A Nation Under Debt

I’m a small-time player. Or so said the last tele­mar­keter who called to offer me a $10,000 Amex credit card. I gasped when I heard the fig­ure. “But I don’t make that much money”, I naively admit­ted. “That’s why you should be inter­ested in a higher limit credit card, ma’am. This is Canada”, he added, in his heav­ily Cantonese-accented English.

Stuffs Canadians Like (Part 2)

Ever heard of the Trag­i­cally Hip? Chances are if you did, you hold a Cana­dian pass­port. If no, don’t worry — you’re just a for­eigner. The band from Kingston Ontario has been around for around twenty years but it just doesn’t work out­side Canada. Could that be because their songs mostly revolve around hockey, small Cana­dian towns and Cana­dian history?

Stuffs Canadians Like (Part 1)

For most immi­grants, Canada’s two sea­sons can be illus­trated by the fol­low­ing words — “fuck­ing hot” and “fuck­ing cold”. And Cana­di­ans loudly com­plain too. Too much snow to shovel in the morn­ing, free­way buried under bliz­zard and ice storms in win­ter, drought and floods in the summer.

A Canadian Mindset (8/10)

Don’t ever mis­take a Cana­dian for an Amer­i­can. I mean, seri­ously! It’s the best way to get a snow­ball thrown at you. The truth is, despite being influ­enced by Amer­i­can cul­ture, Canada has a true dis­tinct society.

His­tor­i­cally speak­ing, Canada has been influ­enced by Euro­pean cul­ture, espe­cially British and French. Later on, it also incor­po­rated Abo­rig­i­nal cul­ture into main­stream Cana­dian soci­ety. Var­i­ous immi­gra­tion waves shaped the coun­try as well.

Up In The Sky

Trav­el­ing from the East to the West meant fol­low­ing the sun… and not sleep­ing much because we shared the plane with two minor league soc­cer teams on their way to Toronto (one day, I’ll tell you about in-flight food fights… I’m still too trau­ma­tized to speak!). I was seated by the win­dow and snapped a few pic­tures along the way.

Multiculturalism (7/10)

Granted, these pic­tures mostly depict Chi­na­town… well, we all have our favorite neigh­bor­hood, right? But the coun­try is truly diverse: tra­di­tional Chi­na­towns and Lit­tle Italy area can be found close by Ukrain­ian, Russ­ian, South-East Asian, Latino and Indian neigh­bor­hoods, and I bet you could find a com­mu­nity news­pa­per in almost every lan­guage on earth in Canada.

Sweet Tooth (5/10)

Yes, Cana­dian treats. Good. Sweet stuffs to help us sur­vive harsh win­ter. Just have a look at that!
Beaver tails that are also a typ­i­cal piece of Canadian-ism, although pop­u­lar every­where in North Amer­ica : it’s a piece of fried dough, usu­ally with some sweet spread on top (yes, maple syrup is of course a favorite!). Mostly eaten at fes­ti­vals and dur­ing out­door activ­i­ties, it’s a win­ter favorite.

The Hugeness (4/10)

Unless you’re from Rus­sia or China, you will prob­a­bly feel that Canada is a pretty big place. And if you’re from Rus­sia, please let’s not argue about the North­west Pas­sage — it’s not like we can nav­i­gate it yet, okay?