Question abt Australia

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I noticed that in the craft of homemade soap there are alot of people from Australia and New Zealand (which are connected countries?).

Why is homemade soap so popular there?

And is "Oz" a nickname for Australia?

(sorry if I spelled Australia wrong, I started typing before I double checked if I spelled it wrong)

Also I was looking at that show with the bald head chef who eats strange foods, can't recall the name of the show but I love it, they showed a segment on Australia. It was so interesting. I love stories from the area...like the movie "Once were Warriors", "Whale Rider" and historical shows about the penal colonies. How true to life are these dipictions of country?
 
I don't think that homemade soap is any more popular over here than it is in the US. We certainly don't have the selection of suppliers that you guys have over here.
Yes, Oz is a nickname for Australia. And when people refer to "Aussies" (the people of Australia) it is pronounced Ozzies. There are lots of coloquialisms in the (Australian) English language that would be totally lost on the rest of the world. That was part of the appeal of Steve Irwin! He was what we would call "ocker".
We are not connected to New Zealand, we are an island country all of our own, but it's not very far to New Zealand, a couple of hours by plane, and you can fly there fairly cheap. A lot of New Zealanders live in Australia, and vice versa.
Once were warriors was fairly true to life of lower socio economic areas of New Zealand, but certainly it's not like that everywhere, New Zealand is an absolutely beautiful country. Lord of the Rings was filmed there, it has the most fantastic countryside. And as far as those other movies, that would be like asking you if movies like The Patriot are fairly true to life for your colonists?
 
Hi phillysoaps! Bothy ChrissyB and artisan soaps have answered your questions really well, so all I can add is that from my perspective, I have seen very little racism in my life and the places I have lived.

I was born in 1961 in a farming community and by the time I started school we had lived in several smaller suburban/or village type areas. I guess I like living a slower-paced life, so I have been attracted to the same type of area my whole life. When I was first married I did live in Sydney, NSW and found more racism incidents there....lots of people living in close proximity to others can exacerbate all our differences I feel.

The only incident I can recall of racism growing up was a 'reverse' racism thing. I was about 8 years old and in our small town/village we had one aboriginal family. My parents were the local shopkeepers and Mum sent me round with a bag of groceries for them (free). Well the mother there opened the door and spat in my face! I was 8! Turns out she was suffering from depression because she was living so far from her people. She ended up committing suicide a couple of years later. One of her daughters was my best friend. I don't really think it was a racism thing though. She was definitely suffering at the time. She thought I was another little girl who had been mean to her daughter. She later told my Mum that all the 'whitey' kids looked the same to her - and she only meant that in a descriptive way.

Tanya :)
 
Thank you for all the informative responses. I would LOVE to one day visit Australia or New Zealand. I knew the two places were not geographically connected...but socially similar (through my American eyes :lol:)

I think my interest was sparked by three things, the fine a$$ men in the movie "Once Were Warriors" all that black leather :shock: ...a cool country that was both modern and outback...and I guess as an African American the physical charactoristics of the aboriginals intrigued me...to see people who (to me at least) look African but have been on the continents of of Australia and new Zealand since the "beginning of time".

and I LOVE the accents, thanks again...reading the post were like the next best thing to traveling there :D
 
Philly - when you mentioned the accents I was reminded of a collection of paperback books I read, written in the 1950's I think, by an author named 'Afferbeck Lauder' (Alistair Morrison). These were so much fun to read for an Aussie - perhaps you would enjoy them too? I googled just now and found a brilliant website which would guide you through 'Strine' and Aussie slang, based on these books......enjoy!

http://users.tpg.com.au/users/bev2000/strine2.htm

BTW - have you worked out what 'Afferbeck Lauder' means? Use the website..... :lol:

Tanya :)
 
I am half native Australian Aboriginal. My dad is a full blooded Aboriginal Elder who was taken by the government away from his birth family at the age of 5 months. He was put in the foster home system and eventually adopted out to a "white" family. He is still trying to put the pieces of his family history together.
 
Chrissy - have you visited Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery recently? In April they had a very moving and thought provoking display centred around the stolen generation/s.....I was moved to tears through some of it. It's funny - my Mum still won't believe that aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families, and also that it was still happening up until the 1970's in some areas.

Tanya :)
 
Unfortunately here in Canada we have similar stories where our First Nation Peoples were taken into "church" schools and forced to not speak their own languages, etc. It was and is a terrible tragedy because they lost so much of their heritage which they are now relearning. Here on Canada's West Coast we have the Salish and they used to have Spirit Singers as well as potlatches - these were banned for a very long time. Again this cultural treasure is being reclaimed but what was done to them is absolutely criminal. In Alberta the government moved the tribes around so that those that were ranchers were moved to where farming was required and vis versa...I could go on but I won't. I'm not First Nations, although my Godfather was Salish but I only knew him until I was 4 or so.....
 
It's hard for me because obviously there is a whole other side to the family that I don't know, and it's not likely that I ever will know, but from a medical perspective also, what family diseases were there, is there a family history of breast cancer, heart disease, depression? All of this is just a big blank question mark.
My father has suffered a lot because of what happened to him, and to make matters worse, he was never told that he was aboriginal and where he should be, he was always treated differently in his adopted family, he was "the black sheep" for want of a better term.
All my life people have raised an eyebrow at me when they learn that I have indigenous heritage, because I am educated ( I have two university degrees), I have held down government positions for the last 11 years of my life, I went against what people believe to be the norm. It saddens me to think that kids were still being taken away from their families in the 70's, it could have happened to me, why was I so lucky? Probably because I don't have black skin (my mum is an English Rose!).
It's a very sensitive subject, and my dad connects a lot with his heritage through indigenous artwork, making didgeridoos and aboriginal paintings and the like. I don't think that he has ever felt that he really belonged anywhere.
 
It is like the disconnection an ordinary adopted child feels, magnified how many times (?) by cultural/racial disconnection as well. It is good that your Dad is able to get in touch with his heritage in the ways he does. Instead of feeling he belongs nowhere, he might consider himself a 'bridge' between the best of both cultures.

Tanya :)
 
ChrissyB said:
It's hard for me because obviously there is a whole other side to the family that I don't know, and it's not likely that I ever will know, but from a medical perspective also, what family diseases were there, is there a family history of breast cancer, heart disease, depression? All of this is just a big blank question mark.
My father has suffered a lot because of what happened to him, and to make matters worse, he was never told that he was aboriginal and where he should be, he was always treated differently in his adopted family, he was "the black sheep" for want of a better term.
All my life people have raised an eyebrow at me when they learn that I have indigenous heritage, because I am educated ( I have two university degrees), I have held down government positions for the last 11 years of my life, I went against what people believe to be the norm. It saddens me to think that kids were still being taken away from their families in the 70's, it could have happened to me, why was I so lucky? Probably because I don't have black skin (my mum is an English Rose!).
It's a very sensitive subject, and my dad connects a lot with his heritage through indigenous artwork, making didgeridoos and aboriginal paintings and the like. I don't think that he has ever felt that he really belonged anywhere.
Click to expand...

I have a keen interest in how mistreatment, generation after generation, affects humans. I have a 100% slave heritage. My mother is a "Prosser" (her last name) and very few African Americans have this last name because in 1800 Gabriel Prosser, a slave of Thomas Prosser tried tolead a slave revolt that was thwarted due to a huge rain storm the night of a planned attack. 35 "Prosser" slaves were hung.

My uncle always said if you meet a black Prosser were related. I've traced my roots back to 1870, and have identified 4 Prossers from two families right after slavery ended. Besides a common name, John and Corie Luis...which have been repeated over the generations I have yet to find proof positive these are my slave ancestors...I really want to know where they were and who they were in relationship to the 35 slaves hung.

With that said, I look at my son who is mentally ill, who is the spitting image of my uncle, jet black. My son was never physically ill a day in his life (was that due to "breeding"?) then falls ill to schitzophrenia. My mother and uncle had severe compulsive/obsessive disorder. And going back there are so many old stories of pure "madness". Wouldn't harsh treatment have actually "bred" alot of these charactoristic in?

Three of my children are of mixed racial heritage, including my daughter and it is so funny that myself and 2 of my sisters are all 6 ft tall and yet we all had small petite daughters, none of our daughters look like us, my lighter sisters each had daughters darker than both parents and one neice is mentally ill in the same way as my son.

Many people don't want to stigmatize the race by any admission that slavery cause hereditary mental illness but I think it HAD too.
 
Setting the record straight...

ChrissyB said:
I don't think that homemade soap is any more popular over here than it is in the US. We certainly don't have the selection of suppliers that you guys have over here.
Yes, Oz is a nickname for Australia. And when people refer to "Aussies" (the people of Australia) it is pronounced Ozzies. There are lots of coloquialisms in the (Australian) English language that would be totally lost on the rest of the world. That was part of the appeal of Steve Irwin! He was what we would call "ocker".
We are not connected to New Zealand, we are an island country all of our own, but it's not very far to New Zealand, a couple of hours by plane, and you can fly there fairly cheap. A lot of New Zealanders live in Australia, and vice versa.
Once were warriors was fairly true to life of lower socio economic areas of New Zealand, but certainly it's not like that everywhere, New Zealand is an absolutely beautiful country. Lord of the Rings was filmed there, it has the most fantastic countryside. And as far as those other movies, that would be like asking you if movies like The Patriot are fairly true to life for your colonists?
Click to expand...
Orstaralia (Oz) is a little Island that we try to support when ever possible ,of the coast of New Zealand.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
 

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