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Learn me some Canada
Khavall
British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
Ok, so here's the situation.
I'm American. I try to be an educated American, but... yeah, I'm American. I work on cruise ships, and during my last contract I met my serious current girlfriend who is from Vancouver.
I know.... very little about Canada. Right now my knowledge begins and ends with: The Quebeqois are dirty frenchy backwards people, those Newfies are crazy, and the Albertans are hicktown. Hockey and Curling are apparently real and serious sports.
That's it. Sure, I kind of know where the territories are, and I can always look at a map and study that, so I don't just need the general geography....
But I know that there are a lot of states references that are pretty ideomatic to us states people(I still jokingly refer to Football as "Communist Football" v "Real Football" of Handegg, for instance), and sometimes she'll offhandedly make Canadian references that I maaaaybe when they're obvious get.
With my job, I have a reasonable amount of time on my hands. Is there any sort of.... layman's terms Canada anyone can give? I know I'm sort of being annoyingly unspecific, but in short: If you were to try to explain the nation of Canada to someone who was totally willing to listen and learn, what would you say?
P.S. Yeah, I could ask her and have when I don't understand certain things but.... I'd like to learn about it for her on my own as well, so that I don't have to.
I'm American. I try to be an educated American, but... yeah, I'm American. I work on cruise ships, and during my last contract I met my serious current girlfriend who is from Vancouver.
I know.... very little about Canada. Right now my knowledge begins and ends with: The Quebeqois are dirty frenchy backwards people, those Newfies are crazy, and the Albertans are hicktown. Hockey and Curling are apparently real and serious sports.
That's it. Sure, I kind of know where the territories are, and I can always look at a map and study that, so I don't just need the general geography....
But I know that there are a lot of states references that are pretty ideomatic to us states people(I still jokingly refer to Football as "Communist Football" v "Real Football" of Handegg, for instance), and sometimes she'll offhandedly make Canadian references that I maaaaybe when they're obvious get.
With my job, I have a reasonable amount of time on my hands. Is there any sort of.... layman's terms Canada anyone can give? I know I'm sort of being annoyingly unspecific, but in short: If you were to try to explain the nation of Canada to someone who was totally willing to listen and learn, what would you say?
P.S. Yeah, I could ask her and have when I don't understand certain things but.... I'd like to learn about it for her on my own as well, so that I don't have to.
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as a vancouverite, I love my hockey, hate the bandwagoners, and those who think theyre hip will hate any and all form of government that's currently in power.
We tend to have friendly tiffs from people that aren't from our current province, but will always have this secret "what makes you think youre better?" attitude against yanks that will cause all provinces to band together at the drop of a hat. We think walking around with guns is retarded but nothing is more down to earth than hunting deer (especially when youre from the interior. Young ignoramists will make fun of our military when people with brains in their head (the generation before this one) will understand how resourceful our canadian military is. We currently hold the record for best sniper on the planet and our navy performs on just about par with US navy with less resources spent.
As a Yank, you should be aware that on most canadian lists, you're at a -1 in your opinions because of other US citizens theyve met before you. Which is too bad and unfortunate.
More fact based things:
Our money = "loonie" = 1$ / "Two-nie" = 2$
Province = US state
We're VERY proud of our (any and all things) heritage
Vancouver is the most relaxed on marijuana use (still illegal) and i think the gayest portion of canada. (gay marriage is legal here and recognized by a sect of the anglican church. Also the largest pride parade in canada)
Edit- learn the stuff that we have that arent offered in the US. Your girl will be pretty proud to have a bf that's learning about her culture:
We have:
ketchup chips
poutine
smarties
coffee crisp
maple syrup
'full-er' beer
better asian cuisine (vancouver was voted as to have better chinese food than china!)
Start paying attention to the Vancouver Canucks right now. The team roster has been better than it's ever been in like 15+ years. This year is the favored year to win the Stanley Cup (<<<<<This is important to most canadians)
PS. what kind of stuff is your gf referencing? also CFL is hit or miss among canadians. I like it more than NFL because the rules allow more passing plays than running plays.
Alberta isn't quite entirely hicktown but... yeah a good part of it is, I'd say :P I'm not a fan of it. I'm not really sure how to explain Canada though. We are well known for being pretty damn nice and accommodating though. There's that.
edit: What delphinus said on his last point. Oh and I'm not sure how many Canadians actually call a US citizens 'Yanks' cuz I sure as hell don't.
edit: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=250
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Yours a broad question that's being responded to with some broad answers. Let's clarify some of them.
Firstly, Delph is right in that the Canadian military is oft made fun of, but it really shouldn't be, because the Canadian military is among the best in the world (and has done a metric fucktonne of peacekeeping in times of crisis with the UN and NATO, arguably more than the US given certain disasters such as Rwanda). That being said, what DOES suck is that our military equipment is out of date. Or at least, was extremely out of date a few years ago. Until recently we were using old 1964 Sea King helicopters, for example. Lots of vehicles still used that were current in the 70s and 80s. (we don't own that sniper record any more, by the way, but it's a good example of infantry superiority).
Personal pet peeve: it's not a twonie. Don't call it that or I'll scoop your eyes out with a melon-baller. It's a toonie.
Hockey really is the sport of kings. Though it has less of a basis here on the left coast precisely because we don't have the climate to have outdoor ice rinks in the winter. But other than that...compared to other sports, hockey is by far the most watched and played, by a huge margin. Curling is...well curling is a weird sport, but most Canadians admit to enjoying watching it. Because it's on TV all the time. It's entertaining.
He lists a lot of culinary things that we have that the US doesn't, and all of them are amazing. We also have butter tarts and Nanaimo bars. Minor correction though: I hate to say it Canadians, but Canadian beer isn't any stronger than American beer. American beers actually use a system of measuring alcohol content that results in ratings a few points lower than Canadian ratings for equivalent beer. So a 6.0% in Canada is the same as a 5.5% in the States. That being said, when it comes to taste...well, everyone knows who wins that fight ;-)
Milk in bags is only found in southern Ontario and parts of the Maritimes. You won't find it anywhere the moment you hit the prairies. They make no sense to us Western Canadians.
I don't know where that "Vancouver was voted having better Chinese food than China" is coming from. With that in mind, generally speaking, Vancouver's dim sum is often rated as near or on par with Hong Kong and Shanghai quality dim sum. Now, Japanese food on the other hand....Vancouver is WIDELY considered to have the best sushi in the world. Including Japan. This is because in Japan, sushi is more or less considered an "occasion" food. It's something relatively exotic and fancy that you eat when you're going out to celebrate. It varies of course, but Vancouver adopted a much more mainstream attitude with sushi. There are sushi shops on every corner. Even the cheap, take-out sushi is very good nine times out of ten. Hell, the best sushi chef in the world works on Broadway.
We have adopted many British expressions but "Yank" is not one of them. No one says "Yank". We don't say "hoser", either, so don't listen anyone who tells you that Great White North is an accurate portrayal of Canada. I don't care how fucking funny SCTV is.
Delph is also right in that, as much as I hate to say it, the US is a very, very mild running joke in Canada. The good news is that 99% of Canadians are totally friendly and don't actually hate Americans - they just dislike America (big difference). Compare this to the rest of the world: Americans will often receive a cold shoulder from citizens of European cities simply because they're American. Canadians are far nicer to Americans than many other people of the world are.
Khavall, this is what you should remember most of all, even if it sounds ridiculous, because it's entirely true:
The central theme to what it means to be a Canadian? Not being American.
It's true. Canadians take pride in not being American. Not even necessarily on an explicit level (e.g. a "look at those Americans doing so-and-so, us smart Canadians don't do that sort of thing!" manner of speaking), but on a subconscious, implicit level: being the "alternate" North American country, the dark horse of North America, the overlooked-but-much-admired-in-the-background nation. We are the too-polite, too-self-critical, too-unassuming hipsters of North America.
Read this:
This is the funniest book in the entire fucking world and what's more it's ridiculously, absolutely not satire. It's actually full of genuine, valid facts about Canada and Canadians. And what's more it's still relevant today, despite being written in 2000. A must read for Canadians and non-Canadians alike.
You've got people mostly covered, between your girlfriend and various online Canadians.
For music, the important thing to realize is that Canada has a long, proud tradition of foisting our shit music off on you guys, and keeping only the good stuff at home. Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Justin Beiber, Avril Lavigne, Shania Twain, Nickelback - all Canadian, all shipped down south, and you're welcome to 'em. We keep the good stuff closer to home: Neko Case/The New Pornographers, Arcade Fire, Death From Above 1979, Broken Social Scene, Feist. That's not to say that Canadians don't listen to Justin Beiber and Nickelback, of course; it's just that we feel kind of guilty about consuming such low-grade, export-quality material.
For books, Pierre Berton writes definitive, factual accounts of just about every important event in Canadian history, from the building of the railway to the Yukon Gold Rush. I've always found him a bit dry, though. Farley Mowat writes great, highly readable novels, both fiction and nonfiction, on a variety of subjects related to Canada: Lost in the Barrens is a classic young adult adventure story, Never Cry Wolf is a sometimes-moving, often-hilarious semi-fictional account of a naturalist who spends a year observing a pack of wolves; Grey Seas Under is the magnificent tale of a salvage tug operating in the Maritimes during the 1930s and 40s. Most other prominent Canadian authors fall pretty squarely into the capital-L Literature category: Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, Michael Ondaatje. We have a few good sci-fi/fantasy authors, too, like R. Scott Bakker, Cory Doctorow, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Robert Sawyer.
Movies and television shows could take up a shortish novel in and of themselves. Canada has one of those "make a movie here and we give you huge tax credits" deals going on, so a fair bit of local content is produced, of varying quality. Paul Gross features prominently in some of the better stuff: Due South was a fairly well-received four-season cable TV series about a stereotypical Canadian Mountie who first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father and, for reasons which don't need exploring at this juncture, remained, attached as liaison to the Canadian consulate. In practical terms, it's a buddy cop show in which the straightlaced Canadian (and his pet wolf) gets paired with a sarcastic Chicago police detective. Gross also did Slings and Arrows, which originally aired on Canada's version of HBO, and is thus both more profane and better - it's a comedy-drama series about a fictional Shakespearean festival (which is just a very thinly-veiled stand-in for the real-life Stratford Festival). If I could recommend a single "this is Canada" movie, it would be Bon Cop, Bad Cop, which touches on like 70% of Canadian themes: hockey, smoking slacker Quebecois, uptight Ontario anglos, bureaucracy, bilingualism, Don Cherry, Canadian sports teams being sold south to American cities.
Other things you should know about Canada:
We make fun of Americans for having a strong regional identity - the common wisdom is that if you ask an American where he's from, he'll say "Vermont" or "Texas" or whatever, whereas if you ask a Canadian, he'll say "Canada" - but self-identification aside, we're just as geographically cliquish as you guys. Each province has its own reputation, and often smaller areas within each province will too. Those reputations are based on history, geography, size, economic status, cultural makeup, and flat-out stereotype. Someone from Toronto, Ontario is going to look at the world quite differently than someone from Liverpool, Nova Scotia - and someone from Vancouver, BC will be different still. Keep that in mind when you're consuming Canadian media.
If you ask ten different Canadians what being Canadian means, you'll get ten different answers, but all of them will contain at least one comparison to the US. Whether we like it or not, America is the yardstick against which we measure ourselves. Sometimes, the stick tips in our favour, and we brag shamelessly about our health care system or our social services. Sometimes, we feel like the balance is the other way, and we'll disparage our own accomplishments because we feel like we're just not as good as the US - it's pretty common for people to say that Canadian cinema is a fucking joke compared to Hollywood, or that Canadian TV shows suck. We basically have a huge sociocultural inferiority complex, and every couple of months some newspaper or another publishes a big sober screed of an editorial pondering the question of what Canadian identity really is. We're pretty sure the rest of the world doesn't have this problem - Australia doesn't wake up in the morning and spend the first three hours of the day contemplating the meaning and implications of being Australian, it just gets the fuck on with its business. We kind of wish we could do that.
Possibly as a result of this constant self-comparison, Canadians tend towards self-deprecating humour, but we do it pretty damned well. Stephen Leacock is one of our oldest humourists - Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is a thoroughly excellent skewering of small-town Ontario life. Lorne Michael is Canadian, and pretty much half of the cast of Saturday Night Live at any given time is, too. Sketch comedy television shows have always been popular, ranging from The Kids in the Hall to more recent stuff like This Hour Has 22 Minutes - the latter is especially noteworthy for Rick Mercer, whose "Talking To Americans" special is pretty notorious (it was basically an hour of him asking Americans ridiculously inaccurate or misleading questions about Canada, like asking students and professors at Columbia University to sign a petition requesting that Canadians discontinue the practice of abandoning the elderly on ice floes).
tl;dr: listen to awesome Canadian indie music, read Farley Mowat books, watch Due South and Bon Cop, Bad Cop, and track down a copy of Rick Mercer's Talking To Americans, and you'll be golden.
Only one mistake, Kate. You missed the Tragically Hip. How could you?!
Fortunately, you're the hilariously adorable joke down here.
Seriously, I'm from southeastern Michigan, we're like honorary Canadians.
edit - I should mention just about every Canadian knows these commercials. Referencing them will usually start a conversation about them and remembering them all and quoting them.
Here's a select few.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9GYWbhBoHM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMkm21rg04o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzsbZ3oem3Y
Steam | Live
...
Anyway, one recent fact that I learned that might come in handy is that Canadians eat in the European manner, as opposed to America's zig-zag custom. Get used to holding your fork upside-down in your left hand during nice dinners.
Steam | Live
Don't know. I read about the divergence of European and American table manners in a book about the evolution of cutlery, checked the internet to learn more, and found out that Canada follows European table manners. For a bit of trivia, I tend to use a hybrid form due to my left-handedness eliminating the need for switching hands.
Steam | Live
but anyway, concierge.com made the statement about our Chinese food.
Khvall, if you wanna make friends with your gf's friends, go shit on a guy named "Stephen Harper". Don't worry about follow up questions, it wont even matter if you actually did you research, as her friends will already be headlong into furious rages of agreement with you. Something about our government figures really gets canadians going.
Some random Canadian stuff:
-Show interest and let her take you ice skating.
-Wearing 'roots' to us is like wearing US flag tie to you, but much less obnoxious.
-No, your average canadian won't swear allegiance to the queen, despite her being on our money
-I get this feeling that Vancouver hockey fans hate fans from most other canadian regions except for montreal. I think hating the habs is more a toronto thing. I dont know if we hate the oilers as much anymore. But one thing for sure, we sure hate them Calgary Flames fans. A rule at my university had to be established that the Calgary Flames fans and Vancouver Canucks fans HAD to be watching the game on seperate floors of the dorms. Strictly enforced that none could pass through the public watching area and comment. Freedom of speech be damned; It was just more peaceful that way. But when it comes to the winter olympics, all canadian boundaries are down.
-Learn about past hockey heroes be it Canadian or not: Gordy howe, Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr, Steve Yzerman, Wayne Gretzky (to get you up to speed, it helps if youre in a friendly fantasy hockey pool).
-We have Rememberance day, and you guys call it Veterans Day.
-Our Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Thursday of October, when americans celebrate Columbus day. Our Thanksgiving is traditionally to recognize a year of good harvest, as opposed to celebrating the historic origins of our country.
-I can only make this comment for western canada after working closesly with several native institutions. For the most part, our government does it's best to honor our native american culture, theres still more we could do, but its an uphill process. On the reserve, They're afforded some tax breaks as well as health care perks and eduction. Off the reserve, they're still privy to the perks but less tax breaks depending on several factors. A lot of our own curriculum teaches about our native culture (at least thats how mine was in lower grades, including how we fucked them over during establishment of the territories.).
Im not clear on the issues, but Natives in the US aren't left with as many choices. Live on your land where you pay everything with your own money but no job opportunity, or live in our zones and we tax the fuck out of money you don't have.
Oh PS to Rikushix, I went through the entire site and have decided that I hate your blog, because it makes me feel so shitty about my life
edit: more things that you can bring up with your gf about canada
Fred Penner
Under the umbrella Tree
The Littlest Hobo
Corner Gas
the Winter Olympics
Terry Fox
oh, if you really WANT to impress a canadian like at a bar or something: Recite this song:
I recommend watching Corner Gas because it's legitimately funny.
Also this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upsZZ2s3xv8
For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKgysmBBqLo
Also remember the appropriate use of the letter "U" it follows "O" in words such as ColoUr, NeighboUr and humoUr.
Just to summarise some of what has been said here so far and add some of my own ideas Canadians are:
- Self Depreciating (in humour specifically - John Candy is a great example)
- Humble, to the point of suffering an inferiority complex
- Diverse, America is the melting pot where anyone can come and be assimilated, become American and live the American dream. In Canada we believe in Multiculturalism - anyone can come here, but retain their traditions and not be looked down upon (I must admit this is slowly changing much to my chagrin), we have very diverse ethnic communities in almost every city
Some notes about Canada, we:
- Have a stupendously trained but small Armed Forces, and have a great reputation abroad partly because of our more human approach to peacekeeping and international involvement
- Know that Vermont is the maple syrup state, but Canada (Quebec mostly) makes way more syrup than Vermont can dream of...
- Still have photos of the Queen everywhere - particularly on the east coast. Canada was a colony of the British Empire until 1867 when we wrote our own constitution and became a Constitutional Monarchy (Queen is still the head of state). Many Canadians feel Canada became a country in the spring of 1917 at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
It's really worth taking a bit of time to read Wiki about the first world war. Americans remember WWII because the USA became a superpower during it. Canadians think of WWI when it comes to the birth of our nation on the international stage.
And a lot of this I definitely wouldn't have thought of just by my current interactions with Canadians
I Am Canadian
Beer is a pretty big deal in most Canadian social circles.
The two big guys of the market are Molson and Labatt. Both started as Canadian companies back in the late 1700s (Molson) and mid 1800s (Labatt), but within the past 10-20 years, both have been bought up by outsiders: Molson is now part of Coors, and Labatt got sucked into the gaping maw of Anheuser-Busch InBev. Some people are a little bitter about this. Even before the merger made it cool to hate them, though, Molson Canadian and Labatt Blue were basically the Budweiser and Miller of Canadian beers: very mainstream, very bland, very safe.
Luckily for beer drinkers, Canada has a whole metric shitton of smaller, better breweries (some of which are owned by the big two, but still allowed to pretty much do their own thing as far as production goes). Alexander Keith's is very popular, especially in the Maritimes, as is Moosehead. Quebecois beer will probably kill you: La Fin du Monde by Unibroue has a 9% alcohol content. Ontario has Creemore Springs and Sleeman. Someone else will need to fill you in on the situation out west - the Lokys clan only extends from the Maritimes to Thunder Bay, anything beyond that is still untamed frontier as far as we're concerned.
Of course, to real Canadian beer snobs, stuff like Keith's and Sleeman is barely distinguishable from Molson and Labatt, and the only good beer comes from microbreweries that nobody else has ever heard of.
Basically, if you want to fit in at a Canadian bar, order a Moosehead Lager, make a comment about how "it's not great, but it's about the only really Canadian beer left," and ask whoever you're with if they can recommend you something local.
(Man, seeing some of the stuff in this thread - the Heritage Minutes, the Log-Driver's Waltz - makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like I just swallowed a kitten. I love Canada so much).
All I can add is everything from Unibroue is delicious (La Fin is excellent), and available at least here in Chicago.
Visiting Montreal and Quebec City, I found everyone very nice and did note a certain formality I enjoyed; greeting people in stores, for example.
Canadians play up the small differences between the two countries' cultures because, frankly, the only differences are small. Quebec is the only place that is significantly different. The other large cities in Canada are a lot like their neighboring American regions. Toronto is a lot like most Northeastern American cities. Vancouver is firmly part of the Pacific Northwest. Calgary and the rest of Alberta are a lot like the Great Plains states in the US, with a bit of Texas thrown in. God only knows what goes on in Manitoba.
If you're from somewhere like Seattle, Vancouver would be much more familiar to you, culturally, than many parts of the US. Bostonians would be more comfortable in Toronto than in Atlanta, and so on.
Rigorous Scholarship
Learn the local language:
Fun facts:
Honorary Canadians? I thought that title went to Minnesota :P They are the hockey state after all!
I only say that because I know it would annoy you bum
It's true. That's how Canadians see themselves.
And I stand corrected on the Chinese food - it certainly doesn't surprise me. Mad props for all the old shows - add two more: Mr. Dressup and the Friendly Giant. I used to work at Roots, definitely the most Canadian brand in the country, short of HBC. That company is Canada personified.
The blog's good, no? I get a lot of ex-BCers from other parts of Canada (usually Ontario) or around the world messaging me on Tumblr and saying that they hate me for making them miss their home province :P
Phisti really nailed it here. America is a melting pot: Canada is a mosaic. This was what my fifth grade social studies teacher hammered into our heads, and while it's a pretty broad generalization it's almost entirely valid.
And to everyone who posted the Heritage Minutes and the Log Driver's Waltz...seriously, I love you. So many good memories.
Manitoba is like no-mans land. Is it Western Canada or Eastern? Does anyone live outside of Winnipeg? Do they really have only two seasons (that would be Winter and Mosquito)??? Nobody knows!
Here's the thing, Khal. Canada is very, very cohesive, but we still have regional differences. The west (and by that I mean Calgary and the edges of the prairies) dislikes Eastern Canada because of, well, the NEP and oil. Vancouver is on a wholly different scale, because the Pacific Northwest itself is kind of like a country on its own. In the case of civil war, I would say that BC, Washington and Oregon should just split off and form their own country.
Oh my god. Just thought of a way to end this thread: read Douglas Coupland. I'm horrendously biased but Douglas Coupland is more tapped into cultural identity and technological advancement than most writers on the planet, and the guy is Canadian as can be. I'm a big fan of his works, I met him in person due to working for Roots and he's pretty damn awesome.
Read these:
They are your guides to Canadian identity and the tangible products that define us.
And since your girlfriend is from Vancouver...read City of Glass. I own it and it's one of my favorite books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_Party
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vimy_Ridge
Yeah, I meant the old ones :P
check this shit out instead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_Party_of_Canada_%281963%E2%80%931993%29
I have never heard of this before. Like, tarts or bars or something? Some delicious baked good?
also fyi nanaimo bars are gross
What.
Get out.
Please?
Cheap overprocessed grocery store nanaimo bars with the fake oily chocolate on top are gross. Real nanaimo bars, made with good-quality chocolate and real butter in the icing and a hint of coconut in the crumb layer, served ice-cold on a hot summer day with a big glass of milk, are the food of the gods.
Butter tarts are also seriously awesome - they're like miniature pecan pies without the pecans, just little pastry cups filled with a gooey sticky blend of butter, sugar, and eggs, caramelized on the outside but tooth-achingly sweet liquid on the inside.
Exactly. Thank you Kate.
P.S. if the Clan of Lokys doesn't extend beyond Mosquitoland, you should come visit the West, and try a Nanaimo bar. In a bar. In Nanaimo.
We only tolerate Quebec because they give us good goaltenders and poutine.
By the way, Dave, Innis and Gunn is one of the best damn beers I've ever had. The Rum Cask specifically.