There are not many countries that come with as many clear, specific images in the Japanese mind as Australia does.
Kangaroos, koalas, Ayers Rock, Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns, the Gold Coast, and Aussie Beef.
Studying abroad, working holidays, rugby, surfing, the Sydney Opera House, and the Great Barrier Reef.
Ask Japanese people what comes to mind when they hear “Australia,” and quite a few words can come out very quickly.
The flag is also widely recognized. Even without knowing much about Australian history, people can see the Union Jack in the corner and assume that the country has deep historical ties with Britain. Many also know that the Australian and New Zealand flags look similar.
Another word that is surprisingly familiar in Japan is “Aussie.”
One major reason is Aussie Beef.
Australian beef had already been imported into Japan before then, but after Japan fully liberalized beef imports in 1991, the name “Aussie Beef” began to be marketed much more aggressively to Japanese consumers.
It appeared repeatedly in television commercials and gradually became a completely normal term in supermarkets and restaurants.
As a result, many Japanese people understand that “Aussie” means Australian even if they do not remember ever learning the word in an English class.
When you think about it, that is quite unusual.
People in Japan do not normally talk about “English beef” or “Chinese beef” in the same way. Yet “Aussie Beef” became almost like a product name of its own in Japanese.
In other words, part of the reason Japanese people know the word “Aussie” is not because they studied Australian English. It is because they saw it in television commercials and in the meat section of supermarkets.
Food also brings up images of barbecues, and some people may think of fish and chips or meat pies.
Another major reason Australia feels close to Japan is studying abroad and working holidays.
It is not only about long-term study. Once short language programs and homestays are included, it is not unusual to hear that someone went to Australia as a student, that a friend studied there, or that someone they know lived there on a working holiday.
Like Canada, Australia is one of the countries Japanese people often think of as somewhere you might live for a while while studying English.
The time difference from Japan is relatively small, yet the seasons are reversed because Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere.
When it is winter in Japan, it is summer in Australia. The idea of Christmas in the middle of summer is also something Japanese people often hear when Australia is discussed.
Above all, Australia has an image of being vast.
Uluru, the Outback, endless roads and railway lines, enormous stretches of dry land, and horizons that seem to go on forever.
For people who love travel, crossing the continent by car or train, or traveling from north to south, can feel like something worth doing at least once.
Australia has the appeal of a country where simply moving across the vast landscape can become the journey itself.
Sport is another major part of its image.
Australia has long been seen as a strong rugby nation, and soccer has also become familiar because Australia and Japan have faced each other many times. Some Japanese soccer fans will also remember Shinji Ono playing for an Australian club.
There is also an unforgettable Australian connection in Japanese rugby.
At the 2015 Rugby World Cup, Japan defeated South Africa in a match that became a huge national story. Even people who rarely watched rugby were drawn into it.
The coach of that Japanese team, Eddie Jones, is Australian.
In Japan, he is so strongly remembered as the man who coached the national team that some people may know his name without ever really thinking of him as Australian.
Australia also has a strong image as a Summer Olympics powerhouse, especially in swimming.
Ask Japanese people to name an Australian swimmer, and many will still think of Ian Thorpe. After seeing him repeatedly at the Olympics and major international competitions, his name became strongly tied to Australia itself.
Yet some of the sports that matter enormously inside Australia are barely visible in Japan.
Australian rules football and cricket are good examples.
AFL is hugely popular in Australia, but in Japan many people do not even know that the sport exists, let alone understand the rules. Even Australia’s status as a major cricket nation is not widely recognized in Japan.
That contrast says a lot about how Australia is seen from Japan.
Japanese people know kangaroos, koalas, Uluru, and the Opera House. The word “Aussie” has entered everyday life through Aussie Beef, and Australia is a familiar destination for studying abroad and working holidays.
But when the conversation turns to AFL, cricket, differences between the states, Indigenous history and contemporary society, or Australian politics, the amount people know can suddenly drop.
Australia is certainly not an unfamiliar country to Japanese people.
If anything, it is a country for which they know an unusually large number of things that feel distinctly “Australian.”
For Japanese people, Australia has an unusually clear outline. But inside that outline, there is still a great deal of Australia that remains unfamiliar.
