An American woman just discovered how seasons work in Australia, and people are unsure whether she’s joking or if she missed an important lesson in elementary school.
Jenna Lu, who goes by the username @itsjennalu on TikTok, recently took to the platform hoping that someone could explain to her how seasons work in Australia - where it’s currently winter, while the United States is experiencing the tail end of summer.
“While this sounds stupid, there’s gotta be other people from America who also don’t understand this,” Lu began her viral clip.
She explained in the video that she associates the months of June, July, and August as “summer months,” which led her to ask viewers if Australians called the month of August a different name. While it’s winter down under, according to Lu, she believed that August is “not a winter month.”
“Is August, if you do call it that, a winter month for you?” Lu added.
Because August comes right before fall in the states, Lu also wondered if the order of the seasons was completely different in Australia. She asked Aussies if they were about to enter spring - the season that typically follows winter in the Northern Hemisphere - or if they too are entering fall, just like Americans.
She also had questions about food, as Lu wondered whether or not Australians had pumpkins during Halloween because the squash isn’t “in season” during their spring.
When it comes to Christmas, she asked if Australians still drank traditional hot chocolate and other “Christmas food” that are typical for wintertime in the US. As for how the holiday is marketed in Australia, Lu explained that American media dresses Santa Claus in a warm red suit with white fur - an attire fit for cold December weather - and asked how Father Christmas is dressed in Australia during the summer.
“Does all of your guys’ marketing stuff have Santa Claus dressed, like, in a swimsuit?” Lu asked. “Every time I think about this, my brain just wants to die because it’s so confusing to me.”
Since her video was posted on 29 August, it has been viewed just under one million times.
“This keeps me up at night,” Lu captioned the video.
Her inquiries about Australia led to some very interesting questions from commenters, many of whom didn’t believe whether she was actually being serious. “Would you say Halloween is a spring holiday?” one person asked, while another TikToker said: “Are you guys going to be dressing in spring florals in the fall?”
“This is surely a skit,” said someone else.
“I don’t understand how America isn’t a simulation, seriously,” another user wrote.
Some commenters fittingly answered her questions with sarcasm, like one person who wrote: “Good question!! You guys call it August, July, and June but we call it Waugust, Wuly and Wune cause it’s winter.”
“We don’t have seasons it’s just permanent chaos and fires and flood hope this helps,” another person joked, while a third user commented: “No, we don’t call it August. Hope this helps.”
However, Lu’s viral video wasn’t a complete lost cause.
Many Australians actually stitched her TikTok clip, explaining that Halloween is an American holiday not typically celebrated on their continent. Aussies also shared that Santa Claus is indeed pictured wearing shorts and a swimsuit down under.
