A Canadian who regularly travels to Australia has issued a warning to those planning to travel Down Under.
Chris Zou said Australians have a brazen habit of ‘trolling’ tourists with lies about the country.
The traveler said an Australian friend successfully convinced him on a previous trip that koalas were poisonous and warned other tourists not to fall for other tricks.
“For anyone planning to visit Australia in the future, I would like to heed a word of caution,” Chris said in an email video.
“Take what Australians say with a pinch of salt because for some reason trolling tourists is one of their favorite things to do.”
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Chris Zou has traveled from Canada to Australia several times this year and is warning other visitors. He said Australians like to ‘troll’ tourists and he has fallen for their tricks
The Canadian said he is about to visit Australia for the third time this year and is determined not to fall for any local tricks.
“You know how in almost any other country, if someone says something wrong about that country, everyone in that country will correct that misinformation?” he asked.
“For some reason, Australians don’t really like that so they just want to play along with the misinformation.”
The first time Chris and his partner came to Australia, they wanted to see if the rumor that the toilet flushed in the opposite direction to that in the Northern Hemisphere was true.
“The water turns exactly the same way it does here and we stared at each other wondering why anyone would come up with this?” he remembered.
The last time Chris came to Australia, an Australian friend told him a lie that he later shared with his 304,800 TikTok followers.
“I was talking to an Australian friend of mine, or someone I thought was a friend, and he casually threw in that you can’t eat a koala because they’re poisonous,” he explained.
A friend of Chris convinced him that Koalas could not be eaten because they were poisonous. Chris shared the ‘fact’ on TikTok and sent thousands into hysterics (stock image)
The TikToker shared his new information online, leaving hundreds of Australians in stitches.
“The comments section was full of Australians saying, ‘There goes our people again, we’re cheating the tourist, we’re so funny,'” he said.
‘I wonder: why would my boyfriend lie about this? Why would he be okay with me making a fool of myself in front of hundreds of thousands of people?’
Chris also complained about the way Australians speak in a ‘confusing’ way, particularly those who say ‘Yes, no’ or ‘No, yes’.
“The conversation goes on and on and then I sit there like a damn idiot wondering, did he mean yes or did he mean no?” he said.
He ended by asking his Australian followers about the recent news that the University of Melbourne will host a ‘Swiftposium’ academic conference to discuss Taylor Swift’s impact on culture and the economy.
Australian viewers found Chris’s experiences hysterical and others shared their own Australian ‘facts’.
‘I laughed so hard at this. We’re excited to fully explore these ideas. ‘My Australian friend said this, is it true?’. Other Aussies: “Sure,” said one user.
‘Sarcasm is our unofficial language. We also get overexcited by tourists because they have to travel so far here,” explains a second.
“The money in Australia is called dollarydoos,” a third joked.
‘All true. Sorry. But watch out for the drop bears if you go to Melbourne,” a fourth added.
Others have cleared up the confusion about the way Australians speak.
“The ‘yes’ part is you acknowledge what you’re saying or what your position is. The ‘nah’ is the answer or reaction. Works the same opposite,” said one opinion.
‘Yes no’ means no. “No yes means yes,” another agreed.