Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Locals- questionaire

Ann, as mentioned before I will give you answers for Australia AND for Sri Lanka. Here are the Australian ones:


Where do you live? City/State/country?

I currently live in the 'West End' a historic district of the City of Fremantle which is part of the Greater Metropolitan Area of Perth which is the state capital city of Western Australia which is a state in Australia.

Here is a map of the West end part of Freo:


Here is a map of Fremantle and Perth in WA:


Here are maps of Perth and WA in Australia:

Map is too large so here you go.
[img]http://www.geographicguide.net/oceania/maps/australia-map.jpg [/img]


Usually my address goes like this, Fremantle, W.A. 6160 Australia without a mention of Perth.

The Dutch used to get shipwrecked along the coast because they used to sail straight across the Indian Ocean from South Africa on their way to Indonesia but if they forgot to turn left too late, they ran straight into the coral reefs along Western Australia's shoreline. The French were thinking of settling it so the British put up a military outpost at Albany in the southern part of the state to discourage them in 1827. However the very first settlement of the state happened in 1829 in Fremantle. Fremantle was named after one of the captains of the first ships that brought the settlers from England over. England had just finished fighting a long war and had downsized it's military so there were people out of jobs who were soliders, weapon manufacturers etc as well as people who were flocking into England's cities because it was the time of the first wave of the Industrial Revolution and England's urban areas were overcrowded and there were no jobs and no housing. So they sent them off to found a new colony in W.A. and they landed in Fremantle with the mistaken impression that it was fertile land. Fremantle and the area around it is limestone - the fertile area is far further inland. However they set up a makeshift port of sorts here and they kept it despite all the changes over the years and even made some drastic changes in the 1880's to the mouth of the Swan River where Fremantle is located to make sure it became a better deep water port so that the ships could come all the way upriver to unload.

We call it 'Freo' now. We even have the 'Freo Doctor' which is our name for the afternoon sea breeze that wafts in and turns our umbrellas inside out. We had the Freo Festival yesterday that's been celebrated since 1905 and this year's theme was 'Wind' so we celebrated the Fremantle Doctor.

In the 1850s due to politics and a severe overcrowding of prisons in England we started getting convicts who built a lot buildings and roads and infrastructure that the colony needed. Up till now all settlers who had come were free settlers who made the choice to. Convicts stopped being shipped out in the 1860s.

In the 1880s gold was discovered further inland - way further and there was a huge gold rush. The third gold rush if you will - the first to California, the second to NSW on the east coast of Australia and now the third to WA on the west coast of Australia. The population of the colony increased dramatically and Freo developed because all those who had to come into the colony for whatever reason had to come through Fremantle since it was the port. All the gold had to be shipped out as well. So Freo developed and Perth which is further upriver and was established at the same time as Freo was designated the adminstrative capital while Freo was to be the official port. But they had to deepen the port, and build a railway to the mines. This is still the case.

In 1901 we had federation - we stopped being a British colony and we joined in with the other states to become a state of Australia.

The third gold rush never stopped. Gold is still one of WA's biggest exports. In fact the rest of Australia benefits from WA because WA is the source of most of the country's exports and the backbone in that sense of it's economy. WA exports sheep, cattle, sandalwood oil, timber, timber for paper, gold, iron ore, bauxite for aluminium, pearls, fish, wheat, diamonds, and a certain amount of silver.

Prominent language spoken? Other languages/dialects?[B]

English - WA's English can be directly linked back to 1830s London slang which you won't find anywhere else in the world. The native Aboriginals in WA (and it's a huge place - the size of 16 Frances - whole Western half of Australia) are from the Nyoonyar/Nyungar (you can spell it a dozen different ways) and they have different dialects according to the tribes. In fact, counting all the Aboriginal languages and all the immigrant languages, Australia beats India for the most number of languages - 160 odd.

[B]Is this rural or urban? Rough size?

Perth and the surrounding metro area is urban - so where I am is urban. Everything else is rural. Very rural but easy to get to, easy to stay in and absolutely wonderful. My boyfriend is a farm boy who grew up in sheep country in the mid south west in a place called Yealering next to a town called Narrogin but his family moved to the lower South West region to a place called Mt. Barker where they now have a beef cattle farm.

What do you like most/least about where you live?

What I like least is the weather because I grew up in the tropics. It is good weather compared to other places I have been in but I still yearn for hot humid days. We have winter during April - July and summer is coming up right now from November till about January. But here we prefer winter because the winter brings the rain which we need desperately for farming. In the summer, we get desert summer - no humidity, dry air, hot days and you bake not sweat. In the winter we don't get snow (though on the east coast Melbourne will because it's just further south and in a better position to do so and they do have ski resorts on the east coast) but we get rain and huge gales. Sometimes in summer we get hurricanes (tornadoes/tropical cyclones) and sometimes they cause damage and sometimes they bring much needed rain.

The weather moves across the globe from west to east so whatever we get in Perth first, the East Coast gets it about two to three days later. My mother asks me all the time what the weather is like so she can be prepared.

Most historically significant points about your town/country?

I could give you a lecture on this and I have already given you some answers. There are lots of points - are there any that you are particularly interested in? Any specific subjects of history?

Climate?

Weather - see above. Climate is technically a southern mediterranean climate. We do a good wine trade ;-) And we have a lot of Italian and Greek immigrants and Parisian style cafe culture has caught on a lot here in Fremantle.

Type of government? Name of current leader?

Technically it's a democratic system. Officially it's the Commonwealth of Australia. That means we are independent but because we don't have an official head of state we recognize that the Queen of England as one - ie we originated as country from a British colony.

Current leader is John Howard of the Liberal Party - he is our Prime Minister.

Australia has states and territories. Federal refers to all of Australia and at the Federal level we have two houses - Senate and the Lower House. At the moment, the Liberal party has a majority vote and therefore the majority of seats in both houses. This is called proportional representation. Because John Howard is the leader of the Liberal Party, he gets to be Prime Minister and he has members of his party who get appointed as Treasurer, Minister for Foreign Affairs etc. The Liberal Party is now called the Govt cos they won.

The second runner up was the Labour Party in the last election so they get to be The Opposition and they get to yell in Parliament at the Liberal Party aka the Govt.

Federal level politics is responsible for higher education, military, foreign affairs, taxes and economy, and anything that functions at a national level. They debate bills that have to be passed through the senate and then through the lower house before they become part of the law.

Then they have the exact same system at the state level - ie each state has a Premier and a Senate and a lower house of its own. This enables you to dabble in politics without having to wander off to Canberra (Australia's national capital) all the time. These are filled with different people voted for at a different election. The current Premier of WA is the leader of the State Labour Party in WA and he is Alan Carpenter. At the state level in WA currently, Govt is Labour and the opposition is Liberal, and at the state level whoever is govt is responsible for primary and secondary education, fisheries, imports, exports, state economy, state infrastructure, tourism, state health, police, housing, etc.

So we have one election where you vote for who has power overall at the national level - you get two papers at this election where you rate 1-10 all the people from all the parties who can get a seat in the national/federal senate - this ensures that who you want to open debate on certain issues at a federal level might get into the senate where everything has to be discussed first nationally before anything gets done. The second paper asks you to choose either your party preference (Labour/Liberal/Greens/Australian Christian Democrats etc) or to rate 1-45 the people you want to be in the lower house which is the next stage of debate for anything at federal/national level if the senate decides to pass it.

Depending on which party gets the most votes this way, they will choose a new opposition, govt and prime minister.

We will be having this kind of election this Saturday 24th of November so it's a big deal at the moment.

Then they have a similar kind of election about two years from now (every four years or so but not at the same time as the federal one) for each state and you only vote for your state representatives. and you vote for those you want to who will debate the issues you want them to - and then you have a premier who takes everything into consideration and goes off to canberra to lobby the prime minister on your behalf.

For example, the Prime Minister wanted to put nuclear waste in WA and our premier said no because nobody in WA wanted a dump site within our borders. So that's how it is supposed to work, and sometimes it actually does.

What are the major industries?

The mines employ a lot of people and are actually doing a damn good job of a) bringing money into the country and b) doing it with minimum effort to the environment - we make them plant trees and develop new technology etc - they aren't allowed to mine if it's an environmental risk or a cultural heritage area or a sacred place for aboriginals and they have to do all sorts of tests before they get to go ahead.

Gold, sheep, wheat, iron ore, pearls, bauxite, beef cattle, dairy, olives, wine, silver, fish, tourism, eco tourism, sandalwood, timber, timber for paper.

Major religion?
Secularism??? It's hard to tell, probably Catholicism though they have been losing numbers lately. In the 70's Freo was the centre for a huge Hari Krishna movement and they are still around. They even get their own float in the parade. Protestants, presbyterians, buddhists, hindus - all sorts really. Fremantle has: a) a fairy shop, b) a shop that sells new age stuff where you can get psychic readings. It's a multicultural town where everything is accepted. We even have a regular psychic fair at the town hall. Yoga classes are everywhere. As are sex shops - I have two on my block.

Freo is a town where everything rebellious and eccentric can find a home - where all is accepted and then even years later, still celebrated.

Diversity of education? Do most people graduate high school? College?

Fremantle's West End has been conserved historically because the University of Notre Dame Australia was set up here. This is where I study and I get to do it some of the old warehouses and buildings from the 1800's. I even live in one.

Most people graduate high school yes, and after that it's not considered a horrible thing if you get a trade via an apprentice or choose not to go to college. Plumbers and electricians make more money in a year than a lawyer will. So you can go to college or get an apprenticeship. The options are there.

Sadly for most Aboriginals, the clash of cultures and other issues to do with perceptions and past history means that not many of them stay in school or can stay in school. Some do yes. And the number is slowly increasing but it needs to increase some more and one of the issues at the moment is how to include them more fully in society and still ensure their culture is preserved. It's an issue that crops with more recent immigrant cultures too.

Sometimes learning is just learning - and you will know that you are intelligent without needing a piece of paper to prove it - but unfortunately the world now needs that piece of paper before you can go ahead. Plus we all have our own different ways of learning things - hence why you home school your children.

It's a very hard thing to discuss and talk about. I am not sure I can fully explain it here.

Most popular sport?

Cricket!!! Sri Lanka and India both have teams too and they are currently playing against the Australian national team as part of their tour over the summer. The biggest matches in cricket are:
a) The World Cup Series which has all the cricketing nations involved. Sri Lanka won it in 1996 but Australia has won it quite a few times :p . If Sri Lanka is playing Australia, I usually support SL but though my favourite team used to be Australia - I now rather support individual players than a whole team. Besides Australia is fighting dirty at the moment which I don't approve of. Because cricket is a gentleman's game. The world Cup happens once every four years.

My favourite player is either Adam Gilchrist who is wicketkeeper for Australia or the only player to wear glasses while he plays - our very own cricketing Clark Kent - Daniel Vettori from New Zealand. Will post pictures later so you all can perve.

Daniel Vettori aka Cricket's Clark Kent from New Zealand:


Adam Gilchrist:


b) To tide us over between World Cups we have the Ashes series. Way back when, only England and Australia used to play cricket so they played a series between them. Then Australia won it once and they took the wooden wickets that they used during the game and burnt them and sent the ashes back to England in the trophy. This was their way of saying "Don't treat us horribly because you think we are from a colony and therefore have to bow to you or can't play!" sort of thing. Ever since then it's been called the Ashes and they play every year and alternate between playing in England or Australia. And they get terribly angsty and territorial over it. Very patriotic. And we all get to watch (esp if you're from another cricketing nation) - because it's like a watching a comedy drama.

Australian rules football is played as well and they have matches leading up to two big cups each year. They call them Derbys. They have state teams as well - in WA we have two major state teams called The Fremantle Dockers (ie dock workers or port workers)

and The West Coast Eagles

who are in constant competition with each other. We also have football teams for districts ie South Freo vs East Freo etc. Football on Saturday is a huge thing - because we can only play cricket in the summer but rugby or football can be played all year around.

Most popular trend at the moment?

The most popular trend far as I can gather is to try to be glamourous - homewares are all black and white and are copies of 1920/30s furniture and design (and erring badly). Sort of 1930s Paris French elegant boudoir feel. The clothes are trying to evoke that era as well but a lot of designers can't seem to visualise what people wore in the 1920s -30s very well. They have the hairstyles down well though. This is seen randomly in Freo but is more obvious elsewhere in Perth. Freo is such a melting pot anyway. This is slowly giving way to either the 60s/70s bold print pattern look for beachwear or to ethnic exotic (or what they think passes for it) travel wear - caftans and the like. I myself wear either 40s inspired stuff or classic combinations or mod dresses with stockings ... and that's when I can be bothered. The rest of the time I am in jeans. ;-)

Most popular food?

Since we don't have a white Christmas in Australia - everyone does a barbecue Christmas lunch and you must have a) pork/lamb and b) grilled prawns.

Other than that Freo has Indian, Chinese (very popular), Sushi (Japanese), Mexican, Italian, seafood of all sorts, French bistro, Kebabs, etc.

Very Australian would be a meat pie with tomato sauce. And a bottle of Coke. Very aboriginal would be kangaroo steak with bush pepper sauce. And there is place in the southwest of WA called Pemberton - they have these freshwater crayfish called marron or bugs and these grilled with butter are wonderful.

What do you feel is the most interesting/exciting thing about where you live?

As mentioned before, the ability to be eccentric. Freo is like a country town - everyone knows everyone else. There is a sense of community. Last night they had a Bhangra (Hindi pop) street party and most of the people dancing like mad in the street were Caucasian not Asian. They just accept you here and they love what you do even if they don't understand it completely. How many people last night would have understood what any of the words meant given it was all in Hindi? But they danced anyway. And it makes you - a foriegner feel that much more accepted as part of the community. I have been here four years and so many people I can't even name know who I am. It's just amazing.

Are there any urban legends associated with your town/state/country? (My son's enquiring mind wants to know!)

Ha ha. Yes there are. For instance when the settlers came over in 1829 they were told they would get land and they thought it would be land with manor houses and the like built already so they brought horse drawn carriages and pianos with them on the ships. We have proof that they were on the ship but urban legend says that there is at least one piano buried on the beach somewhere because as soon as they landed they found that there was land but they had to build their own houses and farm it and that the pianos were of no use in their immediate future so they left them on the beach.

As part of the archaeology dig that I do, we found a piano key to unlock the cover of the piano before lifting it up to play it but we haven't found the piano itself yet.


I will be back to put more pictures in. For now here's your info on Australia. Stay tuned for pictures and info on Sri Lanka.

Cheers, The Little Tornado.