Cultural comparisons…

Travel info meter is minus 5 at first moving up to 10 later.

Early in time God and a couple of His relatives  were hanging around the gene pool stirring it up and One says “Hey let’s make this one a few inches shorter than normal, and we’ll make the back of his head flatter than a pancake so he can never find a hat that fits” “Ya good plan” said the other two with a chuckle . “and we’ll put him in Winnipeg!” Hearty laughs and back-slapping all around. “Okay, who’s next… let’s see… George,  George Clooney “… ooh, so close.

64 years later… I’m coming out of the shower and walk past the mirror, stop, back up and see what there is to see. . That Carol is one lucky girl  I think. Actually I was thinking Is this how Bob Jello was inspired to make Pudding Pops? 

Than I focus on my chest and each pectoral muscle is the size of a Vote Diefenbacher button from the ’50s, only not as hard.

Looking next around my middle I wonder out loud “Why do they call it a spare tire when the original tire seems to be doing so well’?

Down a bit farther and I do that thing that every young man used to do to impress their new bride and rotate my hips and make a twirling motion in the front (that always impressed the ladies) except now the only thing twirling is a tide of flesh rotating around my navel.

Lower down still to my thighs and the age spots look like a map of Texas… “cool, I never noticed that before. There’s Dallas and the Alamo…”.

It’s a full length mirror so my knees, ankles, and feet are in view now. “These used to be the legs of an athlete  (I played Frisbee when I was younger) and now they belong to Rumplestilsken… what happened? Then I look on the bedside table “Hey, is that cheese”?…

This sad but true story comes to mind because  today while I was sitting at a cafe in a plaza eating some sausage and drinking beer I couldn’t help but think that they have it all figured out over here.

Because during history everyone needed to be close together to share resources and offer protection to each other it meant that people built up instead of spread out like we do in North America. The plazas and squares were a place to congregate in your local area and share stories and see your neighbours everyday. So people did know when someone was in need and the  care of the elderly and infirm was a community effort without judgement.

In North America we are all about exclusion, keeping our distance from our neighbours so we have the freedom to be individuals and make it harder to be a community that looks out for each other and offer stability to our families. Cheap public transit has to cover bigger distances and costs increase so it’s not cheap anymore so less people use it. Shops, like bakeries and pastry sellers, butcher shops, tailors, small handbag and jewellery stores are so common here, some on little residential streets and alleys where you could eek out a living close to home or at home. The culture woven over so many centuries includes local colours and fabrics and distinctive hats and shoes that all have meaning to everyone who was born in that particular town or village and people recognize where you’re from and what your particular standards are and what your beliefs are.

Obviously we have huge advantages by being such a young nation with more than enough room to grow which is also our big handicap in that we are so very far apart that we need individual transportation to get where we want to go and aren’t there for our community because we don’t know each other or their needs. By acting solely as individuals we are judging and fear being judged by others that we should know better, but hardly know them at all.  We are trying to find ourselves and raise families based not on longstanding standards that offer stability where you don’t have to question so many decisions that we have to make daily, hoping were doing it right (and therefore judging ourselves) and trying to measure up and get ‘ahead’. Getting ahead requires more than one job so others raise our kids and goods and pleasures determine our success.

The biggest disappointment by far on this trip is that Canada has no standing here. When you tell someone that you’re from Canada it is a negative. We ‘celebrate’150 years as a nation but we have no legacy yet; no special colours, fabrics, stories of conquest or fighting alongside our neighbours to push back an enemy on our own soil. There hasn’t been enough time yet. We don’t hold sway over anything in particular that affects most Europeans so we are a non-entity. Canada is so big and takes so long to get from place to place. There’s no train system to join people together, or even travel together forming small groups as you go along and learn something about the people around you and being part of a culture.

We have no distinctive foods (poutine?  Give me a break) Many people, especially young people don’t even know the words to our national anthem and nobody cares.

Even our most popular sport, hockey, which is so beautiful and skillful on the larger ice surfaces in Europe is barbaric in comparison in Canada where the small surface promotes collisions and aggression and the goal is to impede the skilled players that make the game almost an art form and provide entertainment. We give Orders of Merit to buffoonish commentators like Don Cherry who counsel young players on the wrong way to play the game and promote bullying and fighting and he’s legitimized by being on national television for decades. What was his accomplishment that we should hold him to a high standard?

We’re working as individuals not as a collective of like-minded people looking to make it better for everybody, just give me what’s mine and get out of my way.

It’s sad. I am very proud to be a Canadian but it feels so shallow compared to the closeness that people feel here. Old people are valued here and you see them sitting in coffee shops, on benches near the fountains, leaning on canes, wearing their funny traditional garb, smiling at the children and the children respecting them. In Canada age and experience are mostly liabilities. Old people can’t keep up to the frenetic pace we have to have so we can get ‘ahead’ and they’re left behind and made to feel like they are a drag on what our aspirations should be.

There’s nothing new here. I’ve read the cultural comparisons before and I know in my heart what is right and should be right, but it’s so much clearer when you see it in person amongst the locals. You would miss that if you just came to a country and stayed at a resort where you’re just mimicking your life back home but missing the cultural aspects that we can all learn from and incorporate into our lives in our native country. Carol and I have done both methods of travel but this one is more stimulating and rewarding especially visiting for a length of time where we can absorb the daily routines into our own.

Gee, what was in that beer.