“No Worries” – Reflections on a Trip to Australia

When a dear friend recently invited us to visit her in Sydney, Australia, I came expecting to hear the phrase, “G’Day, Mate,” repeated on a daily basis.  But while I was in fact greeted more than once with that hallowed phrase, I was surprised by how much more often I heard another, entirely different phrase: “No worries.”  Whenever I thanked any person for a helpful answer to a rudimentary question, such as, “Which is the right platform for the train to Lorne?” I invariably received a single, unequivocal response.  “No worries,” the agent said, giving me a big smile. People told me “No worries” so many times, in response to so many unrelated questions, that I began to think of it as a sort of Australian national motto, and a good one at that.

“No worries” means there is nothing to worry about, which in turn implies that Australians are essentially unconcerned that the trains might not be running on time.  On the contrary, not only do they appear confident in the promptness of trains, but I got the distinct impression that many if not most of them believe that their society is functioning as it should.  While this perception could be no more than the illusion of an American traveler passing only briefly through Australia, it was nevertheless my big take-away.  “No worries!” 

“No worries” has an inclusive quality that its counterpart American phrase, “No problem,” lacks.  When an American thanks a customer service representative for resolving some thorny issue with his phone bill or internet service, and the representative responds by saying “No problem,” it does not imply that there are no problems in the world; only that he or she ‘did not have a problem’ resolving that one small matter.  “No problem” is reductive, whereas “No worries” is expansive – its assertive confidence balloons from a comment on the matter at hand to encompass an opinion about the entire society.  And, as I said, when the happy phrase is spoken, it almost always comes with a big smile.

My husband, Dennis, and I spent only three and a half weeks in Australia, but it was long enough to leave the impression that Australians generally like each other.  They seem to enjoy one another’s company; they are not at each other’s throats or up in each other’s faces the way Americans so often are these days.  To offer one small example, at home in Seattle, we are plagued by ‘The Seattle Freeze.’  The Seattle Freeze is a very personal, physical expression of what the pundits call ‘cancel culture.’   It occurs when you’re walking down the street, and you stop to greet a passer-by with a “hello” or “good morning.”  Even though you expect him to return the greeting, nine times out of ten he will walk by you without so much as a word or even a glance in your direction.  The Freezer, if we choose to call him that, is simply too busy looking down at his feet or his phone to bother acknowledging your existence.  By contrast, when I swam my laps at the Ryde Aquatic Center in Sydney’s western suburbs, the woman who shared my lane smiled at me and said, “We’re well matched to swim together!”  In thirty years of swimming in Seattle’s YMCAs, exactly nobody has told me anything like that.

To put it another way, Australia felt to Dennis and me like a normal country, and these days, America feels anything but normal.  What if we Americans could like each other again?  What would it take?  What if instead of Blue America and Red America, we were one nation divided not socially but only geographically, in the same way Australia is divided by the coastal plane and the Outback?  As of this writing, that is no more than an aspirational dream, but now that I have traveled Down Under and seen it with my own eyes, my hope for America is that we eventually become more like Australia.  How ironic that a country founded by convicts deported from England would end up feeling freer and more light-hearted than America!

There is so much to enjoy.  Sydney is like London with good weather.  Its modern skyscrapers share the streets with beautiful classical buildings carved from the ubiquitous orange sandstone of Sydney’s oceanside bluffs.  There is an undeniable British influence in its world-class botanical garden and in the way its Hyde Park interlocks with the ‘CBD,’ or Central Business District, so reminiscent of the way Mayfair intersects with the original Hyde Park in London.  And can we talk about Sydney Harbor?  One explorer referred to it as the best natural harbor in the world, and that doesn’t surprise me, because the harbor spreads inland from the Pacific for miles upon miles, punctuated by myriad small, protected bays and minor capes or peninsulas.  It has often been said that Sydney has more than 100 beaches, which means that it also has more than 100 bays and inlets.

Among Sydney’s great delights is the opportunity to embark on one of the many walk-on passenger ferries that depart from Circular Quay.  Sandwiched between the iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge, Circular Quay is the epicenter of Sydney, but I had to ask myself, ‘why is it called Circular Quay?’  There is nothing circular about it today; in fact, it is an embankment as rigidly rectangular as a railway terminal, except that instead of having perpendicular train platforms, it boasts a series of parallel ferry piers, each with its own destination.  A quick Google search reveals that in 1837, the quay debuted as a semi-circular stone bulwark constructed on mudflats by convict laborers.  If it isn’t a circular quay today, it was then.

From Circular Quay, you can take a ferry to the zoo or, as we did, to Woolwich, in the western suburbs and, on another day, to the beguiling Mosman Bay, east of downtown.  As the boat hums along, we were treated first to outstanding views of the Opera House, and later to a constellation of the myriad upscale residences and apartment houses that cascade cheek by jowl down the undulating sandstone bluffs lining Sydney Harbor.  As our Sydneysider friend, Marilyn, explained, “Everybody wants to live near the water.”  It’s a sentiment completely familiar to Seattleites, as was her follow-up comment, “That’s why homes are so expensive here.”  Indeed, during our visit, a four-bedroom house owned by one of Marilyn’s friends sold for $4.7 million Australian, which in spite of the favorable US dollar exchange rate, means that Sydney has an affordability problem rivaling Seattle’s.

Dennis and I weren’t Down Under long enough to find out what young Sydneysiders think about their chances of buying a house, but as I mentioned, the prevailing mood we witnessed everywhere can best be encapsulated by the ubiquitous phrase, “No worries!”  On several occasions, we took the #506 bus back to Marilyn’s place from crowded Park Street, next to Town Hall, in the heart of the CBD.  During the peak hours of the afternoon, Transport for New South Wales employees stand on the curb, loudly announcing the number of each bus as it approaches, so that passengers milling on the sidewalk know exactly when and where to queue for the bus they need. 

Once we boarded the 506, we couldn’t help but notice that every time it stopped, each departing passenger would say “thank you” to the driver.  They said “thank you” even when leaving by the back door, from which I doubted the driver could hear their salutations.  That friendliness and courteousness impressed me, but it was even more impressive when a middle-aged lady with light-brown hair, one of the transport employees on Park Street, told Dennis and me, “Oh, I remember you were right here yesterday afternoon!”  And she said it with a friendly smile.  “No worries, mate!”

Be on the lookout for more about our Australia visit in my next post!