Me, My Life and the Universe

I been thinking about writing this post for a while but it’s only now that i think i have enough exposure to this other city, being Sydney, that I feel I can give some kind of opinion. Also, when I say Johannesburg vs Sydney, what I am really saying is living in South Africa versus living in Australia as generalisations of those cities

So where do we begin……

Well, we might as well start with the big things, the tangible things. The things that South African’s say they wish they never had in South Africa. Top of that list is without doubt, crime.

I’ll just be brutally direct about this, Australia doesn’t have crime, not in how we would define it in South Africa. Sure, there are the occasional robberies, muggings and bar fights but by and large, violent crime is something that hardly ever happens and when it does, believe me, it makes national news. Its actually pretty weird getting used to it. In fact, i haven’t quite yet realised that i don’t have to pack my laptop in the boot when i drive nor that i need to drive around with closed windows. The aussies complain about it being a nanny state and when South Africans come here, they complain about all the rules even though its those same very rules they desire when they are back home. I don’t disagree, Australia is certainly a nanny state but you know what, that’s why shit works here, that’s why there is no crime. I’ll give you a few examples of what I saw here with my own eyes through my last three visits…..

In my first trip here I, I was walking near a shopping centre of sorts on a Tuesday night where a young girl was a bit drunk and making a bit of a noise outside one of the closed stores. Nothing bad, just a bit of noise. Within 5 minutes, two police cars arrived, threw her in the back of the van and off they went. Strong arm tactics? Maybe a bit, but did it prevent the situation from getting worse and possibly making her think twice about her behavior? I’m damn sure! Then more recently, I was at a nightclub on a Saturday night with friends and a drunken brawl broke out between two dudes. A couple of punches were thrown and it ended. Within 5 minutes there were TEN policemen who taped off the area and began asking witness questions to everyone in the room, myself included.

Now again, this might seem severe but the point here is that people fear the cops for the right reasons in Aus. As we all know in SA, our reason for fearing the cops is what might happen to us if we can’t pay them a bribe or in extreme situation, how you might get beaten or raped by them. This nearly happened to someone I care about very much the other night, the only thing that saved her from what seemed like a certain rape situation, was that she had a decent sum of money in her wallet. Who the hell do we trust if we cannot trust our police?!?

Ok so the police function effectively and crime is low, what else. Well what about services? What about the basic functioning of the city that is based, in theory, off our hard earned tax money. Well its quite ridiculous how well both Sydney and Melbourne function. It’s as if every cent of your tax is being used as it was intended. In the nearly 2 months I have spent here now, I have not seen a single broken traffic light, a single pothole or even a single car accident. Their town planning is absolute genius. In fact, its as if they look at how all of the rest of the world does something and then they think to themselves, well that works, how can we improve it or that doesn’t work, how can change it. They have such attention to detail with how their roads are defined and how to make traffic flow efficiently without causing holdups. Thus you see far more roundabouts and far less stop streets. Traffic lights are longer on main roads and yes it irritates you but it gets the cars through quicker and ultimately, you get through quicker as well. Another thing here related to why so few accidents occur, everyone sticks to the rules of the road and the speed limits. Its drives South Africans nuts but you know what, it works! In SA, pedestrians wait for cars, in Sydney, pedestrians are so confident walking across the road when the little green man comes on, they don’t even look. Cars stop dead wherever they are. Needless to say, I have nearly run over a few ozzies with my South African exuberance and unintentional non-conformity to the rules.

Other biggies are that they have a demerit system for driving and they enforce it strictly. In fact, this past weekend was a long weekend and because they know people are going away and may be a bit more reckless, they enforced double demerits for any traffic violations! Oh and PS, never drink and drive in Aus!!! No one does it. Call a cab, use the public transport or have a designated dave because if you get caught over the limit, you go to jail and in certain cases (as what happened to a friend of a friend) you may lose you license indefinitely! No bribing of police officers here, you simply don’t fuck with that shit.

Now thinking of some of the bigger picture things here like raising a family. To be honest, if you are a young family with young kids, you will be giving your kids a better life and lifestyle as well as more opportunities by moving here. Secondary public school education is free and tertiary education can be paid back to the government, interest free, over a long period of time something to the effect of 10 years. So really, every kid in Australia has an abundance of opportunity. For this reason (and many others) Australia has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world, less than 3% I think.

Melbourne was recently voted the number one most livable city in the world, while Sydney was placed sixth, according to the Economist’s Global Liveability Survey. That tells you something…..

Ok so with all this good, there must be some bad. Yes of course.

Sydney is ridiculously expensive. Housing is insane! So insane that my friend, who lives in a very cosmopolitan suburb called Surrey Hills (think Greenside but in the middle of the city near all the action), told me that to buy the house he is renting, which is roughly equivalent to the house I own in South Africa, would cost $700,000. My house cost R700,000! Now when you factor the average salary in Aus against the average salary in SA, then this difference becomes even greater. Living costs are certainly higher here but i feel you are getting more for those costs, not so much in the size of your house or the car you drive because that would be better in SA, but in the quality of your lifestyle. Having said that, electronic products are definitely cheaper in Aus and of course, you can get uncapped, unshaped 24 Mbps ADSL for $40 per month! yeah i know what you are thinking……(WTFF Telkom!!!!)

Then there are certain intangibles which I particular like about Sydney, but more so in Melbourne. People, believe it or not, are less image conscious here. I cant stand the current Johannesburg trend of BMW’s, Merc’s, Audi’s and 4×4′s everywhere. Its like we have gone power mad in jhb and everybody needs to have that little piece of bling. I do understand where it stems from though. I think because we sacrifice a lot in terms of crime, corruption and 3rd world inefficiencies in SA, we tend to want to compensate for it with material items. In a society where these issues barely exist, these desires are less pronounced because people are able to fill up their lives with a better quality of life.

You might also hear South Africans who return from a trip to Sydney say that it lacks a bit of soul. I don’t disagree with these thoughts, I feel the same. It certainly doesn’t have the vibe that London but nonetheless, I think there is more than enough in terms of bars, pubs, clubs, lounges and great restaurants. For me, this is where Melbourne takes the cake of top Aussie city. Unlike Sydney, its has mountains of character and soul and probably the best foodie cafe culture I have ever seen. I have probably eaten the best meals of my life in Melbourne and the coffee is legendary. Maybe these things are trivial to you, but to me its really important. I am a party animal so I need to be in a place with a lot of soul and Melbourne is without doubt Australia’s food, nightlife, culture and sporting capital while Sydney is the more refined and prettier big brother that’s all about career, bling, being outdoors and the sea. Melbourne is raw, edgy and full of people with tattoos and piercings. Sydney is full of suits and mini-skirts. If these two cities were jhb nightclubs, Sydney would be Taboo, Melbourne would be the Newtown Precinct. Melbourne feels like a giant Melville (without the drug dealers, beggars and car guards) whereas Sydney feels like Sandton.

Which ever of these two cities strikes your fancy, a few things common to both is the brilliant public transport (you don’t need a car if you live close to the city), the complete lack of car guards, beggars, petrol attendants and in general, anyone else trying to give you assistance that you don’t need, and the way in which shit just gets done. Oh yes, no domestic workers here unless you are very rich, so you be cleaning that shit yourselves!!

I guess the one thing I haven’t mentioned yet are the aussies themselves. How do they compare to South Africans? To be honest, I struggle to read them somewhat. A large part of this has to do with how they speak. In general, most people raise the tone of their voice towards the end of a sentence involving a question. What I have noticed is that aussies tend to do this in every sentence, whether its a question or not and this makes them hard to read, well, at least for me. I find that while South Africans are more abrasive up-front, we tend to be friendly once you get to know us. Aussies on the other hand are quite the opposite. They tend to be very friendly to your face but its doesn’t quite feel sincere. Again this might be more of a cultural differences than a genuine difference in character. Either way, we are different people. South Africans are definitely more aggressive, as expected, given the background we come from. To the aussies, this comes across as arrogance and in general, South Africans are seen as arrogant by many Australians.

So be it….. that’s life. At the end of the day, we are all part of one world with a bit of sand and water in between and the only real difference between us, exists in our minds, not the imaginary lines drawn on the map nor the political boundaries created by our leaders.

Well that’s it for now. I will probably have more as I still have another month here in Sydney before returning home but I hope this was remotely useful.