Of Being A Queenslander

BACK in the mid 1990s my grandfather remarried in the little town of Benarkin, just off the D'Aguilar Highway about 150 north-west of Brisbane.

The whole extended family headed bush for the event. Mum and Dad dragged the four of us boys out; Mum's surviving siblings were there; and for quite possibly the only time ever our four country cousins managed to look better than us as their parents made sure they were dressed up for the occasion. I'm personally blaming a spot of teenage rebellion, but that's neither here nor there.

The whole day had passed without a hitch. Grandad was marrying again after losing his wife back in 1991; Helena's family gave us our first real introduction to the wonders of the Dutch accent. My brother Matt was his usual funny self (and I mean that genuinely; as a kid there were few else that could raise a laugh out of everyone) - all in all it was that kind of family gathering that you remember fondly when everything inevitably implodes a few years down the track.

Then my uncle got up to give the best man's speech.

Now I should mention here and now that my uncle is one of the nicest blokes you'd ever want to meet. Always willing to lend a hand, genuinely happy to see family (including his godson), and always willing to share a beer with anyone.

On this occasion he'd shared a beer or two with everyone. So much so, that when he got up to speak, his focus may not have entirely been on welcoming Helena to the family.

"I'd like to welcome y'all to Queensland. Coz you're not in Australia anymore, you're in Queensland now and it's the best bloody country in the world. We've got the best bloody beer, the best bloody women..."

And so on.

You see, my uncle is your stereotypical Queenslander. He's proud of where he's from. Doesn't need to think too much about it. He is, as John Harms put it in this article:

"In Queensland you are born true. You start true, because you are a Queenslander. It’s as if growing up in Queensland confers on babies a purity. Queenslanders don’t have to look forward to a life of searching for truth. They have the truth. They live in a state of Queensland grace."

This is my uncle; he's a Queenslander.

FOR others, being a Queenslander hasn't always been something to be proud of, particularly during the reign of former Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. In his book Pig City, Andrew Stafford quotes singer Tex Perkins talking about Brisbane:

"Brisbane you have to leave. You come out of your mother, you go to school, and then you think, oh shit, what am I doing here?"

By the time you've got to this quote, you can understand why. Page after page describes life in Bjelke-Petersen's Queensland: men targeted by police for having long hair; journalists having their phones tapped because they'd spoken out against the government; and indigenous men and women thrown into the watchhouse just for being black. Throughout the book Stafford talks about Brisbane bands that felt they simply had to leave: The Saints, The Riptides, The Go-Betweens.

BUT let's not focus on the past, other than to remember that it's there. Let's fast-forward to 1988, where for much of my generation our first memory wasn't an aging Premier trying in vain to lead the whole country, but this very 80s tune on the tv:

Let's all join together

Our moment now has come

Let's view the golden future

Australian sons have won

Let's show them all what out-stretched arms

Of welcome can be worth

And welcome all the world to celebrate Australia's birth

...

Together we'll show the world

Under Bjelke-Petersen Queensland developed at a fast rate, with large numbers of immigrants making their way north from Sydney and Melbourne. By the time of World Expo '88 the whole state was changing: Bjelke-Petersen left office (albeit rather involuntarily) in December 1987; but his little festival meant that Brisbane was now in full world view. Hell, even the Soviets put Brisbane on a stamp! With Brisbane even bidding for the 1992 Summer Olympics, it seemed to us there wasn't anything Queensland couldn't do when we put our minds to it.

And slowly but surely, Queensland improved. Successive governments helped improve local infrastructure; police corruption was curtailed after the Fitzgerald Inquiry and restaurants and cafes begun to pop up. At first it was just one or two, before dozens appeared in places like Paddington, West End and New Farm. The Gallery of Modern Art now anchors the Queensland Cultural Centre, three words that once upon a time would have been an oxymoron right up there with Microsoft Works and Military Intelligence.

Over the past weekend I've had the pleasure of taking two friends from Perth around town. One of them commented to me about how he felt Brisbane was so much like a European city - not so much in architecture, but in the general feel of the place, in how there were people out and about of a night time. I thought about and reckoned that yeah, he's right. For me, moving from Europe back to Brisbane hasn't been as big a leap as I thought, with both of us growing during our time apart.

This is me; I'm a Queenslander.

SO where do these two Queenslanders meet? For all the talk of Queensland growing up, there's still a level of parochialism here that deeply unsettles an Canberra emigre friend. Notwithstanding that a mutual friend is quite possibly the only parochial Canberran is existence, he's right. Up here the local media still puts everything in Queensland terms; mind you there are born-and-bred Queenslanders that support New South Wales in the State of Origin these days. Can't imagine that back in Joh's day!

Perhaps trying to link Queensland old and new is beyond me at this point. I could try linking it to the Origin, where we all unleash our inner redneck and curse the men in blue, the ref in pink and anyone else that dare stop our boys; but that Queensland bond is surely too strong for three games of footy a year to account for. I am but a young man, one who has spent more time this century out of Queensland than in it. Perhaps it's back over to Mr Harms with some of his closing paragraphs:

"In the space of half an hour, listening to the radio between Cardwell and Tully, the announcer managed to assure me of the following Queensland qualities: resilience, resourcefulness, uniqueness, reliability, heroism. Billy Moore’s celebrated State of Origin moment, when he spontaneously yelled “Queenslander” in the tunnel before running out for the second half, is actually profound. It’s enough in Queensland to encapsulate the essence of the way of life in that single word."

"When I think of Queensland I still smile. That means, in my mind, that a romanticised view prevails, a view that has been conditioned to ignore the racism and bigotry, the materialism and hollowness. The tug is there. The tug is Queensland’s liberating fatalism, its acceptance of things beyond its control, its mood of freedom, its call to ratbaggery."

Sounds about right to me.

Parlez vous Francais, horribles Australienne?

SHE was about as stereotypically French as you could get.

Not in looks. Short, slim and blonde, she looked more German or Scandinavian upon walking into the reception. At the time I was trying to guide two English girls to their campervan depot so they could ride off into the sunset, but apparently the jokes while doing so were a little too much for her.

"What time is it? I want to know because I am waiting."

"I see this, but I still need to finish serving these ladies before I can check you in. I'll be with you in a moment."

I checked her in, thankful the unnecessarily long shift was nearly over. With a bit of luck she'd be out of town before I opened reception at 7am the next morning.

No such luck.

Around 7.30 she came down to reception, laden down by the five or so bags that must have contained all her travelling essentials - and then some. After checking her out and refunding her key deposit, I decided to try strike up a conversation as she got her bags in order.

Turned out mon petit ami was off to Hong Kong before heading pretty much anywhere other than Australia. The people were horrible: it seems no one would offer to help this crazy little French woman as she struggled down the street with her many, many bags. Australia was a rich country, but the unlike the people in South America, New Zealand, Europe - pretty much everywhere else in the world - people here would just ignore her.
Funny that, because my experience in Europe was that the only help you'd get was from Old Mate relieving you of your valuables.
We are a young country as well, only 200 years old. Ah, I said, but out Indigenous culture was the oldest in the world. Beats everyone else by a good 20,000 years or so (give or take).
Nope, she was only interested in the European history of Australia. Rightio then.

Then it got onto languages. She brought it up, not me: by this point I was being lectured rather than participating in a proper cross-cultural conversation. Amongst our many faults as people was that Australians are too lazy to learn other languages. In this at least we were (begrudgingly) lumped in with other English speaking countries.

Now on this I reckon I had her. My theory is that it's a lot easier to learn other languages somewhere like Europe. Travelling by road from Paris, you're only 450km from London, just under 600km to the major German city of Frankfurt, 900km to the Italian city of Milan, and just over 1000km to the Spanish city of Barcelona. Not to mention the proximity of the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium or even the Principality of Luxembourg.
Travel 450km north from Brisbane and you'll end up just north of Bundaberg, where the only time they speak foreign languages is when they're on the local rum. Head 900km east of Adelaide and you'll finish in Wagga Wagga, where the only thing that may seem foreign are some of the footy fields. Go 1000km in any direction from Perth and you'll be smack bang in the middle of nowhere!

The point I make of all this is that if you're learning a foreign language in Europe, you don't have all that far to go to practice. Hell, if you're an European Union citizen you can even go live there for as long as you want. Here in Australia at least, the nearest French-speaking part of the world is New Caledonia, and last I checked you had to jump through some pretty major hoops to live and work there. Instead of spending a couple of hundred Euros to pop across The Channel, we have to spend a good couple of thousand dollars and spend at least 24 hours on a plane just to reach any European city.

Or how about this. Just say Hypothetical Stuart (HS) studied French throughout high school - that is ages 12-17. HS was very diligent in his studies, routinely in the top three in his class and showing an aptitude for la belle langue.
Then HS goes to uni. He's studying all kinds of things and generally being a very busy young lad, before heading off to a country town to work in the local newspaper. At no point does he have the chance to put into practice any of his high school French, which means that when he finally arrives in l'hexagone, he only remembers a few words and is forced to repeat the phrase parlez-vous Francais a hell of a lot.

Finally, to drive my point home further, I would like to point out that in Canada parents can put their children through French-speaking schools. I have a friend from the prairies of Alberta that is fluent in French - not just because she learnt it in school, but because she had the chance to use it all the time. Not only that, but within their own country they can visit and/or live in the very French part of Canada otherwise known as the province of Quebec.

Not that this would have made any kind of impression on this woman. I started to talk, but was cut off by her superior knowledge of four or five different languages. After finally getting her bags together she asked if I could hold open the door while she waddled through. As she walked past I wished her au revoir et bon voyage, before walking back inside and muttering under my breath "and don't come back, you fucking self-important piece of shit".

Well, we are horrible people remember? Wouldn't want to let her down or anything.