Introduction: I have been in Melbourne for two years. I come from Japan and it seemed to me that I knew living overseas would be a lot different and difficult than when I was just visiting a few years ago.

Of course I have a language problem, which is probably the most important part of a culture. When we live in a different country we are also exposed to different ideas, different rules, values, and ways of thinking. I would, therefore like to comment on what I have thought and observed since I arrived in Melbourne.

Time Managing: When I first came here, it took a little while to get used to time managing Australian style. In my workplace here, a hospital, meetings are supposed to start at 7:30 every morning. But just after I came here, I hardly saw any of the members arrive on time. Sometimes there would be only two people there at the appointed time, just me and another fellow Asian from South Korea!

Another example of difference in this area of Australian society is that in my country when we have dinner together, we are supposed to arrive five minutes prior to the appointed time. But I learned people here come ten minutes past the appointed time. Actually dinner usually starts one hour later. When I was at school we were taught to always be at least five minutes early for any appointment, and really it is more like being fifteen minutes early for everything.

In my section here at the hospital people come to work at 9:00am, have morning tea at 10:30am, lunch at 1:00pm, afternoon tea at 3:30pm and then go home at 5:00pm! I talked about this with another fellow from South Korea and we agreed that we would lose our jobs if we would work like people do here in our own countries!

My experience of people at work in Melbourne is that they tend to go home before 5:00pm unless they have something urgent to do, but it can be annoying at times, especially when there are deadlines. On Fridays, it is practically impossible to see people working hard after lunchtime. They are already on their weekend break!

Responsibilities: Another difference I have found is the casual way people make arrangements. When I first joined my section, I would hear people say to me "Let’s go out for a drink on Tuesday evening" or "Let’s go out for lunch next Monday". So I would manage my job so that I would finish on time to meet them. However they would have often forgotten their promises. Nothing happened, no drink, no lunch.

In Melbourne people often say "absolutely" at the end of a sentence. However, even when they reply this way when I have asked them to do something, I have found they often forget to do what they said they would "absolutely" do. It is totally different in Japan. Here there is little thought for the group.

In Japan, if someone has to take time off for some reason, their colleagues or superiors take over their job while they are absent. The employee training system is different compared to Australia. For example, Japan places a lot of emphasis on ‘job- rotation’, so it is easy for colleagues or superiors to take over one another’s jobs. But in Australia, people are hired especially by their qualifications and also by their experience in a specific field and it might be difficult for them to do someone else’s job. But why are there these big differences between Australia and Japan? There could be various reasons.

Animism and community:

One of the reasons could be that Japan is traditionally an agricultural race, while traditional Australians are hunters. Buddhism came to Japan in the 8^th century, but we have had animism for a thousand years. We believe in every natural phenomenon, for example, mountains, lakes, or rocks, and every living thing has a soul. We pray for all major natural phenomenon's. In Japan we had to share our land, water, and help each other. This has made us give priority to the community rather than to the individual. Therefore we had to follow rules, come together on time and carry out our responsibilities and to keep our land being rich in products we had to work from sunrise to sunset.

Twenty years ago white people called Japanese people economic animals. This was an inappropriate term to use because Japanese people did not understand why people thought this way, and that they felt that they were not being understood.

People in Japan used to work for twelve or eighteen hours a day. It brought benefits to companies, but did not bring benefits to the individuals. Why do they work so hard? One reason is based on the fact that we value the group and/or community. We are supposed to work hard, it is almost a religious act to establish, make and do our jobs beautifully. If we think of our job in a religious sense, then work is seen as a rock, part of nature, and to be honoured as a living thing with a soul. It is hard for western cultures to understand, but Japanese culture has enormous diversity, western and middle-eastern cultures seem identical and fundamental. Obviously we are not only economic animals.

Happy Australians:

On the other hand, I have found people in Melbourne are very happy to anyone whom do they do not know, on a tram, on the street or anywhere. Everyone here looks relaxed and enjoys their life. Even when they see someone who they will probably never see again in the future they say "See you later". When I first heard that I wondered ‘how?’ and ‘when?’.

Melbourne people are truly friendly and not suspicious like many Asian people. When I went back to Japan a month or so for family reasons, I was about to smile to anyone on the street, as we do in Australia, but Japanese people looked at me in a weird way.