How do you say "yobbo" in Vietnamese?

By Sam de Brito
August 17, 2006

Imagine walking into a newsagency and some crabby, 'old-school' Aussie is getting stroppy* with the elderly Chinese owner who's saying, "No siss for dollah." The Aussie, who's probably two generations out of Manchester, is shaking his head dramatically, like the Chinese bloke is a retard. "Just give me me f**kin' scratchies will ya?" he says, abandoning any pretence of politeness, but really he's thinking: "Learn to speak English." That's when the Chinese bloke's 18-year-old son appears out of the back room and strolls up in his boardshorts. In a perfect Australian twang he says: "You get six for ten dollars, mate, that's what me old man's tryin' to tell ya. He doesn't wannna rip you off"…

Now commeth the change.

The 'Aussie's' demeanour immediately becomes solicitous because he's dealing with someone whose English is just as good as his.

Why?

It's so much harder to be racist when the focus of your contempt speaks with the same accent you do.

This scene is being repeated in bakeries, restaurants and dry cleaners all over the country.

It happened to the Greeks and Italians and Lebanese; now a whole generation of Vietnamese and Cambodians, Thais and Chinese are growing up with yobbo accents you could beat a Pommie backpacker unconscious with.

We're now at the point where the Australian national cuisine has gone from being sweet and sour pork at the local Chinese restaurant to laksa at the Thai joint up the road (even though it's a Malaysian dish).

One of my oldest mates, Pete, was born in Korea and moved here when he was five-years-old. It was a tough gig for him surfing our local break.

Kids too young to have seen his head before in the line-up would drop-in on him mercilessly, burning him because they thought he was just another Japanese tourist out here to spend his rich industrialist dad's money.

That's until Pete would do a perfect reo off the offending grom's head and yell at him in plain, ocker English: "Don't drop in on me again, you little kook."

The expression on the kid's face was always worth its weight in Four 'n' Twenty pies.

Peter now lives up the coast and the first time he went to the local RSL, it was like the new gunslinger had come to town. The music stopped and all the heads at the card machines stopped to turn and stare.

"No one said anything, but there were some heavy looks," said another one of my mates, who lives up north as well.

Gradually, the cement-spattered tradies and purple-faced pissheads realised Pete was in the TAB more than them. Every time they'd look up at Sky Channel to watch the seventh at Warrnambool, there would be the Asian bloke with his schooner, laying the whip into his imaginary mount.

When it came in at 11 to 1, they'd scream for joy and realise they were both on the same horse and smile at each other, because, Jeez, we both just won four hundred on that thing.

Pete would come in for a New some days and they'd nod their heads, just to be polite and maybe ask him what he was on, to see what the Asian bloke would be backing.

Every now and then they'd mention the weather and Pete'd say something about the surf being good at such and such a reef and they'd wonder how the hell he knew that it worked best on a south-east swell.

Then maybe fishing would come up and Peter would tell them about the bream he caught at such and such a beach or the smoko he got off this tiler at the pub and, well, it's hard to hate a bloke who likes fishing and a smoke and surfing and a beer and a punt, isn't it?

I don't know about you, but I am particularly enjoying seeing the new generation of Asian-Australians coming to the fore, with their perfect English and understanding of 'our' ways.

Earlier this year, at a suburban bowling club, I saw an Aussie of Asian appearance carrying two jugs of beer in one hand and four empty schooners glasses snaked in the other.

One of the guys I was with yelled at him: "nice effort, mate," and the bloke just nodded.

Made me want to sing Waltzing Matilda.

*Stroppy: Easily offended or annoyed. Ill-tempered or belligerent.

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Hilarious post from Sam de Brito's "All Men Are Liars (except Sam de Brito)" blog. Well methinks anyway. The man's observations are so relatable. Couple of people come to mind...

However, he definitely portrays the phenomenon as positive. That I disagree with - assimilation ring a bell? A reader comments that it is less a matter of assimilation and more a matter of humanism - "if you humanise whom you perceive to be the object of your hatred, you become no longer capable of maintaining towards them the same degree of irrational animosity."

Well, if you need to hear an Aussie accent to realize the one talking to you is human, let's put this in words you'll listen to - Myyte, Oi think men-tul ray-ta-day-shin is more your problem.