American expat lists top eight differences between US and Australia
Not all is peachy down under, according to this young American.
A young American woman who packed up and moved her life to Australia almost two years ago has shared a list of culture shocks she’s faced since relocating.
From the taste of tomato sauce to the lack of takeaway breakfasts and “sad” Aussie Christmases, Ashleigh Fay didn’t hold back in her review of life down under. But it wasn’t all bad, with Australia’s higher wages and cheaper cost of living coming out on top.
The US expat, who’s also a marine biologist on top of her work as a content creator, admitted that she's “still learning” the Aussie way of life, but wanted to share “eight American things that I didn't realise were so American until moving to Australia”.
The 15-minute YouTube video has since been watched more than 23,800 times since it was posted by Ashleigh, who currently lives in Hobart in Tasmania. “Genuinely I don’t think that I’ll ever stop having random little culture shocks come up,” she said.
Tomato sauce is no match for US ketchup
Ashleigh said she’s been fighting people in the comments section of her videos that tomato sauce and ketchup are two different products.
“Google even confirmed that it’s different,” she said. “Because ketchup has like more sugar and it’s a bit thicker and normally is a bit more vinegary. Whereas tomato sauce, in my experience, is a lot more watery and there's not as much flavour. I'm sure there's some sugar in some of them but yeah, they are different and I much prefer ketchup.”
She said the problem really hit home when her family came over for Christmas last year and she was served ‘ketchup’ with fries. “I was so upset … that I went to the store and I got a Heinz bottle of ketchup,” she explained. “So thank you Coles for supplying me with my needs.”
Takeaway breakfast isn’t ‘much of a thing’
While she confessed that her experience was pretty limited, the American expat doesn’t believe that takeaway breakfast is common in Australia, and is in fact “such an American thing.”
“I can only speak for Tasmania at the moment because it's currently where I live, but even when I visited Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, takeaway breakfast was not that much of a thing,” Ashleigh said. “In the US it is so normal, when you go get your coffee, to get a takeaway breakfast sandwich, with breakfast on the go a lot more of a thing.”
“Some of them [cafes] do have bacon and egg rolls, but that's it, and not everywhere has it, like it's not as common. And then if they do have bacon and egg rolls, it's not super accommodating for people that have any dietary requirements.”
Christmas decor in Australia is ‘sad’
For Christmas-loving Ashleigh, festive decor in Australia doesn’t stack up to what she’s used to.
“Not that I expect anyone to have the insane Christmas light displays that they have in the US, especially with how much higher energy is here, but even like cafes or shops.. just in the US, it’s so much more of a big thing,” she explained.
“I feel like at least Tasmania is a lot better this year, but last year was my first Christmas in Australia and it was actually quite sad,” she said. “I know a lot of Australians are very much pro, minimalist, pro less waste, pro ‘I hate capitalism’... but I love Christmas. I love Christmas. I love feeling festive. I love seasonal decor.”
Bank details aren’t tightly guarded
In the US, Ashleigh said she was taught to hold her bank details “dear to my heart” and not to share them with anyone. In Australia, she explained that people freely share their information.
“Especially in the first year, people were like, ‘what's your account number? What's your BSB?’,” she told her followers. “Here it's just so casual. It's just like, ‘oh yeah, here's my account details’ and it's just so chill.
“And I'm more used to it now, but in the US I'm just so used to Venmo.”
Phone bills are much cheaper
One of the first things Ashleigh said she picked up on was how much cheaper it was to have a mobile.
“Phone bills are so much more expensive in the US,” she explained. “I was blown away when I moved here how cheap phone plans are relatively.
“I swear it was definitely well over USD $100 last time I lived in the US for just enough data to get me by for the month. Whereas here in Tas, I currently pay like AUD $60 a month and I have over 250 gbs of data which I never use all of it, but that's well under half. That's like USD $40 in Australia versus USD $100 plus in the US.”
Wages are higher
While Ashleigh pointed out that it’s not a new observation, she said wages are much better in Australia than back home, especially in the hospitality or retail industries.
“I'm still reminded very frequently throughout my week of how grateful I am to live in a country that pays the workers more than $8 an hour,” she said. “I remember growing up in the US and the federal minimum wage was like $7 and something cents. I don't know what it is now to preface, and I know different states have different minimum wages, but casual rates here being sometimes upwards of almost AUD $30 an hour, when you convert it that's still like USD $20 to 23 USD.
Receipt numbers are rounded up
While the lack of pennies wasn’t a culture shock, rounding up at the till was for Ashleigh.
“Obviously in the US, tax and everything is added on top of everything. It's not like you're in Australia where almost all prices are included,” she said. “Everything gets rounded here, but in the US it's like, ‘yeh cool I’ll take your three pennies please, no rounding, I want my three pennies.”
People use the parking brake
Call it better car safety, but Ashleigh noticed that “everyone uses the parking brake” in Australia.
“I was just like, ‘that is so interesting’, because growing up I was never taught to use the parking brake at all in an automatic car, unless you were parked on a hill of sorts,” she said.
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