Australia - Cultural Wasteland?

Yesterday someone I met for the first time called Australia a cultural wasteland. "People who study abroad in Australia are wasting their time," she said. This really irritated me. While we might have the infamous expats such as Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee, we speak the Queen's English and haven't allowed the international conglomerates take over our coffee culture just yet. Her comment made me think - is my home a cultural wasteland? I think not. But is this how the rest of the world views us? And then just an hour ago another person commented that 'everyone from Australia are hicks.' Granting that this was a poor attempt at humour (as we were discussing that only 'hicks', or those from the western suburbs aka Kath & Kim still wear their ugg boots out in public, as opposed to the fashionable item they are around Penn campus...they're called uggs for a reason - they're UGLY!) it still bothered me that we might be perceived as an uncultured, vulgar and simple people. I suppose overanalysing this only makes me realise that yes, in some parts of Australia (or most parts?) there are these people, as all over the world. But that does not make us a particularly cultural wasteland. Sure, we don't have such a rich history as Europe, or the attached exoticism as India, Africa or South America, but we do contain some strong and unique elements that make me proud to be an Australian.

Because we are so far away from the rest of the world, geographically, we do not have to rely on the European trends nor the brash American pop culture that seeps into every crack in life. I'm not saying that we don't, I'm just saying that we aren't entirely dependent on other nations/societies for a culture hit. I also suppose that because I'm an Arts student, studying Melbourne performance art and literature, that the very thought that my city is devoid of such things is diametrically oppposed to everything I believe in. Everything I experience.

But is this only because I live in Melbourne, the culture capital of Australia, so to speak?
Is the rest of my country lacking in things that make us passionate? I highly doubt that. We love football, sport of any kind, we share a love for the Australian summer, the beaches at Christmas, bitching about the cold in winter, sniggering at jokes about Tasmania, we love travelling the world, we love our land - our bush. At least thats the impression I have.

I often am told when I say that I'm Australian, that "Australians travel everywhere!" - anywhere in the world you will find an Australian - perhaps more true than said about Israelis even. We love participating in other people's cultures, bringing it back home. We have a love/hate relationship with the UK, some say even an inferiority complex. We may seem small on the greater scale of things, but sometimes one can't measure in size, but quality of life. Perhaps we don't have a national food (no, we can't call Vegemite and Lamingtons as the national food source) but then again we are a people who come from all over the world, bringing our cultures and knowledge of places further away than we can imagine. We have a rich culture that is, I suppose, a little like Melbourne's laneways. Perhaps we don't have comparible architecture and politics to the great destinations of the world, but we don't need it. Scratch a little beneath the surface, explore a little lane of Melbourne's CBD, and you will come across a treasure that will blow you away. You will find people excited over the most particular, perhaps even eccentric things. We have cultures, we have sub-cultures, and we should be proud of them, no matter what they might be or not.
Yes, our theatre might be a dying art and our cinema might be not much better but we are trying. There are passionate people out there who are making their voices heard. We have honest Australian stories, perhaps not many, but our literary heroes are worthy ones.

Now this sounds like I'm justifying some sort of inferiority complex, and perhaps I am, but I would never think I'd say this a year ago, or even half a year ago: I am so proud to be Australian. Experiencing college life here, and the pressure and expectations that are attached to it, is a seperate culture altogether. Some can say that the US is a cultural wasteland - perhaps if we view it in Starbucks/McDonalds/CocaCola/RealityTv terms - but then again they would be as narrow minded as the person I met yesterday.