After I wrote my first article on this same subject, it became apparent that some people thought I was hosting a competition between the two nations. That list was so controversial and inspired such heated debate that I couldn’t resist reopening the can of worms by compiling another list of cultural distinctions, this time throwing in some juicy hot-headed opinion to really stir things up.

The battle continues…

Using Cutlery

A first-time Australian visitor to the USA might be completely horrified to look around a restaurant and see everyone devouring their food like barbarians. Americans have a very unique approach to using knives and forks.

While the rest of the English-speaking world holds their fork in their left hand and their knife in their right hand throughout the entire meal, Americans play musical cutlery, performing an intricate dance with their knives and forks while they eat.

First they stab their knives into their meal and viciously attack their prey, then they slice off a bite-sized piece (or cut the entire meal up into tiny pieces) and then they put their knife down and swap their fork over to their right hand to scoop up their meal.

Australians, however, simply slice their meal with their knife and push the bite-sized piece onto their fork, without needing to change hands. It really is much more efficient.

Americans born and raised in New England are the exception to this rule, as was George Costanza on Seinfeld when he ate a Mars Bar with a knife and fork.

If you’re keeping score, it’s Australia 1 – USA 0

Retail Hours

US visitors to Australia beware: Australian shopping hours are very limited. It comes down to simple economics. Australia simply doesn’t have the population to support more convenient opening hours.

Sure, we’d all love the bank and the post office to remain open after 4 o’clock so we don’t have to cram everything into lunch breaks, but that’s just the way it is in Australia.

Thursday night is Late Night Shopping. It’s the one night of the week that most stores stay open until about 9pm, which is still quite early for a shop in the US to close.

Without any argument, the USA wins this hand.

R-rated Movies

Here’s a random list of movies (some of the top Box Office movies of all times) that were rated R in the USA:

Sex and the City, Pretty Woman, The Matrix, Fatal Attraction, Erin Brockovich, The Last Samurai, Pulp Fiction, American Pie, Se7en, and Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Of those same movies, only Pulp Fiction and Se7en were rated R in Australia. In fact, I had to look pretty hard through a long list to find those 2.

To be fair, although I haven’t explicitly made any value-judgements on this, an R rating in the USA means that anyone 17 years or younger must be accompanied by someone 17 or older with a photo ID. An R rating in Australia is completely restricted to people aged 18+.

All the same, it’s a well-known fact that media ratings in the USA are more conservative than in Australia.

Who wins? That depends on how you feel about censorship and media ratings, I suppose.

Legal Drinking Age

Which leads me to this:

When a “child” turns 18 in Australia all they need is a photo ID to prove their age and then they can go out and hit the bars. The protocol of this auspicious occasion is to drink until they pass out. In Australia we call this “getting pissed” (which means getting angry in the USA, another difference I can’t be bothered exploring further).

In the USA, you have to wait until you’re 21 for such a messy event. Suckers!

In Australia we do have big birthday celebrations when we turn 21, but why we do this is anyone’s guess. It makes more sense to go crazy at 21 in the USA.

I am going to give this one to Australia and I don’t much care for your argument.

Sitcoms

American sitcoms abound aplenty. Many don’t make it past pilot stage and some last only a few episodes, so we certainly don’t see all the rubbish sitcoms that are produced in the USA, but without a doubt American sitcoms are infinitely better quality than Australian sitcoms.

Of course it comes down to personal taste. Whether you love or hate Ugly Betty, My Name is Earl, Seinfeld or Friends … there’s likely to be at least 1 American sitcom (at least!) that you have watched with fervent enjoyment and uproarious laughter.

I am yet to find an Australian sitcom I deem worthy of my attention. Even if I was curled up on the couch half-asleep doped up on flu medication I wouldn’t watch an Australian sitcom.

USA, you take the sitcom crown!

Swearing

Yes there are lots of swear words that differ between the two countries, but I’m not going to get into that.

The more important thing is that in Australia swearing is like breathing oxygen, so much so that many words that would shock-the-socks-off grandma are freely allowed on Australian TV and radio.

US celebrities visiting Australian talk shows can almost never resist the opportunity to throw out as many profanities as they can during their 10 minutes of Australian airtime.

Harrison Ford used the F-word so many times on Rove (the Australian bastard-love-child of Letterman and Conan O’Brien), that a “Harrison Ford swear jar” was implemented on future episodes with a dollar donated for every time another guest was heard swearing.

I’ll take a neutral stance on this issue. Swearing serves a purpose and is ultimately harmless, but where’s the fun in swearing when you’re allowed to?

Military Service

While travelling around the world I have met plenty of the American servicemen (and a few women). Fresh out of high school with no idea what else to do, joining the military is an often considered option for many American youths.

In Australia, however, the choice out of high school (when university is unattainable or ill-desired) is to study a trade as a sponsored apprentice.

Amongst my circle of friends and my long-extended family, I have never known a single person to join the military. My husband, who is from the USA, has half his cousins and extended family enrolled in active duty in some foreign port around the world.

But this is not just a 2-person study. Ask around the people you know, how many are in the military? Are you in the military, and if so are you also American … see?

And since war is bad and military spending has a tendency to send a country bankrupt, Australia wins this round.

Political Campaigns

Excuse me, I fell asleep waiting. Has a new president been elected in the USA yet? The campaigning went for an entire year (or was it 2 years, I lost track), and how much money was wasted on campaign efforts for candidates who weren’t really ever in the race?

Need I remind everyone that the USA has just plummeted into recession, meanwhile some guy named Ron Paul raised something like $20 million only to be smashed to smithereens by war-mongering McCain, who was then beaten smartly by Obama!

In Australia, the election was called in October 07 and votes were cast 6 weeks later in November. That’s it, that’s all there was to it. I doubt anywhere near $20 million was spent on the entire process, let alone on a single failed candidate.

But at least no one is driving slowly around quiet neighbourhoods at 6am with loud speakers attached to the top of a van making ear-shattering campaign announcements like they do in Japan.

Australia wins and Japan loses, but since Japan isn’t in this competition … thumbs down to American political campaigns.

Internet Services

As my hair falls out in frustration at the unbelievably bad internet connection I am trying to endure today, I come to the final round of the competition.

Internet in Australia is expensive and metered. Our downloads (and uploads) are counted and capped. If we want to be able to watch a few YouTube videos or download some songs, we have to pay for the “privilege” of being able to use this new-fangled thing they call the interweb.

The USA, however, seems to have quickly got the idea that the internet isn’t a luxury service and a privilege for the wealthy few, but a necessity. Service providers keep costs low and downloads uncapped.

Not to mention the quantity of useful services on the internet which American citizens can enjoy. Amazon, for a quick and easy example, doesn’t exist in Australia. We can buy books from US or UK Amazon, but postage costs are quite prohibitive.

How many times have I tried to subscribe to a fantastic new online service only to be barred because my IP address is Australian? Can I find the same service in Australia? No!

Australia’s entire population equals that of metropolitan New York. There simply aren’t enough people to justify the same infrastructure supporting the US population, but logic aside … it really stinks.

USA, you beat our skinny little backsides with a sharp pointed stick on this issue.

The Results

Discounting the two rounds I deemed neutral, it looks like Australia won by a single point. It was close, but no cigar … although Clinton might have something to say about that. Australian politicians are too fat, bald and/or ugly to engage in such shenanigans.

Read the article that started it.