Losing My Religion

I knew Chris­tian­ity, Islam, Judaism, Bud­dhism, Hinduism—and that was about it. I was—and I still am—clueless about Pen­te­costal­ism, Angli­can­ism, Bap­tists, Methodists, Lutheran, Pres­by­ter­ian, Pentecostal/Charismatic, Episcopalian/Anglican, Seventh-Day Adven­tist, Born Again etc. And what the hell is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”? A bunch of peo­ple who believe they will even­tu­ally end up in Heaven because they have the longest reli­gious group name ever???

Lost In Translation

I’m los­ing my French. Too bad I’m a French teacher.

It all started when I moved to Ottawa. The city is in Ontario but the French-speaking province of Que­bec is only min­utes away, across the Ottawa River. As a result, roughly 50% of the pop­u­la­tion speaks Eng­lish and 30% of the pop­u­la­tion speaks French.

One, Two, Three, What Are We Fighting For ?

Cana­dian pol­i­tics. Two main par­ties : the Lib­er­als and the Con­ser­v­a­tive. So, the Lib­er­als must be right-wing – cause in France, being called a Lib­eral is a bad word, much like being called a Social­ist in Texas. Oh, they’re fairly left-wing ? Alright. But what about the Con­ser­v­a­tive ? What a stu­pid nickname !

Diddly-Ho, Neighbor-ino

See, I grew up in France in what North Amer­i­cans call an her­itage build­ing. I mean, you would prob­a­bly take a pic­ture of it. Six storey, white façade, bal­conies, big wooden door lead­ing to an inside court­yard, wooden stairs.

What We Sell To Coca-Cola Is Available Humain Brain Time

See, back in France, it was quite sim­ple. I had a small black & white TV with a bro­ken antenna I had to trap between a pile of books and the edge of the couch in order to get a clear recep­tion. I only watched TV when : 1) I was copy­ing Chi­nese lessons 2) I was draw­ing 3) I was pluck­ing my eyebrows.Well, yeah. What was I sup­posed to do ? Watch it ??

From Laowai To Canadian

This sum­mer 2001 is hot and humid. The typhoon sea­son is in full swing and some days, I can’t even leave the 32^nd floor of the build­ing where I live. The whole island is reg­u­larly swept by strong winds and pour­ing rain. I live in Hum Hong, about twenty min­utes from my office in Tsim Shat Shui. When the rain isn’t too strong, I still make my way to the office, know­ing that my co-worker will oth­er­wise make fun of me.

Do You Speak English?

Eng­lish wasn’t pop­u­lar. French don’t like Eng­lish much (“they put vine­gar on chips and eat meat with mint sauce !”), and the rela­tion­ship with the USA has always been a bit rocky (“these warmongers/ burgers-eaters !”), so there were basi­cally no incen­tive to learn.

Funny, How ?

We were three friends sit at a small wob­bly wooden table, set half on the side­walk, half on the curb side of the dusty road. We just came back from a bar where my roommate’s Chi­nese boyfriend was per­form­ing and we were starv­ing, crav­ing for a plat­ter of jiaozi. It was a hot and humid night in Nan­jing, China.