Their loss. Plenty of great turns to be had in and out of bounds.

YEP. We've all heard about that incident, it's the most commonly told story.
'drunk Aussie steals snow plow' It gets back to my point about a few incidents getting more attention than they deserve.
Don't forget, the Japanese are just as good at spotting arseholes as us.

I think the story has been getting embellished a little though Mantas. I don't recall anyone getting locked up for it.

Not all of us are doing lines and fighting at Wild Bills, although my then 10yr old got grabbed and pushed to the ground by a drunk Aussie who was verbally razzing the group of kids (who razzed back), and my guy was the slowest . I had to grab the bloke by the arm and firmly ask him if he was proud of attacking a 10 yr old child, did it make him feel like a man? He tried to take me on - what kind of a man wants to go a round with a woman. There are always KNOBS - but boardbaka - honest we are not all idiots! (BTW-I dealt with that on my own because my hubby was inside drinking...so I DO hope he was on HIS best behaviour after I left!!!!)

Gosh Mamabear, this is just plain shocking and wrong.
How low can they go ??? Attack a 10 yr old and then have a go at mum!
I can't believe the number of bad incidents that happened to you over there and how you always manage to stay positive!
I almost get the feeling that this type of incident is considered as banal given the people you end-up interacting with.
I wish you could have gone to the local police box (wake-up the Gaijin working who is apparently bored cos nothing happens) and file a complaint for assault against this knob.
Sadly the revival of this discussion has just made me push back my visit of N another 10 years, which means I will be 120 years old now by the time I make it there.

The Kiwis in Wanaka and Queenstown behave a lot worse than the visiting Aussies. The streets of Queenie on the weekend can seem like Beirut at times.

MP they worked for a large company up there and they said no one was skiing. Maybe you were but their company wasnt!

Gee not sure how we are going to survive without you coming here Serre! Please, please come! We're really struggling up here and need all the support we can get...

SerreChe,
Honestly it wasn't that bad. If it got bad I would have dragged hubby out of the bar to sort it out.
It was just an example of a young bloke drinking too much - and being a d*ck. When he woke up in the morning he would have felt like a complete knob! No harm done - the boy was a bit freaked that he had been manhandled by someone twice his size, but I would never have let him come to grief. The kicker was it was one of the other boys in our group (NOT one of mine) who was being mouthy back and forth with this fellow - but he was too fast for the drunk dude to catch.
And you know - that incident was 60 seconds outside Wild Bills, at an hour that we SHOULD have all been in bed already. On the whole I felt WAY safer letting the kids cruise around the village than I do letting them hang out in Perth or Fremantle! There is always one or two incidents when you spend 3 weeks in a party/holiday environment...but those incidents don't define the vacation - it is the many many hours of fun, laughter and great times you have - not to mention the 100 fantastic people you meet for every loser.

Mamabear, glad the positives far outweighted the negatives in the end.

more on the positives - across from where we were staying the snow plows had piled a mountain of snow, something like 5-8m high. this pile of snow was adjacent to a largish apartment block. One evening a bunch of kids (probably about 8 or 10 of them) were playing on this snow mountain thingy when they found themselves in a snow ball fight with the occupants of a couple of the apartments. the kids were hurling snowballs up at the balconies as fast as they could and the people on the balconies were sending them back down just as fast. I don't think the groups knew each other. It was great to see people just having some fun and all enjoying being in the snow.

Yeah, I'll go in to bat for the Aussies.

Overall, I think the Australians in Niseko are very respectful of the locals and their culture.

Most of the "incidents" are extremely inconsequential and are just cases of people having a good time. I've seen as many instances of Japanese people being rude as I have Australians ( few in both cases).
A lot of this is IMO , the locals labelling the Australians
" barbarian gaijin", when they are in fact just pissed off that they are actually there.

The Australians are very sensitive to the local sentiment and from what I've seen , bend over backwards not to offend anyone.

A couple of Japanese guys mooned us when we were standing outside a bar. We thought it was funny and so did they. But I can't help feeling that if it had been a couple of young Aussies doing it and someone else had seen it , everyone would be doing the old "tut-tut, uncouth Aussie " thing.

There's no question that Aussies are more ready to get physically agressive than the Japanese, but I've not heard of an Australian threatening a local. Anyone who thinks that the Japanese don't binge drink to extremes hasn't been to Tokyo on any given weeknight.

The Australian developments have definitely improved the village( i'm not a developer). Most of the potential problems stem from the lax/previously non-existent planning laws. The locals can solve that easily - it would be welcomed by Japanese and Australians alike.

Interestingly, when the Japanese influx occurred in Australia in the 80's and early 90's , some Aussies got annoyed and were very quickly labelled racists. The Japanese companies played the racist card early and played it well. Now, when the reverse happens, the Japanese get annoyed by the influx , but noone labels them racist - we all go along with their criticisms - it's a cultural cringe.

Australians have a fine track record of treating people equally and with respect. The fact that the Australians get on well with the Japanese is a testament to the good nature of both "sides". Aussies have a few rough edges and have a tendency to make "wise-cracks" but they are good people , and they're fun.

Never had a bad incident with Aussies in Japan. Everyone I met from Oz was nice, friendly, and respectful (with the exception of a group in the gondy at Sahoro who were polite but emotionless and berift of personality - they probably just didn't like my snowboard). I don't hang out in/near the bars though, and that's probably where the highest potential for "bad interaction" with any nationality is.

(In Hawaii however...)

From 2 and 3 years ago (when I was there) I dodn't notice it any worse than what we are used to in Oz (Or at least no worse than what goes on during Country Music Festival, anyway ).

There are always a few f*wits (of almost any nationality) who cannot be assed being normal - realise thay are away from home (and the civilising influence of familial expectations) and get totally wasted and act the total idiot!

On the whole, though, the aussies act civilly, same as most other nationalities.

FWIW I believe that for the most part, the problem with the off the wall behaviour in Niseko (and Japan in general) is more to do with a lack of sensitivity for the culture of Japan than anything else. Tose of us who try to understand the people, the language and the society would never behave the same as we do in Oz, it just wouldn't be right!

For instance - I live near a major regional town (population about what a small town in Japan would be) - the difference is that I have no neighbours for more than a kilometer in any direction (and about 4km in one direction), whereas few Japanese people live that far from neighbours. This, alone, makes for a significant difference in the way we behave in company of others.

"For instance - I live near a major regional town (population about what a small town in Japan would be) - the difference is that I have no neighbours for more than a kilometer in any direction (and about 4km in one direction), whereas few Japanese people live that far from neighbours. This, alone, makes for a significant difference in the way we behave in company of others."

I don't understand this, does it mean that your rude tolerance higher?

Maybe just that when he is in Oz he can afford to not worry about the telly blaring or playing loud music or of those family wrestling bouts in the back yard as the closest neighbours are so far away. But when he comes to Japan, as he is undoubtedably nicer and more caring of local customs, he changes his behaviour with the proximity of his neighbours in mind. Some other less sensitive and intelligent people may fail to see the difference about how far your neighbours are and so continue to make a racket like they are 3 cities away, when in fact they are often a paper screen away!

JA I'm interested in how you would, in a broad sense, define Japanese culture. And what parts of Japanese culture do you feel Aussies most disregard?

thursday,
What it means is that we do not have to be so careful not to upset the neighbours, since they are not living next door through a single wall.

The fact is, though, that there is always somewhere anyone in Oz can get to where there is plenty of space around you.

GN,
I think that the majority of Aussies have very little concept of the interpersonal relationships that MUST happen in Japan for the place to operate! Population density changes the way people can interact without offending others.

The idea of deference and social level as the basis on which the language is constructed is significantly outside the experience of many, and there is a world of difference between the way aussies behave and the way the Japanese behave (as I know you have seen for yourself.)

JA I don't disagree with all you are saying but on the whole when Japanese go out to have a good time, I don't see a whole lot of differences between us and them. And to be honest I don't think the Japanese expect us to know all the nuances of their culture. In fact they expect us to be significantly different and ignorant and are very surprised when we do know a thing or two. Without doubt though having some understanding of the culture and language will help our hosts think more favourably of us and enhance our own experience.

I don't believe though that respect of Japanese culture has much to do with any of the problems experienced in Niseko. In my opinion those few troublemakers who make their way here each season are generally acting in ways that would be disrespectful in any culture, anywhere. My point being it's not a culture specific thing. These people just don't have respect for others, regardless of what country they are in.