Question for the Australians here

[blum]

Hi there,

I`m from Germany and visited Perth a view months ago. I used trains and busses often and was also often in the city. In all my time there I saw not one person blowing his or her nose. Instead there were many people with colds sniffing all the time and sometimes very loudly. I never knew that noseblowing was considered rude there. In the supermarkets they sale many sorts tissues with clearly references to use them for blowing the nose. So how is it with noseblowing there? Is it completely unacceptable or are there different stages (for example you shouldn`t blow your nose in the train, but you can do it in the classroom or something like that)?

Always interesting to study other cultures

Greetings

[stephab13]

Heya! Hope you enjoyed Australia!

I've never been to Perth, but here in Melbourne we seem to have two sets of people: those that are too embarrassed to blow their nose, and those that get horribly annoyed with said group because the constant sniffling drives them nuts. It really depends on the person though... Me, I'll try to be quiet and not distracting, so I try not to sniff or do anything. If I need to blow my nose then I'll go to the toilet to do so unless it's really unavoidable. But I do have a few friends that'll just grab some tissues, walk over to the bin and blow their nose there. And I have one friend that just sits where he is and does it... which is horribly distracting. But anyhoo.

Does that help?

... Also, if you were here in cold/flu season, people might have been a bit more reluctant to blow their nose because of the whole appearing-sick thing. I don't know why we're so scared of that, but anyway

[blum]

On 23.12.2015 at 3:21 AM, stephab13 said:

Heya! Hope you enjoyed Australia!

I've never been to Perth, but here in Melbourne we seem to have two sets of people: those that are too embarrassed to blow their nose, and those that get horribly annoyed with said group because the constant sniffling drives them nuts. It really depends on the person though... Me, I'll try to be quiet and not distracting, so I try not to sniff or do anything. If I need to blow my nose then I'll go to the toilet to do so unless it's really unavoidable. But I do have a few friends that'll just grab some tissues, walk over to the bin and blow their nose there. And I have one friend that just sits where he is and does it... which is horribly distracting. But anyhoo.

Does that help?

... Also, if you were here in cold/flu season, people might have been a bit more reluctant to blow their nose because of the whole appearing-sick thing. I don't know why we're so scared of that, but anyway

Hey thanks for your answer and sorry that I reply so late  In Perth I could always recognice people from europe, because they blew ther nose everywhere; that was really funny. But it would make sence that most people just dont blow their noses in public and only in private places

[paris5]

On 12/24/2015 at 1:21 PM, stephab13 said:

I've never been to Perth, but here in Melbourne we seem to have two sets of people: those that are too embarrassed to blow their nose, and those that get horribly annoyed with said group because the constant sniffling drives them nuts.

I completely agree with this! 

I dont think it is considered rude here at all  For me, I've always been to scared to blow my nose around anyone and I'm sure lots of people are the same. But definitely in Melbourne/Sydney on the trains and at school or university, there are people who seem to have no fear or embarrassment whatsoever when it comes to blowing their noses! 

I dont know how they do it, but it's definitely great to observe....