One of the main things I am finding that makes it much easier to function in the UK than in Australia is the higher cultural level of British rationality as compared to the aforementioned.
Let me put it plainly. When I say, "I am from Australia," people do not look at me as if I'm playing a trick on them or trying to take advantage in some nefarious way. They simply assume that what I'm saying is true. It seems to me that British largesse is mature enough to allow that other countries and cultures actually do exist, living alongside British culture and existence. I'm not sure if the general zeitgeist of Australian culture has this maturity in general -- I would suggest not.
In Australia to confess, "I am from elsewhere," immediately tends to put people on alert. "What is wrong with Australia that you would somehow mean to be from elsewhere?" people seem to want to know. "Why can't you just be from the same place, with the same outlooks and perspectives as everyone else?"
Primarily, Australians tend to want you to stop "making excuses", and just accept that we all have the same basic cultural conditioning, the same basic outlooks, and the same educational backgrounds. Another way of thinking is a direct threat to this point of view because it opens up the question of social hierarchy. Are you expecting to be placed in a higher social position than everybody else, because you claim to be from elsewhere? Australians are not sure, but they are certain that the door to this possibility must be immediately closed. The quickest way to do it is to assert that even though you could possibly be from somewhere else, you are so in no significant way that matters.
Due to this cultural (and political) reflex, it is very difficult to make any sort of progress in Australian society if one is starting from a cultural position that is simply not reducible to being 'just like everybody else'.
In Britain, things seem otherwise -- at least on the surface.
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