Over the last few years, I’ve found myself asking this question more and more, because of where I live and why.
In his early twenties, my Australian husband went on a working-holiday adventure to England, which is where we met. I was the souvenir he brought back, he he! I liked Australia, so we stayed, and I quickly assimilated into its ‘culture’. I haven’t gone grocery shopping in my bare feet yet, but do wear thongs constantly, even in winter. I have a strong Aussie twang, so British friends say anyway. I love a hot pie and milk, and even say chips / hot chips rather than crisps / chips. If I invite someone for a cuppa at 9am and they turn up at 9.30am, no worries – it’s still 9ish! Summers are all about the beach. Winters are about bike-riding and bushwalking. Sydney is a great place to raise a family.
Still, as my children have grown, I’ve struggled to teach them of ‘my culture’. They live surrounded by my husband’s family, history and ‘culture’. My family, history and original ‘culture’ is half a world away. A person’s culture is a defining aspect of their humanity, a central concept in their existence and experience of life – so I want them to know something of mine.
What, though, is my personal ‘culture’, and what of it can I share with them based in Australia?
The Osmington White Horse, Weymouth.
Growing up in England was cold. My children will never know about taking shoes and socks off in class and warming them on radiators, going around the shops as a winter activity, or the joy of English pub food in front of a roaring pub fire after a walk in snowy forests. From Sydney, I cannot share with them any such English ‘experiences’.
Young-me reading “The Wizard of Oz”.
A big part of my ‘culture’ growing up evolved around books, not because of my environment – I was a relative academic compared to my family – but because I loved books so much. Tick. I can teach my children my love of books.
What else?
I cannot take them to May Day and show them Morris dancers, to a Bonfire Night or to see a strangely gigantic chalk horse on a green hill. My son plays soccer and loves a cooked breakfast, my daughter loves fish and chips, but luckily those are as much a part of Australian culture as British.
But we were in our local video library recently and I realised the answer was staring right at me – movies…
As a kid, I loved watching movies with my family. There was nothing better than settling down on a Friday or Saturday night to share some popcorn and chocolate while watching a film. It was something we all enjoyed. VHS became DVDs, which become SKY movies… but the tradition remained over the years. Our collective favourite genre was science fiction and fantasy (sorry, Mum!). We loved it so much we’d watch television sci-fi too – Star Trek, V, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Blake’s 7, Red Dwarf, The X Files, Doctor Who, etc. It was a huge influence on me, and my writing. I guess that’s why my brother became a film producer – we grew up in a household with a big movie culture!
As a teenager I’d also host film nights for my friends. We’d watch popular movies and horror.
Going to the cinema was then a treat I relished and anticipated with great joy.
So when I realised my children were old enough to start watching some more grown-up non-animated science fiction and fantasy, I realised I could also start to share with them a part of who I am, without flying half way around the world. I could share with them my movie culture! They’d already watched the original Star Wars trilogy and Jurassic Park, so we hired the recent trilogy and the other Jurassic Park movies, getting us ready for releases in those series later this year.
Then we moved onto the Marvel Universe, watching all the Avenger-related movies, as well as movies like King Kong, John Carter and After Earth. There are still so many movies to show them! I’m having so much fun, raising my children in a similar manner to my childhood – they’re finally getting to experience a part of my heritage, and the fact that it’s popular culture means they can also talk about it with their friends.
What about you? Did you have a movie culture in your household growing up? If so, what was it?
What’s my culture? [In answer to Zena’s challenge]
My life wasn’t a fairytale, like Zena’s; I didn’t meet someone on a working vacation from another country, albeit an English speaking country. No, I wasn’t that lucky. But there’s still time…
I’m a first generation Australian. That means my parents weren’t born in Australian; they were born elsewhere.
My father was born in Ireland, the southern part, and my mother was born in Wales, near Cardiff. Dad lived in Adelaide and mum in Sydney. How they managed to meet each other, traveling as far as they did from their parents’ homeland, and separated by more than a 1,000 km here, could have been one of those an Australian love stories, of sorts.
My parents were working class. That meant we weren’t very rich, and couldn’t afford many of things many people take for granted. Like a house, car, books, TV, holidays to interesting places. Oh, we holiday’d, alright; fishing trips after visiting grandparents of either parent, mostly, and camping out under the stars. Camping out under the stars was the most memorable.
So traveling to interesting Australian locations in the school holidays and at Christmas time was full of adventure, right? No, not really; not for me. I remember the fishing; the stars. I also remember getting sick; the whole family would get sick, and that would spoil the whole trip.
The only traveling I wanted to do was the type produced when reading a good book.
But we were a poor family, so buying books was not a high priority. So if my parents couldn’t afford books, where could I find books to read? The library! I spent most of my time in the school library and the local library near our home.
I got a bicycle for Christmas one year and got my dad to put a basket on the back. The basket was useful for at least one good thing: I could borrow lots of books from the library and take them home. The other reason it was useful was my first job: I delivered newspapers.
I developed a taste for reading when I was young because life was pretty boring without books. I wasn’t the sporty type, like my brothers, and at least one of my sisters (now a police officer in Queensland). While they were out being sporty, I was at home or in the library reading some adventure and having a marvellous time.
I have spent most of my life alone, though, perhaps because of my melancholia. I live my life in my head. Reading all the time. Perhaps this played a role in developing my interest in writing? But, like I said, without books life was pretty boring. So can’t share my pleasure of escapism with any offspring.
We didn’t have a TV until I was about 10. But we weren’t allowed to watch it anyhow, not until I was about 14 or 15. I didn’t care; I had books. And there was always homework to do, or some chores around the house because mum was alone after dad died. But TV was instrumental in developing my first love interest: science fiction.
Not giving away my age, but my 11th birthday was a turning point in my outlook on life, the universe and everything. My parents let me watch TV on my birthday, but it wasn’t just any old television show I watched. What I watched changed my view of the world around me forever. I watched the Moon landing.
Neil Armstrong was an instant hero. While I fantasized about being an astronaut for many years after that, I knew I would never get off the ground without a rocket ship. I got a rocket ship the next Christmas. If felt great to launched it, but it never came back. And to this very day, I don’t know where it went.
Like Zena, TV was all about the Sci-fi, and nothing but the Sci-fi. I’ve watched the same shows she has listed, but my all-time favourite, the one I would run home from school every day for just to make sure I didn’t miss an episode, was Dr Who.
So the biggest influence on my cultural development has been British culture. I use the term culture loosely, of course, because culture is not a single thing – I’m cheating now because I studied culture at university – but many things. It’s mostly the things we do. So living like the British, the way we did. The homes we lived in; the school holiday trips. The fishing trips, the camping out under the stars. Reading books. Eating fish and chips every Friday night and going to the drive-in movies. Perhaps this was an American influence – watching the Moon landing. Spending time in the library, delivering newspapers on my bike and earning pocket money. Dreaming of being a university professor (one day – modelling Dr Who) even though we were poor and lucky just to get through high school.
My life has been dominated by books and movies. Writing book number six now, on a topic I never imagined I’d ever write about: a self-aware robot on a quest to understand human love. What will the rest of my life be like, I have no idea. But if it involves books, it’s going be fun.
It already sounds like fun, Robert! Books, mmmm…. Libraries, mmm…. Like you, we couldn’t afford to buy books when I was young, so I was a member of as many libraries as I could. Once my mum drove me an hour to a library (which is really far away in English terms!) just so I could borrow a particular book, then an hour’s drive back. Thank you, Mum!
I wonder where your rocket ship went… Maybe through a crack in a wall and into Gallifrey itself?