Canadian, Eh?
Oct. 11th, 2002 08:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tvordljThe Top Ten Things That Really Are True About THIS Canadian Despite What Other Canadians Might Say
1. I say eh. I end my sentences with eh. I turn statements into questions with eh. Pretty cool, eh? (Uh, yep, that's me too eh? LOL)
2. It's dang cold here in the winter. Now, since I'm a tough Canadian, I can take the cold. But that doesn't mean I ENJOY the cold. I mean, when "tonight's lows are -25. Now let's talk about the windchill..." is the case, I get a little perturbed. Then I get used to it, because we have at least three months of that. And quite a bit of snow. IN THE WINTER. Contrary to popular American belief, it's not wintry here all year around. We have construction season. (Three months??? Well at least here on the east coast we don't get temps quite that cold but it's damp and windy and it rains icy cold freezing rain.... sideways... ugh.)
3. I enjoy watching curling. Yes, yes I do. I remember one week in the tenth grade I was home sick. Yes, the whole week. And the World Championships for Curling were on TV. What a great week. And guess what? I've even curled before! In my teensy little village, which doesn't even have a gift shop, we've got a curling rink. Everyone has one. And I took a curling mini-course through school. Laugh if you will, but at least I'm not the one blindly wondering what the point is to curling. If you watch it for longer than two seconds, it isn't too hard to figure out the premise. And it DOES take skill. Trust me. I tried it, and I sweat I broke every bone in my body. Before I even threw the rock. (Never tried it, me. But my brother-in-law does and has converted one of my nephews)
4. I eat brown bread. Not whole wheat bread, BROWN BREAD. It's made with mollasses and my mother puts oatmeal in hers. Sometimes raisins. It's kind of sweet and oh-so-yummy. Apparently it's an east coast thing, but I could be wrong. Brown bread is especially popular on Saturday nights, as a very large percentage of Maritimers have baked beans and brown bread on Saturday nights. YUM.
(As a Maritimer, aka from the Maritime provinces, east coast Canada, the very thought of brown bread makes me drool! There's a shark feeding frenzy when my auntie puts hers down on the table at any given family get together and me Dad makes a great loaf as well. He's got a good recipe for beans as well. At the bottom the last instruction reads ... "When done, remove from oven. Call Ed to come over for supper")
5. I eat a lot of Kraft Dinner. A LOT. Two summers ago I practically lived on Easy Mac. Easy Mac is also a favourite among university students. Good stuff. GOOD STUFF. I'm getting hungry. Dangit, where's that smoothie? (VILE STUFF!!!!! GAG it's macaroni pasta with neon orange powdered "cheese" you mix in. Most of us grew up on it. Some of us still regard it as comfort food. GAG)
6. I spend a lot of money at Tim Hortons. In any given semester, I probably consume 10 apple ciders, 5 ice-caps (depending on weather), ten thousand double-doubles, a thousand Cafe Mochas, a few timbits, a Boston Cream doughnut, thirteen thousand honey dip doughnuts, a hundred thousand blueberry bran muffins, six trillion bagels with strawberry cream cheese, peach juice if I'm really thirsty, and an infinite number of Fruit Explosion muffins. (The national coffee shop chain. I like a bagel once in awhile. Don't like the coffee. Tea was vile until they started selling steeped tea instead of a bag in a cup. Now it's tolerable. just.)
7. I own at least three toques. A burgundy one, a gray one, a red one, and NATURALLY, a hockey one. Well, it's my brother's. But everyone has a toque that has a Canadian hockey team emblem on the front. (Hate hats of any kind)
8. I love Peter Mansbridge. (National news broadcaster. He's at least a bit more natural looking than plastic faced, made up, and bewigged Lloyd Robertson on the other Canadian national channel)
9. I always say sorry. If someone rams into me and it totally wasn't my fault, I say sorry. If a car hits me and knocks me over, I say sorry as they load me on a stretcher. If I am waiting for someone and they arrive late, we both apologize profusely. And it IS pronounced "sorey". (Yep. Nothing a Canadian likes more than saying sorry.... unless its.......(see next))
10. No matter who I am talking to, I always discuss the weather. Meet someone on the street? "Hi, isn't it a lovely, sunny day?" Meet up with an old friend? "Friend of mine! Talk about the SNOW, eh?" Having my purse stolen? "Hey, by the way, what's up with all of the thunderstorms lately?" "I know, eh? It's CRAZY!" I think this is because the weather is a very safe subject to talk about. And the weather changes every ten seconds, so it's always a good source of amusement. (What else would you talk to strangers about while waiting for a bus or in a queue at a shop? Yes we also talk to strangers! LOL reminds me of last time i was in the UK, me and Annie were on the bus into Manchester to go shopping and we were discussing something or other. Just before we got off, someone else on the bus asked me if i was from Canada. Brief discussion about Canadians and off we went. Noticed other people on bus looking alarmed at conversation between two apparent strangers that seemed so natural and comfortable.... and the weather was overcast and rained on and off!)
I think that's enough for now, eh?
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no subject
Date: 2002-10-11 10:35 am (UTC)And the penultimate one is me personally. Now I know why I wasn't allowed/ meant to emigrate to Australia - I am obviously a natural Canadian.
Actually this used to be a pretty general habit too, but is getting less so.
I've now taken to saying "Sorry" sarcastically after people who've just bumped into me, pushed past etc *without* an apology when one *was* needed.
This relieves my feelings *and* caters to my need to utter the word sorry in circs which demand an exchange of sorrys!
Re:
Date: 2002-10-11 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
and no need to apologise for not being American; tho they do tend to assume everyone aspires to that state. And many do; but today I put out an autobiography by a man who described himself as "a political refugee from Russia and a cultural refugee from the US"- where he had lived since 1972.
BTW, heard the repeat of Pullman on Desert Island Discs, and it was Dr. Johnson who gave the advice about idleness and company- and he of course *was* a melancholic or depressive; so that explains why it 'speaks' to those who've been in that state.
Re:
Date: 2002-10-11 11:46 am (UTC)I know what you mean about cultural refugee from the US. We are overwhelmed by American culture as is, increasingly the rest of the world. It's very difficult for us though, living next door as well as being on the same North American continent and trying, often fruitlessly, to make the distinction between American and North American as non-NA's usually call us American. Yet they never call someone from South or Central America "American". The United States has universally appropriated the label American for themselves. It's a matter of nationalism. I pointed out to someone from Wales that by the same logic, I could call them British as they were from the British Isles but noooo they were adamant that they were Welsh. And got my point. Citizens from the UK and Ireland are rarely called Europeans that I've heard though you are. That seems to be reserved for Continental Europe. Am I wrong? I try to blow my canada horn as much as possible though.
no subject
Date: 2002-10-12 02:20 am (UTC)I wonder how the Newfoundlanders feel about "the continent".
Within the UK, everyone tends to feel English Scottish Welsh or Irish rather than British, an identity which exists only in relation to the outside world. On top of that the English are notorious for assuming English to be a synonym for British!
And of course we can always tell which someone is by their accent; whereas we are not capable of telling a Canadian accent from an American one. But I do think the confusion/conflation is confined to the personal level; we don't use American to include Canadian in a political context, say. I suppose you could say we use American to mean US, and mostly ignore Canada!
But North American is not a much used concept -TV etc tends to use the form 'the United States and Canada' when needed.
I feel very conflicted about the whole thing; I'm not surprised you want to blow your horn. Most US citzens I have met are lovely people, and there is so much we do share, and in the last resort one has to say we are on the same side, since the world seems to insist on organising itself into conflicting blocs.
But there are so many areas where this people who look like us and speak our language and seem to behave like us, just *aren't*, often in quite shocking ways. And moreover they -naturally, I suppose-assume they're right and superior and above criticism.
Watching American TV shows and films can be quite an eye-opener; employment procedures seem very odd, tho the anti-agism is *Good* compared to here.
And the endless competitiveness, and legalism..
You don't seem to have much right to anything
except to go in to to bat to assert or defend yourself.
And the whole operation of the law in general; having fought for independance on the basis of equality before the law, it seems things have evolved to produce a situation where the law is either a tyrant far worse than George III or a weapon rather than a safeguard.
And when you add that things vary from state to state, you can see how the dictum "ignorance of the law is no excuse" could be really harsh.
Then there is humilating people- and prejudicing the jury- by putting them in handcuffs, nay chains, to come to court, even where there is no reason to think they're going to escape or harm anyone, simply on the basis of the nature of the charge.
Of course there are definitely shortcomings with our system, but it seems more flexible and pragmatic.
The attitude that really got to me was to do with the case of the girl who gave birth in New York and was caught at the airport with the dead baby under her coat.
There was this awful smirking policewoman on TV who not only showed an unbecoming lack of awareness of the tragedy of the specific situation, but insulted the whole Uk by saying;
"In *this* country you don't get brownie points for killing children".
It still makes me want to shriek and throw things, because of course the nuances get lost, and everyone assumed the British were just special pleading on behalf of this one person, whereas we just couldn't believe the way the whole US system worked.
After all we have had a law since soon after they left, from the days when you could get hanged for sheep-stealing etc, which puts women within a certain period of giving birth in a special category. Because of one's altered state of mind, and the obvious irrelevance of deterrence etc.
So we were genuinely appalled to discover that you could not only be charged with murder as opposed to infanticide, and put in a high security prison, tho obviously no danger to anyone but oneself.
But handling the thing differently is not applauding killing- in some ways the American mindset is simplistic and naive, and in other respects crudely cynical and devious in judging others.
In the end we are all conditioned to accept what we grow up with as normal; but we need always to try to see things from outside as well.
End of rant; and greetings to all my American friends!
Re:
Date: 2002-10-12 01:58 pm (UTC)Newfoundland was until 1959 a British Colony, not part of Canada at all so older Newfoundlanders probably do feel a bit at odds. They've often had mavericks for their provincial premiers and elected colourful MP's.
Canadian accents dont' really vary that much from region to region other than French speaking Quebec/Acadian descendents. But here in the East you will hear more discernable accents to the rest of the country, broading more as you go east, With the island of Cape Breton, NS being more Irish-tinted and Newfoundland being broader again. The Americans have a few more discernable regional accents, from the Northeast New England, Midwest twang, various southern accents and the New York/New Jersey being identifiable.
Most Americans i've met are very nice too although still somewhat insulated from the rest of the world. They know very little about Canada, their closest neighbour, and that is partly the fault of the school system that focuses on themselves more so than the rest of the world. I've had several be surprised at how much I know about them when i have to practically draw a map to show them where i come from.
Waht you see on tv and movies is sanitized quite a bit. You don't see the racism, the discrimination, the high crime stats in the cities, the security checks at the middle school level let alone the high school level. Their medical system is expensive if you dont' have expensive insurance. Canadians dont' pay for medical though you can get perks like private rooms in hospitals and drug covereage with insurance through work. But if you were just anyone on the street and hurt or ill, you would be cared for in hospital without a huge bill to face when you got out. Unlike the USA. Their social programs are far inferior to ours. The law is two tiered. If you have money, you have far better representation. I suppose that's true anywhere. But there seems to be more prejudice in their legal system and maybe there is in ours too i don't know. They can televise and film court trials. We don't do that in Canada ... yet.
And dont' get me started on the US fondness for guns because the right to bear arms is a right in their constitution ... written over 200 years ago. There was a filmmaker that just produced a documentary on the gun culture since people have gone into schools and started killing their teachers and co-workers. There are banks that give you a free gun for opening up some types of bank accounts! He filmed it! Yes there are guns in Canada. But they aren't as easy to get, even for hunting and sport. Here in Halifax we have murder rates in the single digits per year, and though it's rising, the numbers of them that are fatalities due to gunshots are about half that. Larger cities of course, like Toronto and Vancouver, will have more but in some of the big cities in the US they have several hundred deaths a year and a large percantage of them will be gunshot. You dare not holler at a fellow driver in traffic in case they haul off and shoot you on the freeway like they were doing in California ! *that's* road rage! Even our police on the streets are now wearing bullet proof vests which saddens me. Halifax isn't that big, maybe 300,000 and half of that is suburbs and small communities making a political whole. But i still feel safe here taking the usual precautions. I dont think i would in the States, not in a city at least even one this size. And God forbid i ever get sick down there.
People tend to be good, bad, arrogant and rude and nice everywhere, yes even in Canada. Overall i think Canadians are friendlier and more open. Look at the world wide acclaim we received post 911 when our east coast communities in several places took care of thousands of stranded travelers when the planes were diverted to land here. People volunteered, donated clothing and items and time, took poeple into their homes. And the Travelers were astonished at the open armed welcome they received. But that's typical for us... at least on the East Coast this i know for sure. This is where i live and i really am glad i'm Canadian.
mmmm brown bread-
Date: 2002-10-11 09:59 pm (UTC):)