There was a personal note to one of the stories on this Garage edition of the Court of Public Opinion. Strathfield, the Sydney suburb where Jeremy Cordeaux grew up, has become the first council in the country to require that shopkeepers display signs written, at least partly, in English. For Jeremy, it was both a homecoming and a common-sense reform.
The New Rule
The change, as Jeremy described it, is modest and reasonable. Shopkeepers may still use other languages on their signage, but they must also include some English description of what the business actually does. A shopper walking down the street, in other words, should be able to tell what a shop is, whatever else the sign says.
Strathfield, he noted, is the first suburb or council in Australia to make this law. To Jeremy, the surprising thing was less the rule than that it had taken so long, and that anyone would find it controversial.
A Suburb That Changed
Jeremy reflected on how much the area had changed since his childhood. When he left, Strathfield had become heavily Korean; the Korean community, for whatever reason, was strongly drawn to the suburb. He had not been back, he admitted, since his mother died, so could not say whether that remained the case.
His point was not a complaint about who lives there but an observation about signage and everyday practicality. A high street where a passer-by cannot read what any of the shops are is, in his view, missing something basic about being a shared public space.
The Reciprocity Test
The argument Jeremy found most persuasive was one of fairness and reality. Imagine, he said, going to China, Korea or India, opening a store, and putting up signage only in English. That would be silly, he suggested, and you would not last long, because you would be ignoring the language of the people around you.
The expectation that a business communicate, at least partly, in the local language is, in his telling, simply how it works everywhere. Asking the same in Australia is not unreasonable or hostile; it is the same standard any of those countries would apply as a matter of course.
Common Ground, Literally
For Jeremy, the English-signs rule was really about the things a community holds in common. Language on a shopfront is a small thing, but it is also the point at which a business meets the wider public, and a shared language on that sign is part of what makes a street legible to everyone who uses it.
He welcomed the reform without rancour, treating it as ordinary good sense rather than a battle. A sign everyone can read, in Jeremy’s view, serves the shopkeeper and the shopper alike, and Strathfield, his old home, had simply been the first to say so out loud.
Listen To The Full Episode
Catch the complete Garage edition of The Court of Public Opinion, recorded live around the dining room table.
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