Before we left San Francisco to move to Perth, I had a few Target Episodes. These moments of panic involved a sudden urge to drive to Colma, wander the aisles with an oversized red shopping cart, and grab things we might need living outside of the United States. Because you never know. I could be stranded on a desert island without laundry baskets, tank tops or chenille throw blankets. A few days before our flight, I called my mother, exasperated after an unsuccessful search for flip-flops. My mother reminded me sweetly, “They probably sell flip-flops in Perth,” when she may have been thinking, “You are moving to a beach town during their summer season. Why are you so dumb?”
Although yes, I am stranded on a desert island, Australia has plenty of laundry baskets and flip-flops. Incidentally, flip-flops are called thongs, which means that if I’m looking to buy sandals for my daughters, I feel like a pervert.
Napkins are serviettes, trashcans are rubbish bins, and life is familiar yet slightly off. Twice a day I walk to and from the girls’ school. The streets in our neighborhood are quiet and tree-lined. I could be in Brookline or San Mateo – but only for a moment. Soon enough I spot majestic gum trees, street signs in Mildly Foreign font, and tan people wearing thongs. Magpies zoom through the air. I open my wallet and find play money. I forget to look to the right when I step off the curb.
YouTube now makes me sit through Australian ads. Yesterday I met an Aussie who is moving to San Francisco in July. She told me she can’t wait for American commercials. “I know it’s silly, but I just love American advertising. It’s so peculiar and seems fake.”
Countries around the world employ two kinds of props departments – the ones that place familiar objects in unfamiliar settings (Coke bottles in a South African township) and the ones that place unfamiliar objects in familiar settings (kookaburras in my swimming pool).
When I started middle school in 1984, things didn’t seem all that different from my old school. Then I discovered powdered hand soap in the bathroom. This soap is like sand. Every time I rubbed that coarse grit between my palms, I was reminded of my new life.
In 2005, I moved to Singapore, where everything looked, smelled and sounded foreign. Sleepwalking in an air-conditioned mall one day with my two-month old baby, I did a double take at a health food store window. There was my favorite peanut butter brand MaraNatha – made in Ashland, Oregon – in the middle of a mall in Southeast Asia. Well done, Singapore Props, well done.
Apparently there is a Target in Perth.
