Culture Shock! Australia: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! Australia) | 
 enlarge | Author: Ilsa Sharp
Publisher: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 1134473
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 420
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 4.9 x 1
ISBN: 1558689257
Dewey Decimal Number: 910
EAN: 9781558689251
ASIN: 1558689257
Publication Date: November 30, 2005
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Book Description
Whether you're conducting business, traveling for pleasure, or even relocating abroad, one mistake with customs or etiquette can leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth. International travelers, now more than ever, are not just individuals from the United States, but ambassadors and impression makers for the country as a whole. Newly updated, redesigned, and resized for maximum shelf appeal for travelers of all ages, Culture Shock! country and city guides make up the most complete reference series for customs and etiquette you can find. These are not just travel guides; these are guides for a way of life.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Did not recieve the book January 12, 2007
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have not recieved the book at all
regards
Bhaskar Poojary
 Outdated info, more interesting from historical perspective December 30, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
First off, it's difficult writing any book that generalizes about a country and culture so hats off to the author for trying. The info is probably more relevant to someone going to Western Australia 5-10yrs ago. I moved from Vancouver, Canada to Sydney, Australia to live and find the info mostly outdated. Some of the cultural conflicts such as misunderstanding what it means to be invited for tea are more applicable to the older generation. Sydney is a fast paced city of 4million. The younger generation, under 40, are very similar to people in Canada/US/UK. If you're coming from a Western english speaking nation, I don't believe this book is going to be your assimilation bible. If you're coming from a non-Western culture, I think you'll be better off reading Australian newspapers and watching Hollywood movies. You'll get along fine in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane - never been to Westcoast but I assume Perth or any other modern Australian city will be the same.
 A Guide To The People And Culture Of Australia September 8, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Culture Shock! Australia: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette" by Ilsa Sharp is a guidebook to living in Australia. This book is not a travel guide, but rather a guide to the people and culture of the country. The main audience for this would be someone who intends to spend a lot of time in Australia, but it can also help business travelers, and even tourists.
I know someone who just moved to Australia from Asia, and from what I have been able to determine, this guide appears to be fairly accurate. I am looking forward to my visit there, which should also give me a better idea on just how accurate it is. Be sure to get the latest edition, as it was updated in 2005 and it is clear from my reading that there were substantial updates.
The author, Ilsa Sharp, migrated to Western Australia, and that personal experience clearly was a big asset to her in putting this book together. I did sense a bit of a bias towards Western Australia in her examples. To be fair, I was more interested in Eastern Australia, and so the bias may have been in my reading as well. In either case, she certainly does try to cover most of the country, and if I were to pick the one area where there was the least amount of information it would be Tasmania.
The book is broken down into 10 sections. These include a quick introduction, followed by basic information. Next is a discussion of the people, the society, and moving there. It then gets to some more specific areas such as food, entertainment, slang, and business. It then finishes with an A to Z section covering many basic facts about the country, some key figures both historical and modern, and it even has a short culture quiz.
As someone from the United States, this book is probably not as useful to me as it would be to someone coming from a much different culture. Not to say that Australia is just like the United States, but clearly the two are much closer than people from other countries from Asia and the Middle East. Even so, I think the book was fairly useful in understanding some of the societal differences between the two countries. This is one book that is easy to recommend.
Interesting info, but painful writing style September 26, 2004
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book does contain some interesting information on Australian culture, and on what makes Aussies tick. But I found the writing style to be particularly annoying; even painful. The Australia book available within the "Culture Smart" series, while offering less detail than this book, is far easier on the eyes and mind.
Enjoyable but dated January 5, 2004
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
An American friend, five years in Australia, lent me her 1999 version of this book. I've been here two years, from England, so I found it interesting. I agree that it has been inconsistently updated, and the Australia of 1991 seems to have been different in many ways to the Australia of 2004. Also, life in Perth must be different to that in Brisbane, where I live, 2,700 miles away. For a start, they play Australian football (and soccer) whereas Rugby League is the main game here.It would be highly surprising if the author's views/perceptions and mine tallied 100%, but in fact they do quite a lot. I was interested, for example, in her correct perception of sport being a good conversation topic, not least at dinner parties. Coming from a somewhat bourgeois part of the south of England, I found that a most refreshing change. One problem the book has is that it sets out to be amusing (successfully) and serious: on tax for example. For the serious side, some of the drier books on living and working in Australia, or emigrating here, are better. Finally, I found myself liking the author and her style. She comes across as pleasant and with a light touch.
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