Australia

I've never been to Australia. But I like the Australians I've met.  Such an eccentric place:  it's the sort of society where the national animal jumps around! (I once got some Australian fruit cocktail that was packed in pear juice.) It's something of a frontier society, like the Canadian or American west.  They even had a big gold rush about the same time as California.

The Australians make a lot of good movies, like My Brilliant Career and Gallipoli and We of the Never Never.  Their culture has certain egalitarian squareness that appeals to me.

Australia does have its racist side.  After 9/11 the government managed to get re-elected by having a big crackdown on refugee claimants, appealing to the voters' xenophobia. (I hope Canada doesn't get that way.) And alas, they've treated their native peoples as badly as we've treated ours, if not worse.  I read somewhere that back in colonial days young men would shoot aborigines just for fun, like shooting birds!

Canada has produced few songs even nearly as good as Australia's "Waltzing Matilda." (And most of them are from Quebec and Newfoundland.)