Culture

2004-04-12 - 8:43 a.m.

I have reason to believe that I'm coming down with something, which would suck, because, due to some scheduling requests I've made this week, calling in sick would make it look like I'm trying to take advantage of the management and get more time off than I deserve. See? Aren't I conscientious for someone who doesn't like his work place?

Anyway, I'm feeling somewhat mooshy-headed this morning, so my attempt at tying together two subjects will be much less smooth than I want it to be. Ah well.

Yesterday I got to watch a show on Canadian English. It was kind of sloppily done, I think, going more for the "Gee whiz! Do we really speak like that? Golly!" factor than the "You already know too much about language, but here's some more" angle. Still, I learned lots of things about my country. The most interesting thing was that, according to this show, Canadians are the only people who eat butter tarts. The show tells me that butter tarts are not to be found outside of Canada. I'm sceptical, because I like butter tarts, and I want to believe that they're a crucial element in the evolution of any civilized culture (an interesting side-note...I had a moment of indecision about whether to go with sceptical or skeptical. They both look so horribly, horribly wrong to me. It turns out that the 'k' one is the US version.)

I also learned that the Canadian-US border is a boundary that affects language. There's a drift in the many northern US cities to merge vowel sounds, so that they all sound vaguely like 'a'. According to the show, Americans in northern cities say "Sarry" instead of "Sorry"...but this change (which happened in the last 50 years), hasn't affected any Canadian cities, even those that are only a few hundred metres away from the border.

But a language show wasn't my only encounter with Canadian culture this weekend. I may have mentioned that Pookie got to see Adrienne Clarkson, Canada's Governor General, speak at a function last week, and while I was visiting with Pookie, we caught a recording of the speech she gave.

What an amazing woman. Just about everything she said was enlightening in some way, and reinforced and even illuminated aspects of my belief-structure that I didn't even know I had. She's proof that you can be patriotic and considerate of others, and rejoice in difference and change, all at the same time.

One thing she talked about was her belief that there are essentially two kinds of cultures: punishing cultures and forgiving cultures. She wants Canada to be forgiving, to be more concerned with mending rifts between nations, and between people. She spoke about how we live in a wealthy country (and when she said that, I think it was the first time I've ever heard someone describe Canada's abundance in such frank terms: we are a very wealthy nation...it's not something to be ashamed of, but there is enormous responsibility attached to that), and that it's important for us to realize that we who choose when and what we eat each day, who are provided with education, with facilities like drinking water and plumbing, shelter, employment, government assistance and health care, are in the minority on this planet. It's important for us to be aware of our role, and to try to lift others up to our level.

So, between butter tarts and compassionate Canadians, I'm pretty happy to live where I live.

Cheers,

The Magus

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