CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact
A local suburban mother of three has today debuted supreme cultural sensitivity by talking to the waitress in a way that she’ll be able to understand.
Local bank teller, Shannon Hayes understands that conversational Australia English can be confusing for migrant hospitality workers, that’s why she speaks in a weird as fuck hybrid of English and what she believes to be an Indian accent.
“Can we hava chick-un ti-ka ma-sa-la” she asks, politely.
“And-uh do-uh you-uh have some-uh naan bread”
The waitress, a 25-year-old Australian-born medical student, Aanya, says the relatively new phenomenon of Australians presuming that brown people can’t understand them is probably a generation too late.
“When my parents first opened up this place they couldn’t speak a lick of english and people used to come in and ask them to ‘whip up some curried sausages’ – as though they knew what the fuck that meant”
“A generation later, my parents are speaking fluent English and all of a sudden now the customers decide to speak slowly”
“Nowadays they come in here and order authentic cuisine in weird accents”
While Shannon tip toes around pronunciations, the waitress pretends to be just as unassimilated as Shannon thinks she is.
“She didn’t need to do the head wobble.” says Aanya.
