scrutinizing work-safe standards and limitations on work hours to make sure we, "don't work too hard, mate". An ecomnomic pilgrim would be hard pressed to find a land more rich in clean and maintained infrastructure, healthy working conditions and abundant opportunities.
Australia's major buouy keeping it afloat amidst the sea of financial crisis flooding the bank built world is a vast quantity of strategically important ore. Australian iron is top quality and has an infrastructure allowing efficient extraction and sale. Vast stores of premium uranium, including the uranium used in the Japanese nuclear reactors recently melting down all over the news, is also mined in Australia. Workers in these mines earn a base of $100,000 annually. The Chinese and Indian nations, both surging forth and fast becoming nations of formidable power and promise as global leaders/superpowers, purchase Australian minerals to construct their ever expanding infrastructures and commercial blocks. It is whispered that Australia may be enveloped in a financial union, ala the European Union, in aliance with the great industrial potentials of Asia. Australasia is not a term to be taken lightly. Australia is Asia.
Australia is Asia when I walk downtown Melbourne and pass three Han Chinese for every 'Aussie'. Australia is Asia when I speak pidgeon English, akin tot he English I use in the English as a Second Language classroom, more often than I speak a relaxed dialect. Australia is Asia when I use Japanese to assist a customer at the grocery store in buying bulk dog food. Australia is Asia when I drink Taiwanese bubble tea with a Japanese translator in front of a Thai restauraunt in Chinatown (which is 5 a five minutes walk from the main train station in the center city.) Australia is Asia when Chinese New Year is a spectatular event full of dancing dragons, clouds of incense and fireworks smoke and road closures throughout the main financial district of the city or when the horse race course is overrun by Indians throwing paint and colored dye at one another for the Hindu festival of Holi.
However, the Aussie's seem to have some grip at the top of this pyramid. Even the 'lower class' Aussie, known as a 'bogan' or 'yeow-boew' is often disgustingly rich. Imagine Cletus the trash man pulling 80k a year...what would he spend it on? Thus emerges a new social class, the tacky-wealthy. Low rider trucks painted neon green with liscence plates that read "SHR3K" buzz too and fro from dart bars, gambling pubs and TGI Friday's where. Idiots in $300 dollar wetsuits walk barefoot through marble floored malls. Women sporting 50k worth of silicone and botox bounce around from matinee movies to super Targets in UGG boots and Puma sweatshirts. But despite all the excess, they are no where near as fat as Americans.
So why all the economic talk? In the history of this blog, topics and interests have ranged from history, escaping reality, cultural enlightenment, renunciation, psychology and spirituality. I suppose if it had chapters, this one would be 'money'.
The most different I have been in the two years away is the time between arrival in Australia and now. I used to fear that I was losing whatever magic was enchanting my life during my travels in Asia. That money and image was corrupting my wander's spirit. Now the fear has subsided; I have finally submitted to becoming a chameleon in my surroundings. An excerpt from my journal, which I keep on my person at all times waiting to catch the tiniest drop of insight or prose, reads "I've sold my soul." Not the most poetic, hardly original but undoubtedly the most devestatingly true thing I've written in six months.
I'm in the doldrums, comfortably wrapped in a blanket of plenty.
the same old delusions arise from the incessant voice of culture
to earn and spend
to progress
and I see them as the lies they are
as the chains of bondage they are designed to be
yet wander listlessly into their arms
talking naps in the bosom of greed and selfish wealth
weakly hoping I don't fall asleep for ever
pressing snooze with every paycheck
and closing my eyes for just five more minutes...
