（插播音乐：《郊区男孩》，戴夫·沃纳演唱，选自专辑《来自郊区》）

苏·斯拉梅：

大家好，这里是苏·斯拉梅为您主持的“今日澳洲”节目。

今天的节目将邀请您探访澳大利亚的郊区，即那些主要都市、城镇中央商业区周边的近郊居住区。

虽然澳大利亚人喜欢把丛林看作他们国家的核心，但大约百分之八十的澳大利亚人却居住在郊区……

休·麦凯：

所有这些认为我们原本来自丛林、后来才定居于城市的看法与我们的历史是不相符的。澳大利亚的历史其实就开始于这些沿海城镇和定居点，也就是日后的城市，后来才有勇敢的拓荒者进入了乡村地区。虽然过去我们的乡村人口确实高于现在，但后来又渐渐向城市回流。所以说，我们从来不是个以乡村人口为主的国家。

苏·斯拉梅：

休·麦凯是一位悉尼的作家兼社会研究人员，他为报纸撰写的每周专栏对当代澳大利亚社会的最新动态进行分析和评论。

休·麦凯专门写了一部描写典型郊区生活的小说，之所以写这本书是因为，就像他塑造的主人公律师“汤姆”一样，休·麦凯本人惊奇的发现虽然澳大利亚人大都生活在郊区，但大家对郊区生活却没什么好感。

休·麦凯：

我们似乎总对郊区看不上眼，事实上，我书中的人物“玛迪”，也就是汤姆的秘书，就刚刚卖了郊区的房子，和丈夫搬进了一所位于中央商业区的公寓。像大多数都市生活回归者一样，她不但自己皈依了城市生活，还试图说服汤姆作出同样的选择。在这里，我想给大家读上书中的一段，这是汤姆在回想玛迪向自己施加压力时的情景：

“玛迪成了眼下正时兴的反郊区派的一员，在他们看来郊区生活就等于非人的生活。郊区如此遭人严厉攻击，这对几百万居住在郊区的澳大利亚人来说是不公平的，总有人不停地告诉他们只要换个地方住，生活就会丰富多彩。到中央商业区安家，住进市中心成排的楼房吧，别要郊区的花园啦，要是能干脆住进丛林就更好了，搬到有着大片田地的地方，种点有用的东西，油菜籽、大蒜或者葡萄，怎么都行，只要不在郊区。人们似乎从不把郊区看作城市生活与丛林生活的最佳结合，郊区永远是最糟的地方。”

苏·斯拉梅：

虽然郊区与我们拥有四分之一英亩家园并自由享受绿地与空间的澳大利亚梦想紧密相连，但事实上我们却从未创造出任何关于郊区生活的神话。这是不是因为在我们看来，郊区与独具澳洲特色的丛林不同，它并不是澳大利亚所特有的景致？

休·麦凯：

是的，我想你提到了至关重要的一点，那就是自然环境。澳大利亚人无不为举世无双的澳洲自然风光，甚至其独特的恶劣环境而自豪。虽然澳大利亚许多地方险恶荒凉，甚至不适于人类居住，但无论如何这都是我们自己的土地，就像我们所特有的动植物一样令我们骄傲和自豪。因此土地这一概念对澳大利亚人来说至关重要，尽管我们从未征服过这片大陆，而只是居住其沿海地区。事实的确如此。相比之下，你也许会发现澳大利亚的郊区在某种程度上与其他地方的郊区没什么两样，但你却忽视了澳大利亚郊区生活的一个重要特点，那就是澳大利亚的郊区更具郊区特色。我们的郊区规模更大，也就是说我们的郊区向来比其他国家的面积更大。正因为如此，我们才有了“四分之一英亩家园”的澳大利亚梦想这一说法，虽然我们的郊区住宅大都不到四分之一英亩，但是有一些还真有这么大。作为我们的生活方式，这一梦想已经扎根在我们民族精神的深处，尽管我们时常诋毁郊区生活，常说：‘哦，我不过是个郊区佬’，你知道，我们要贬损哪个律师的话，就会戏称他为郊区律师。不管怎么说，我们还是强烈地渴望拥有自己的住宅，我是说，在澳大利亚文化中，拥有自己的住宅仍然是人生的重大梦想，对绝大多数澳大利亚人来说，这个梦想就是指拥有自己的郊区住宅。

（插播歌曲）

苏·斯拉梅：

那么这里的郊区与美国郊区有什么不同呢，就像皮特·西格在这首歌中所调侃的那样，或者说澳大利亚郊区和英国郊区的“花园住宅”有什么不同呢？

苏·特恩布尔二十世纪八十年代从英国移居澳大利亚，目前在墨尔本的拉特罗布大学讲授传媒研究课程。

她认为澳大利亚的郊区确有其与众不同之处，而这正是澳大利亚向世界各国出口的肥皂剧和情景喜剧所没能表现出来的。

苏·特恩布尔：

凭着在英国郊区的生活经历以及对美国郊区生活的一些亲身体验，我可以说澳大利亚郊区也许更像美国的郊区，因为两者都给人一种开阔感。而在英国郊区，无论在房子里面还是院子里，都没有这种开阔感，也不像澳大利亚人那样与户外生活密不可分。澳大利亚人在对待室内生活与户外生活的关系时甚至比美国人还要随意得多。因此，我认为澳大利亚生活方式有着与众不同的地方，而我却还没看到哪个电视连续剧能够捕捉到这一独特之处，能够真正表现出澳大利亚从室内延伸到花园的郊区生活方式。当然，这种郊区生活在小小的摄影棚里是极难再现的，那种与户外的关系不可能表现得出来。而这正是八十年代初我来到这里时澳大利亚生活方式给我留下印象最深的地方，单单是人们如此喜欢呆在户外就足以令我惊叹不已了。事实上，我对郊区的理解是战后澳大利亚郊区住宅发生了巨大的变化。而在澳大利亚的郊区，你所拥有的是一个室外娱乐场所而不仅仅是个花园。室内的厨房和户外的烧烤区的关系是很直接的：户外烧烤区让你多了一个做饭的地方，一个娱乐和享受生活的场所。这样，澳大利亚人便在郊区把野外丛林生活的理想与回归室内城市生活的理想结合在了一起。在郊区这两者才有了完美的结合。

苏·斯拉梅：

这样一来你就可以和家人与朋友一起在后院里分享“澳大利亚之梦”了，对吗？

苏·特恩布尔：

没错。再加上四周的高栅栏，邻居们是看不见你们的。

盖伊·汉森：

二战后，在澳大利亚城市开发的过程中，拥有住房的形式有了很大变化。随着全国大批分布在大城市周围的郊区的出现，如今被我们看成是‘澳大利亚之梦’或者通常被亲切地称为‘四分之一英亩家园’的观念确实开始深入人心，人们真正开始为拥有自己的住宅而努力奋斗。并且，这也确实成为澳大利亚特性的重要组成部分，也就是人们都有拥有自己住宅的梦想。

苏·斯拉梅：

以上是盖伊·汉森。从二战后到六十年代早期，百分之七十的澳大利亚人就开始拥有自己的住宅了。

盖伊是澳大利亚国家博物馆馆长，在他的博物馆里，你期待着看到一些诸如恐龙骨骼或旧机器之类的陈列品。但是在国家艺术馆里，你却会发现天花板上悬挂着旋转式晾衣架，后院里摆放着烧烤架，这些都是典型的郊区后院的象征。

如果在博物馆里走进一间五十年代的郊区厨房模型，宽敞、色彩斑斓，外国游客可能会觉得困惑不解，但对澳大利亚人来说，无论老少，却都会倍感亲切。

盖伊·汉森：

对我们来说，这间厨房确实很有意思，因为在这里可以了解到各种各样关于郊区风情和澳大利亚生活方式的历史信息。这个厨房模型就成了某种记忆的再现，勾起人们在郊区长大成人的记忆。这是一个可以唤起澳大利亚人回忆的场景。我的意思是说，很显然，当人们来到厨房展区时，那个场景就会引起人们的回忆，使他们忍不住谈起澳大利亚的过去和现在。

苏·斯拉梅：

嗯，我注意到孩子们在跑过那间五十年代的厨房时，都喜欢打开那些红色木碗橱的门。

孩子们，愿不愿意打开几个碗橱看看里面有些什么？再告诉我你们在想什么？

孩子们：

好啊。

苏·斯拉梅：

你们打开了五十年代的冰箱，找到了什么呢？

孩子：

我们发现了漂亮的杯子和一台咖啡机。

苏·斯拉梅：

这些漂亮杯子的主人是一位十分重要的澳大利亚人，一个很重要的人物，你们有人知道是谁吗？

孩子：

埃德娜·埃弗拉吉太太。

苏·斯拉梅：

那你们知道这位女士的一些什么呢？

孩子：

她是AMP公司广告中的一个家庭主妇。

苏·斯拉梅：

她还演了许多戏。现在我要问问你们，觉得这个厨房怎么样？像你们家里的厨房吗？

孩子：

不，有点不同，样子太老了，颜色怪怪的，现在不时兴了，有点不一样了。

孩子：

有点过时了。

苏·斯拉梅：

那你们有没有因为乡下地方太大而感到惊讶呢？你们家里的厨房和这里一样大吗？

孩子：

我家的比这还大呢，更大些。

孩子：

对，大多了。

苏·斯拉梅：

你们家在厨房里用餐吗？

孩子：

不，在餐厅里。

苏·斯拉梅：

有谁家在厨房吃饭吗？

孩子：

我家在厨房吃饭。我们有个吃饭的小桌子，还有一个长板凳，你放下东西，拿着自己的盘子，然后就坐在长板凳上吃饭。

孩子：

我家也是。

苏·斯拉梅：

是个喝茶的好地方吗？

孩子：

是的，挺好的，就是没在外面的阳光下，不过那样也还不错。

苏·斯拉梅：

当大多数澳大利亚人选择了远离喧闹与空气污浊的都市，而在郊区繁衍生息的时候，澳大利亚艺术家们并没有意识到，郊区人用手推式除草机在他们四分之一英亩的宅地上清除杂草的形象其实就已经取代了起源于丛林神话的英雄人物。

从五十年代起，喜剧导演巴里·汉弗莱斯就一直花费心思在他的漫画人物“一个普通的郊区家庭主妇”埃德娜·埃弗拉吉太太身上挖掘笑料。现在，“埃德娜太太”，也就是那个家庭主妇兼超级明星，继续扮演着她的角色。这一角色在澳大利亚、英国，以及最近在美国都大受欢迎。

埃德娜·埃弗拉吉：

许多人问我成功的秘诀是什么？是因为我的谈吐方式还是可爱的衣着？是因为我的举手投足，还是拥有内在魅力？说不清楚，道不明白。还是让我告诉你们吧，我唯一的最大的财富就是我友善的外表，我以此为骄傲……

苏·斯拉梅：

“埃德娜·埃弗拉吉太太”的创作原型正是巴里·汉弗莱斯的母亲这一代人。在第二次世界大战之后，这一代人将自己的家建在了郊区，使得澳大利亚郊区以市镇为中心向四周快速扩展。

如今，郊区居民去电影院看电影，嘲笑“埃德娜·埃弗拉吉”，因为他们认为自己跟她不是一类人。其实这些郊区居民家家户户都追寻着“澳大利亚之梦”，生活在四分之一英亩的郊区家园里，在这一点上，他们与埃德娜没有什么两样。

休·特恩布尔：

事实上，虽然很多澳大利亚人对生活在郊区怀有一种矛盾心理，但他们还都生活在那里。生活在郊区固然好，你可以有自由的空间，你可以有属于自己的房子，但是居住在郊区同时也意味着极度的封闭。郊区是女人的世界，是女性为主的天下。因此，人们觉得有必要离开这个地方，就像你必须离开你的母亲一样。

苏·斯拉梅：

这自然会让人们想起澳大利亚最著名的家庭主妇——埃德娜·埃弗拉吉太太，想起这个巴里·汉弗莱斯创作的著名角色。作为一个颇具讽刺意味、专横霸道、不是很讨人喜欢的人物，她却在影视屏幕上长盛不衰，你觉得原因是什么呢？

苏·特恩布尔：

说到她长盛不衰的原因，我觉得，她代表了一种人们对郊区的畏惧。我的意思是说，你会对她敬而远之。那些包打听、好管闲事的邻居，那些无所不知的女人，她们没完没了，使你不得安宁，问东问西想要弄清你的感情生活和内心世界，这完全是人们的品位的问题。我是说，一提埃德娜太太就会让你联想到她总是穿着一身极没品味的衣服。提起郊区总是让你联想到社会地位和生活品位。其实，我本人对郊区生活的感觉也很矛盾。我也出生在郊区，但我同样想离开郊区而生活在城市里。对很多人来说，总有一个时期，他们想回到郊区，因为他们认为那里抚养孩子比较安全。但我却从来没有这个想法。因此，对于像我这样的很多人来说，郊区仍然是我们不得不逃避的地方。

苏·斯拉梅：

著名家庭主妇形象埃德娜太太的创作者巴里·汉弗莱斯也同样不愿意生活在郊区。他已经离开澳大利亚而长期居住在国外。你觉得像埃德娜·埃弗拉吉和巴里·汉弗莱斯创作的另一个人物——淘金工桑迪·斯通，对当代澳大利亚来说是不是已经过时了呢？

苏·特恩布尔：

我觉得他们对于澳大利亚当今这一代人来说的确不具有现实意义，当今典型的郊区人物形象应该是澳大利亚广播公司电视频道播出过的连续剧《凯瑟和金》中的人物。这不是一部肥皂剧，也不是严格意义上的情景喜剧，而是一个综合了几种艺术风格的全新喜剧节目。《凯瑟和金》取材于澳大利亚的现实生活。你可以清晰的感受到这部电视剧源自于二十世纪九十年代初的纪录片《希尔瓦尼亚海域》（Sylvania Waters）。《凯瑟和金》讲述了郊区一户人家生活的方方面面。有时，这家的女主人凯瑟就像《希尔瓦尼亚海域》的诺埃利娜一样，对着镜头喋喋不休，这样直接在镜头面前抱怨。所以，《凯瑟和金》不时让人觉得它是一部纪录片，但又是一出情景喜剧。如果让我定义的话，我会叫它情景喜剧纪录片。但无论怎样，《凯瑟和金》还是被认为是当代澳大利亚某一个时期郊区生活的典型形象。

（插播《凯瑟和金》的选段）

苏·特恩布尔：

我觉得他们太傻了。简直是《太傻和金》，而不是《凯瑟和金》。这个小小口误用在这里再恰当不过了。《凯瑟和金》的生活正是我们必须设法避免的。这是一个个人选择的问题。澳大利亚人太着迷于生活方式。打开任何一份杂志或者报纸，你都会发现它们在不断地向人们灌输各种生活方式。比如你去看病，在候诊室等候时，随手拿起放在桌上的几本女性杂志，你会发现很大一部分内容与“居室美化”有关。即使是澳大利亚实况娱乐节目也在喋喋不休地讨论着有关居室的话题。最早的节目有《伯克斯后院》（Burkes Backyard），现在像这样的节目有“后院闪电战”（Backyard Blitz）和《居室装饰》（Home Improvements）。所有澳大利亚人都十分在意如何改善自己居室的环境，电视节目也不断地在居室装修风格上出谋划策。而《凯瑟和金》这一连续剧正是一部反面教材，告诉你如果在做居室装修时找错人，会有什么结局。所以，可以这样说，电视节目为观众制定了风格和品味的标准，并且告诫大家一旦违背这个标准，会闹出什么样的笑话。

苏·斯拉梅：

苏·特恩布尔博士执教于墨尔本的拉特罗布大学。《凯瑟和金》是澳大利亚广播公司收视率最高的电视节目之一，该剧的续集正在拍摄过程中。

您现在收听的是澳大利亚广播电台“今日澳洲”第五期节目——郊区风情。

寻找安全和稳定的生活是战后移民来澳大利亚的主要目的，同时，对于这些新移民来说，拥有一个属于自己的房子也是他们重要的奋斗目标。

一九五四年，巴里·约克随父母移民到了墨尔本，当时他才三岁。

他的父亲是马耳他人，母亲是英国人。他们迫切希望逃离伦敦的烟雾，来到了年轻且充满就业机会的国家澳大利亚，开始全新的生活。

但是，当澳大利亚本地人编织着在郊区给自己安家的梦想时，这些新移民还必须拼命工作，才能攒足了钱买上自己的房子。

巴里·约克：

人们在谈论澳大利亚五十年代这一黄金时代时都很健忘，总是忘记当时的很多艰难困苦，特别是那些自己没有房子的人。尤其对那些初来乍到的移民来说，找到栖身之所是他们所要面对的主要问题。最初，我们住在我叔叔乔在墨尔本港的家里。他的小屋在霍克街上，总有很多刚下船的马耳他人过来和我叔叔以及婶婶戴茜一起住。这样下去总不是长久之计。所以，用我妈妈的话说，从一九五四年到一九五五、五六年间，我们在澳大利亚的头二十一个月过得很惨。我们一直不停地租房子住，通常情况都是全家人挤在一间屋子里，大家共用厨房、厕所还有浴室等设施。当然，我们刚到这里的时候，我父母总是加班。我从小到大接受的教育就是别想着度假，也别想着买车，但要买所房子。挣到的每一分钱首先得用来买房子，因为只有有了自己的房子，生活才有保障。如果不能拥有自己的房子，那么移民澳大利亚也就不值得了。

苏·斯拉梅：

像巴里·约克小时候住过的山姆洛克大街这样的郊区街道上，就居住着每次移民浪潮中来自世界各地的人……

巴里·约克：

我在山姆洛克大街住了差不多三十年，我们目睹了几乎每一次移民大潮。我们是在五十年代的移民潮中来的，五十年代的移民主要是英国人和包括希腊人、意大利人和马耳他人在内的南欧人。我们这条街上还住着几户拉脱维亚人和一家荷兰人。住在那里的澳大利亚人大多是爱尔兰人后裔，都是从大萧条中苦苦挣扎过来的，而我们差不多都属于你们说的处于较底层的社会经济群体。从某种意义上讲，这就产生了一种认同感。无论他们来自哪个国家，基本上都相处得很好。虽然有些人有一点种族主义倾向，但当大家都去为买房子或付帐单绞尽脑汁的时候，他们就不会再特别在乎你是西西里人还是拉脱维亚人了。后来，二十世纪七十年代，土耳其人、黎巴嫩人，还有少数越南人也搬到了不伦瑞克区的山姆洛克大街附近。我想直到八十年代早期，那里还都算不上是富人区，也不是人们纷纷涌入的地段。所以，甚至在二十世纪八十年代，不伦瑞克西部的学校，你知道，就是各种不同类型的较底层的社会经济群体的缩影。

苏·斯拉梅：

后来，中、上阶层的职业人士渐渐发现住在离中央商业区很近的郊区非常方便，比如巴里·约克长大的墨尔本布伦瑞克区。这些近郊的房价便飞涨上去。

休·麦凯注意到澳大利亚年轻人都选择在近郊区租房子住。等他们都到了三十多岁才会搬到远郊去，因为只有在那儿他们才买得起带花园的房子。

休·麦凯：

对于那些父母住在城里的人来说，能在小时候常去、现在又愿意在那儿安家的地方买房子越来越困难了。他们可能不得不搬到城市边缘地区或者新的住宅小区去住，或者搬出城区到附近的沿海地区居住。但是现在还有另外一种趋势，在澳大利亚年轻人中，即使没有太大的经济压力，人们的想法也发生了变化。越来越多的年轻人推迟考虑购买自己的房子，通常到了三十多岁才认真考虑去申请第一笔抵押贷款来买房子。而他们的父母当初考虑并真正买房子时比他们现在要年轻十岁。第一个孩子的出生会促使这些租房子的年轻人去买房子。他们原本可能在郊区租房子住，更有可能是在市区内租房子。有了孩子后，他们会希望在郊区买房子，在那里有典型的澳大利亚式的养育子女的氛围。

苏·斯拉梅：

虽然战后的澳大利亚一直保持了郊区的生活方式，但是澳大利亚的家庭构成和规模却已发生了显著变化。

这些人口方面的变化在休·麦凯的小说《冬日小街》里都得到了反映……。

休·麦凯：

在《冬日小街》里，汤姆想着自己的邻居：我坐在暮霭中的阳台上，看着艾博和恩格温家的窗户透出圣诞节的灯光。距离街区晚会只有一个星期了，一说到我们的小街很容易让人伤感。住在这里的形形色色居民将我们每个人都有的最亲近的人变成了家畜。独自生活是一种富有戏剧性的生活方式，很多人即使没有家也过的相当不错。随着出生率的快速下降，将有更多的人不得不习惯于这种生活方式。但我怀疑我们会成为一个孤独者的民族。以独自一人或两人一起的方式生活的人越多，人的动物的本性就会越强。里奇一家所渴望去的村庄会在像我们这样的郊区成为普遍现实。如果我们不再精心经营大家庭的生活，与亲人们厮守在一起，那我们就得创造出类似的环境了。对于我的一些朋友来说，这个环境是工作团体，而对我来说就是“冬日小街”。这些现在就是我的家人。我不是说他们是朋友，我是说我的家人，就像一家子一样。你无法选择你的邻居。

苏·斯拉梅：

休·麦凯的小说《冬日小街》描写了澳大利亚的郊区生活。

欢迎收听“今日澳洲”的下期节目“就业机会”。我是苏·斯拉梅。各位听众，我们下期节目再见。

(Music: Suburban Boy by Dave Warner, from the album From The Suburbs)

SUE SLAMEN: G'day Sue Slamen from Radio Australia with AUSTRALIA NOW.

Our program today is about SUBURBIA - those suburban, residential areas that stretch far beyond the Central Business Districts of Australia's major cities and towns.

While Australians like to think that the bush is at the heart of the country roughly 80 per cent of Australians live in the suburbs…

HUGH MACKAY: "This whole idea that somehow we came out of the bush and then settled in the cities is a contradiction of our history. We began in these coastal towns and settlements, which became cities, and some intrepid pioneers moved out into the rural areas. It's true that in the past the rural population has been somewhat higher than it is now, there's a trickle back to the city. But we've never been a rural people."

SUE SLAMEN: Hugh Mackay is a Sydney-based writer and social researcher whose weekly newspaper columns analyse the latest social trends in contemporary Australia.

He's chosen to write a novel about life in a typical suburban street because like its central character, 'TOM', a Counsellor, Hugh Mackay finds it extraordinary that while most Australians live in the suburbs we tend NOT to celebrate the virtues of suburban living.

HUGH MACKAY: "We seem to denigrate the suburbs and in fact one of the characters in the novel, 'Maddie', who is Tom's secretary has recently sold her suburban house and with her husband moved into an apartment in the central business district, and so like most converts she's a convert to inner city living and is trying to convert Tom as well. And perhaps I could just read an extract from the book where Tom reflects on the pressure that Maddie is putting on him about this:

"Maddie has joined the trendy chorus of people who believe that suburban equals sub-human. The suburbs get a bad rap, which is unfair to the teeming millions of Australians who live in them and who are constantly being told their lives would be richer if only they lived somewhere else. Move into the central business district, get an inner city terrace, give up your garden, better still go bush, get onto acres somewhere and grow something worthwhile, canola maybe or garlic or grapes, anything but the suburbs. People never seem to think of the suburbs as the best of both worlds, only the worst."

SUE SLAMEN: The fact that we haven't really developed any mythology of the suburbs, which after all is very closely tied to the great Australian dream of owning your own home on the quarter acre block and having the freedom of green and open spaces, is that in part because we don't see suburbia as somehow distinctly Australian, whereas we do see the bush as being rather unique to this country?

HUGH MACKAY: Yes I think you've put your finger on one very important fact here that the Australian landscape, Australians are proud of its uniqueness, they're even proud of its hostility, the fact that in so many places rather an inhospitable landscape, but its ours, it's distinctively ours like some aspects of our fauna and flora. So the idea of the land is a very powerful idea for Australians, this continent that we've never really tamed but we crouch on the fringes. That's true, and of course by contrast the suburbs are to some extent like suburbs anywhere, but even that rather overlooks a fact about suburban life in Australia, which is that we are more suburban than most other countries, and that our suburbs are more generously proportioned, that is to say our blocks have historically tended to be larger blocks than most other suburban settings around the world. The Australian dream of what we call it the quarter acre block, most suburban blocks are a little smaller than quarter of an acre, but some are as large as that, but this is really very deep in our national psyche as the way Australians live and in spite of the fact that we denigrate the suburbs and say oh I'm just from the suburbs, you know if you want to denigrate a lawyer you call him a suburban lawyer. In spite of all that we still do strongly aspire, I mean it still is a central dream in the Australian culture the dream of owning your own home and for the vast majority of Australians that means owning your own home in the suburbs."

(SONG)

SUE SLAMEN: So is Australian suburbia any different to American suburbia (satirised by Pete Seeger in that song) or to their British equivalents, the 'Garden Estates'?

Sue Turnbull moved to Australia from Britain in the 1980's and teaches media studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

She believes there IS something unique about Australian suburbia that isn't captured in the TV soap operas or sit-coms that Australia exports to the world.

SUE TURNBULL: "I've had some experiences both the British suburbia and a little of the American suburbia, and I can say that that possibly the Australian is closer to the American because of the sense of space. The British have never had so much space, either in their homes or in their yards, nor have they had the same relationship with outdoor living as Australians have. And Australians are certainly much more relaxed about that relationship between the indoors and the outdoors than even the Americans are. So I think there is something quite specific about the Australian way of life, which I had not really seen on television in a drama series that has really reflected the way in which Australians spread from the house into the garden. And of course that's extremely hard to do in this kind of suburban, in a studio, you can't actually do that relationship between outdoors. But it's one of the features of Australian life which hit me when I arrived in the early '80s, was just simply how much Australians prefer to be outside, because in fact my sense of suburbia is that the suburban house in Australia has changed drastically since the post war years. And now what you have is outdoor entertainment areas, you don't have a garden; you have an outdoor entertainment area. There is a direct relationship between having a kitchen inside and a kitchen outside, another food preparation area in which you entertain and live. So Australians have actually within suburbia they've brought together the ideal of the bush, which is living outside, and the ideal of the city, which is having a retreat from the bush. And in suburbia the two meet perfectly.

SUE SLAMEN: So you can share the Australian dream in your own backyard with your family and friends?

SUE TURNBULL: Absolutely and a high fence so the neighbours can't see you."

GUY HANSEN: "After World War Two there were quite big changes in the pattern of home ownership in urban development in Australia. What today we think of as the Australian dream or what we also often affectionately call the quarter acre block, really started to take off, as there were these large suburban sub-divisions in the big cities across Australia, and people began to really work hard to own their own home. And that actually became a key part of the Australian identity that people had this dream of owning their own home."

SUE SLAMEN: Guy Hansen. From the end of the war through to the early 1960's - 70 per cent of Australians came to own their own homes.

And Guy is a Curator at the National Museum of Australia where you might expect to find things like dinosaur skeletons or old machinery, but in THE NATION GALLERY you'll find instead, rotary clothes lines suspended from the ceiling and a barbeque out the back - symbols of the typical suburban back yard.

And if overseas visitors are a little bemused to walk into a large colourful kitchen within the Museum, Australians - young and old - feel very much at home - in the model 1950's suburban kitchen.

GUY HANSEN: "This is a really interesting space for us because in this kitchen we have a range of information about the history of suburbia and the history of living the Australian way of life. And this kitchen set here becomes kind of like a theatre of memory, people come in with their own memories of growing up in suburbia, an environment which is so evocative for Australians. I mean the thing that's really clear when people come into the kitchen exhibit is that it really triggers their memories and gets them talking about how Australia used to be and how Australia is today.

SUE SLAMEN: Well I notice even the children who are galloping through the 1950s kitchen love opening those red wooden cupboard doors.

"Hey guys, would you like to open some of the cupboards and see what's inside the cupboards and tell me what you make of it?

KIDS: "Yes."

SUE SLAMEN: "And what do we find in the 1950s fridge when we open it?"

KID: "We have got fancy glasses and a coffee machine."

SUE SLAMEN: "Now those fancy glasses belong to a really important Australian, a VIP, a very important person. Do any of you know who that is?"

KID: "Dame Edna Everage."

SUE SLAMEN: "Now what do you know about the dame?"

KID: "She was a housewife on AMP ads."

SUE SLAMEN: "She's done a lot of theatre too. Now can I just ask you all what do you make of this kitchen, is it anything like the kitchens that you have back home?"

KID: " No it's a bit different and old fashioned because the colours are weird and stuff like that yeah. Not in the fashion now, it's sort of changed."

KID: "Also out of date."

SUE SLAMEN: "Now does it surprise you how big this country is, do any of you have a kitchen at home as big as this?"

KID: "I've got a bigger one, bigger."

KID: "Yeah much bigger."

SUE SLAMEN: "Does your family eat in the kitchen?"

KID: "Not in the kitchen, dining room."

SUE SLAMEN: "Does anyone's family eat in the kitchen?"

KID: "Yep, we have a little table where we eat and we've got a bench, like you put the stuff and then just go get your dinner plate and eat on the kitchen bench."

KID: "That's what I have as well."

SUE SLAMEN: "Good place to have a cup of tea?"

KID: "Yeah it's good unless like outside in the sun, that's pretty good too."

SUE SLAMEN: While most Australians have chosen to bring up their families far from the noise and pollution of the cities in 'suburbia' - Australian artists have not found suburban man mowing his quarter acre block with a push along lawnmower any substitute for the heroic figures associated with the bush legend.

Since the 1950s, comedian, Barry Humphries has been drawing laughs at the expense of "Mrs Edna Everage"; his caricature of an 'average suburban housewife'. Now "Dame Edna", 'the housewife/super-star', she's a character who continues to play to audiences in Australia, the United Kingdom and more recently she's taken the USA by storm.

EDNA EVERAGE: "Many people ask me my secret of success, is it in the way I speak or the lovely way I dress? Is it poise or personality, what elusive little facet, let me help you put your finger on my single greatest asset. It's my nice looks, I pride myself on my nice looks…"

SUE SLAMEN: 'Mrs Edna Everage' was modelled on Barry Humphries' mother's generation who made their homes in the suburbs that spread rapidly out from Australian cities and towns in the post-war period.

Contemporary suburbanites can go to the theatre and laugh at "Edna Everage" in the knowledge that she's not really one of them, even though, they too, are living out the Australian Dream on the quarter acre block …

SUE TURNBULL: "The truth of the matter is that most Australians live in the suburbs, though most Australians also often feel very ambivalent about living in the suburbs. There's a sense that suburbs may also be the space of freedom and home ownership, but it's also extremely claustrophobic, it's also the place of the feminine, it is dominated by the woman. And there seems to be a need to get away from the suburbs, as there is a need to get away from your mother.

SUE SLAMEN: Now that of course evokes the image of Australia's most famous housewife, Dame Edna Everage, Barry Humphries's famous figure, which is also endured as a satiric character, but a very domineering character, not all that likeable. How has she endured?

SUE TURNBULL: Well she's endured because I think she stands for that fear of suburbia, I mean she is the thing that you're trying to get away from, the prying, nosey neighbour, the women who knows everything, the woman who won't leave you alone, that has to know everything about your love life and your inside and it's terribly caught up with issues of style and taste. I mean if you think about Dame Edna she is always dressed in the very worst possible taste, and there is also that association with suburbia with issues of class and taste. I myself have a very ambivalent relationship with suburbia, I was born in suburbia and I too wanted to get away from suburbia to go to the city. And having never actually wanted to go back I think this is for a lot of people there is a moment in their lives when they possibly retreat to suburbia when they want to bring up children as the safe place. But for many of us it's still the place where you have to escape from.

SUE SLAMEN: Well Barry Humphries the creator of the famous housewife Dame Edna did escape, he is an expatriate who's lived outside of Australia for a long time. Have characters like Dame Edna Everage and his Sandy Stone, the digger, have they reached their use by date do you think?

SUE TURNBULL: I think Dame Edna and Sandy Stone are not relevant to today's generation at all. I think the kind of suburban figures that are relevant to today's generation are the characters like 'Kath and Kim' in the ABC, well it's not a soap opera, it's not a strict situation comedy, there's a whole new hybrid genre of comedy, and 'Kath and Kim' is kind of based on a reality TV setup, and you can see quite clearly its origins in a series like the documentary of the early 1990s 'Sylvania Waters'. It's about a family living in the suburbs and there are moments when Kath the mother addresses the camera in the way that Noelene did in 'Sylvania Waters', and makes some kind of complaint direct to camera. So there is every now and again a reminder that this is a documentary but it's also a sitcom, so it's a sit-sat mocumentary, is what I would call it. But 'Kath and Kim' are clearly the perodic(?) figures of suburban life for the now

generation."

(extract from 'Kath and Kim')

SUE TURNBULL: "I think that crass, 'crass and Kim', which is a nice sort of little Freudian slip there, because that's possibly how they appear, 'Kath and Kim' are exactly what we have to distance ourselves from. It's a whole question of choice and Australians are so into lifestyle, and you've only got to open every magazine and newspaper and realise that we're constantly being presented with notions of lifestyle. You go into a doctor's waiting room and the little table maybe contains some women's magazines, but to a large extent it's all about Home Beautiful. And Australians are constantly being reminded even in their reality entertainment shows, things that are on about the house the whole time. Burkes Backyard was the first, we now have things like Backyard Blitz, Home Improvements, everybody is concerned with improving their house, and on television we're constantly being given advice in terms of style. And what 'Kath and Kim' does is actually show the obverse, it shows what happens if you don't get the right people in to do your home makeover. So it's like the television is policing style and taste and telling us what is funny when we err."

SUE SLAMEN: Dr Sue Turnbull who teaches about television at La Trobe University in Melbourne, and KATH AND KIM has been one of the ABC's top rating TV shows with a sequel in the pipeline.

You're listening to AUSTRALIA NOW from Radio Australia - Program 5 - SUBURBIA.

Post war migrants to Australia were also looking for security and stability and owning your own home became a key goal for new arrivals.

Barry York was three when his parents migrated to Melbourne in 1954.

His Maltese father and English mother were keen to get out of the smog of London and start life afresh in a young country where there was plenty of work.

But while Australians were building their dream homes in the suburbs, new arrivals had to do it tough before they, too, could afford a home of their own.

BARY YORK: "People often forget that for all the talk of the golden 1950's in Australia there was still a lot of hardship, especially for people who didn't own their home, for newly arrived migrants in particular accommodation was a major problem. We initially lived in Port Melbourne with my uncle Joe and his little cottage there in Hawk Street had so many Maltese people just off the boat, you know they'd go and stay with him and his wife Daisy. But it wasn't something that could be long-term. So we unfortunately ended up my mother says for the first 21 months in Australia from 1954 to 1955-56, we unfortunately had a succession of boarding house accommodations, usually that meant one room for an entire family and sharing of facilities like kitchen and toilet and bathroom and so on. But certainly when we got here I know that my father and mother both worked a lot of overtime and the ethic that I grew up with was that don't worry about holidays, don't worry about buying a car, just pay off the house, above all else every cent you get pay off the house as soon as you can because then you have security. Failure to obtain one's own home would have made the whole migration experience not worthwhile."

SUE SLAMEN: Suburban streets like the Shamrock Street of Barry York's childhood came to include representatives of each new wave of immigration to Australia…

BARY YORK: "In Shamrock Street where I was for nearly 30 years we experienced pretty much every major wave of immigration, we were part of the early 50s wave, which was mainly English and southern European, Greek, Italian, Maltese. There were also some Latvian family in our street and a Dutch family. The Australians tended to be the old Irish Australian battlers who had struggled through the Depression, and we were all pretty much what you'd call lower socio-economic category and in a way that is what created the sense of unity, I think people basically got on despite where they came from. There were some who were a bit racist, but on the whole when you're all worried about paying off the house or paying the next bill, after time you don't care so much whether somebody is Sicilian or Latvian. Later in the 1970s the Turkish people and Lebanese and a small number of Vietnamese also moved into Brunswick and around Shamrock Street. I think up until the early 80s it wasn't an expensive place, it wasn't a greatly sort after location, and so even in the 1980s the west part of Brunswick, you know your school had a microcosm of the different lower socio-economic groups in the wider society."

SUE SLAMEN: As middle and upper class professionals discovered the convenience of living close to the Central Business District in inner suburbs like Melbourne's Brunswick where Barry York grew up - the cost of inner-suburban houses has soared.

And Hugh Mackay makes the point that younger Australians are choosing to rent in these inner suburbs until they're well into their thirties before they move to the outer suburbs where they can afford a house and a garden.

HUGH MACKAY: "It's getting harder for the offspring of parents who've always lived in those cities to afford housing where they would like to live, which might be the sort of stamping ground of their childhood. They may have to move out towards the fringes or new subdivisions or beyond the metropolitan area into some nearby coastal area. But there's another trend operating as well, which is that among younger Australians even without the economic factor weighing as heavily as it does, there does seem to be an emotional shift taking place, which is that more and more young people are postponing the idea of buying their own home, so they're moving often into their thirties before they contemplate the idea of the first mortgage. Where their parents were contemplating that and in fact doing it ten years younger. It'll be the birth of the first child that will drive these renters to become buyers and they might be renting in the suburbs, they're more likely to be renting in the sort of inner city areas, they'll now start looking to the suburbs as the place to create this quintessentially Australian environment for raising children."

SUE SLAMEN: If the suburban way of life has remained a constant in post-war Australia, the composition of Australian households and family size has changed markedly.

These demographic changes are reflected in Hugh Mackay's novel, WINTER CLOSE….

HUGH MACKAY: "This is Tom reflecting on some of his neighbours in Winter Close: "Sitting on my balcony at dusk Christmas lights already winking from the windows of the Ables and the Ngwins(?), and our street party only a week away, it would be easy to become sentimental about the close, the curious collection of people who live here form the closest thing any of us has to a domestic herd. Being alone in the world is a melodramatic way of putting it, many people survive perfectly well without a family context. As the birth rate plummets many more people will have to get used to that idea. But I doubt we'll become a nation of reclusives, the more we live in ones and twos, the more herd instinct will assert itself. Riches'(?) longed for village will become a widespread reality in suburbs like ours. If the extended family isn't going to be the herd we graze and mooch with, we'll have to create our own substitutes. For some of my friends it's the work group, for me it's Winter Close, these are my people now. I didn't say friends, I said my people, like families, you can't choose your neighbours."

SUE SLAMEN: Hugh Mackay whose novel 'Winter Close' is set in suburbia.

Join me next time on AUSTRALIA NOW for WHERE THE JOBS ARE - till then it's bye from me - Sue Slamen.