You’re American?

I haven’t mentioned this before, but our accents attract a lot of attention here. In Qatar over half the population is foreign so we never really stood out that much, at least in the grocery stores, restaurants, and shops that we frequented. In Perth, people stop and stare when we open our mouths. It’s kind of bizarre because I’ve never seen a reaction quite like that, in all of my travels across North America, Europe, Qatar, and Israel. Western Australia (WA) seems like a world in itself though. Perth is known as the most isolated city in the world and it is completely different and separate from the rest of Australia. If there was cause and if people were at all motivated, one could perhaps justify the secession of Western Australia and the creation of a new country.

Anyway, today I went for my second round of interviews at one of the large multinational natural resources companies in Perth. After a three hour case study and a one hour review with two managers, I was sent to lunch with two men who currently work in the same position that I am interviewing for. During the two minute walk to the restaurant, they determined that I am American, and during the course of perusing our menus, I learned that they are both born, raised, and university educated in Western Australia. Neither of them has ever left the region before although one is contemplating a trip to New York and the other is considering a trip to Europe or New York. The most pressing thing that one of them wanted to learn about the U.S. was whether or not it is true that in the U.S., you can make a right turn during a red light. I explained that yes, generally if there is not a sign indicating “no right turn on red,” that you can indeed turn right. He exclaimed rather excitedly that you can’t do that in WA! Given that a right turn at a traffic light here is like turning left at a traffic light in the U.S., I had already determined that road rule. I did ask if it’s possible to turn left on red here (the equivalent of making a right on red in the U.S.) and was told that that’s not allowed either. If you were meeting someone from a different country for the first time, what question(s) would you want to ask them? I think the right turn on red would get a big X on the Family Feud board.