The Australian version of Swedish lagom

The other night, we stopped into a small-town cafe for dinner. It was the only place around that was still serving dinner at 8.30, so we didn’t have a choice as to where to go. The food was home cooking in style and thus not so bad. But the people behind the counter were…well, let’s just call them not well-traveled. Thus my American accent was the cause for a bit of suspicion. And even though Robert IS Australian, his accent is moderate enough that they seemed to feel compelled to ask where he was from also. When he said he was from Oz, their derisive reply was: “Oh, you’re fancy and international now, that’s why we didn’t recognize your accent.” After laughing, I thought about their comment for a while. In retrospect, I took it as a bit of the “tall poppy syndrome” in action. (You do not want to be the tallest poppy in the field and thus stand out.) They wanted to knock Robert down for leaving the homeland. They could not allow him to think that he was better than them.

Tagged as: Cultural influences, Lagom, Sandra Carpenter's book, Swedish/American cultural divide, tall poppy syndrome, Travels