Yesterday at work, with nothing but down-time (why didn't they close the firm on the Sunday between Canada Day and the Monday statutory holiday?), I read the Toronto Star lists of "Essentially Canadian" culture. It brought up something I frequently think and feel about being an immigrant, about living in a country in which I didn't grow up.
As I read about theatre, architecture, music - the cultural capital that makes a nation, a nation - I lack the background to put these in proper context. In most cases I lack knowledge of the plays, buildings, songs themselves.
If I read a list like this about the US, or about New York City, I'd understand the significance of every item on the list in a very deep way. I might interpret them through a viewpoint counter to the mainstream, but I'd understand both the mainstream and alternate views. I'd have a cultural context in which to place the work, and that would colour my view of it, whether consciously or no. Here, I look at culture in a vacuum.
This is why, on this blog, I'd ask for an explanation - usually about something in comments - yet be unable to fully absorb the answer, and I'd end up asking about the same thing at a later date. Good examples of this are the political events of Charlottetown and the Meech Lake Accord. They were mentioned in comments, I asked what they were, people explained. But as much as I understood the explanation, I couldn't really absorb it. I didn't have a context in which to place it, I couldn't understand the nuance and slant of what I was reading. Similarly, I didn't fully understand the parliamentary system until we watched the no confidence vote that brought down the Martin government.
On the one hand, this is exciting. I have new worlds to explore. In a sense it's like being in a permanent state of traveling. And that's usually how I see it. But sometimes, it's a little disconcerting. It leaves me feeling ungrounded. It leaves me feeling like a foreigner, with everything that word implies.
I don't have the culture clash that many immigrants do, coming from regions on the other side of the planet. In the business of daily life, it's very easy for me to fit in: Toronto is not so different from New York when it comes to that. But those immigrants also bring a distinct culture with them, and retain it as part of their identity - food, religion, holidays - in a way that I don't. I only have what I'm running away from.
I often note that I'll never know Toronto the way I know New York - not in that deep way where you know a city like it's a member of your family, like you know your own skin. I don't necessarily aspire to know Toronto that intimately. But what about Canada? I wonder if I could ever know Canada the way I know the America. (And I purposely use "America" there, not "the US".)
I add Canadian books and movies to my lists of things to read and watch, and add Canadian places to list of places to visit. It sometimes feels overwhelming - yet I'm unable to ignore it. I can't simply live here and be merely a displaced American. I have to know where here is.
15 comments:
I think you will get to know your own Canada, as there are 32 million of them. That list, by the way, was far too academic. They are great things to know about, but they do not really form the national psyche... except abstractly.
I felt the same way when I lived in the UK and I was totally oblivious to many pop culture references that were made all the time. It's inevitable, but presents the (for me, at least) intriguing possibility of discovery. And the way you discover these things, the people along the way, can be brilliant.
As for knowing Toronto... I'd be inclined to suggest you try. It is a beautiful place- not externally, but internally. Discovering its constantly shifting nuances and quirks is something I still love to do- and I've lived here for 29 years. Just a suggestion!
zefrank has a nice little discussion of being an outsider in his June 14th show:
On the airplane coming here I ate a ham sandwich. I was eating flying pig. Both the pig and I were miles above our natural context. What normally would have been a plain ham sandwich turned into an exotic ham sandwich. Piglicious.
When I travel sometimes I feel out of place and alone. I become aware that the places that I visit have a history and a context. But I am out of context. The Eiffel tower is cool to look at, but it's also french. And I know that french people look at the Eiffel tower in a totally different way than I do. In the same way that the Empire State building means something totally different to me than it does to a french tourist. I'll never be french. And the awareness that that experience is lost to me can make me feel lonely, almost like I don't belong.
(Photo montage)
Las Vegas was built in the middle of a huge hot desert. Almost everything here was brought from somewhere else. The sort-of rocks, the trees, the waterfalls. These fish are almost as out of place as my pig that flew. Contrasted to the scorching desert that surrounds this place, so are these people. Things from all over the world have been rebuilt here, away from their histories and away from the people that experience them differently. Sometimes improvements were made, even the Sphinx got a nose job. Here, what you see is what you get and there is no reason to feel like you're missing anything: this New York means the same to me as it does to anyone else. Everything is out of context, and that means context allows for everything. Self Parking Events Center Shark Reef. This fabrication of place could be one of the worlds greatest achievements: because no one belongs here, everyone does. As I walked around this morning I noticed most of the buildings were huge mirrors, reflecting the sun back into the desert. But unlike most mirrors that present you with an outside view of yourself embedded in a place, these mirrors come back empty. (Back in hotel room) Baby.
As for knowing Toronto... I'd be inclined to suggest you try. It is a beautiful place- not externally, but internally. Discovering its constantly shifting nuances and quirks is something I still love to do- and I've lived here for 29 years. Just a suggestion!
And it's a good one! I am getting to know Toronto, and I'll definitely do more of it. What I mean is that, living in the suburbs, coming to a city only to work and for cultural stuff, is not the same as living in it.
Because I grew up in the suburbs, then was a city resident for my entire adult life, I'm very aware of the difference between how you know a city if you live there, and how you know it if you only visit. I'll probably end up knowing Toronto better than most of my suburban neighbours! But not the way you do, or James, or others who live in it day to day.
When you say you are still "discovering its constantly shifting nuances and quirks" - that's a real urbanite's observation. I always felt that way about New York. I don't know if I'd ever be that intimate with Toronto. We shall see. :)
That list, by the way, was far too academic. They are great things to know about, but they do not really form the national psyche... except abstractly.
This is a very good point, too - thanks. Many of the references to "what could be more Canadian than..." are a bit weird and abstract.
James, thanks for that. Good stuff.
What struck me first about this post was yet another list about what it is to be Canadian. Are Americans as obsessed with navel gazing as we are, or is it the by-product of a David with an identity crisis living under the shadow of a Goliath who knows exactly what he's all about?
I'll probably end up knowing Toronto better than most of my suburban neighbours! But not the way you do, or James, or others who live in it day to day.
I'm always getting surprised by stuff in Toronto myself. One side effect of being a "city of neighbourhoods" is that it's quite possible to know an area "very well" and still not realize that a neighbourhood in the middle of it even exists -- people tend to know the ones that border on the major roads, and can miss the ones in between.
I've only been here for about 14 years total (3 years university, 11 years living here). We would come in often from London (for the opera & such) and my knowledge of Toronto was very fragmented until I started living here full-time. One example that always sticks in my mind: I never realized that Gwortzman's Art Supplies (Spadina, south of College -- north end of Chinatown) was kitty-corner from the university (and not far from Casa Loma) until I was living in the university.
Everything you mention would apply to me, if I moved to New York or Dallas because of the distinct culture that each region of the United States offers. This is why the term "mainstream" is a misnomer. Maybe to a lesser degree than you, or maybe more. I don't know.
Southern California is really the only world in the States that I know having lived here for 25 years.
Are Americans as obsessed with navel gazing as we are,
Every bit as much, if not more. New Yorkers are the same way - obsessed with what it means to be a New Yorker.
Perhaps humans are just self-reflective that way, as creatures with self-consciousness.
By the way, I don't see this as a "what it means to be Canadian" post. More what it is to be an immigrant and an outsider.
We would come in often from London (for the opera & such) and my knowledge of Toronto was very fragmented until I started living here full-time.
Yes, that's exactly one of the differences between living in a place and visiting it.
I grew up in the suburbs of NYC and went into the city all the time. But my knowledge of New York was fragmented and skewed - and I never realized how much so - until I moved to the city.
Everything you mention would apply to me, if I moved to New York or Dallas because of the distinct culture that each region of the United States offers. This is why the term "mainstream" is a misnomer. Maybe to a lesser degree than you, or maybe more. I don't know.
I know what you're saying, and I agree - to an extent. I do think that there is a mainstream culture. It varies regionally, but you'd never mistake yourself for anywhere but America. Perhaps I feel that more, as I've always felt so alienated from it.
Sorry if it sounded like I was criticising your post (I see how it could be read that way); I was actually making a comment on the newspaper article, not your interpretation of it.
Sorry if it sounded like I was criticising your post (I see how it could be read that way);
It didn't sound like that at all. And even if it did, you're entitled. :)
It varies regionally, but you'd never mistake yourself for anywhere but America.
Toronto is in America, isn't it? North America, that is :-)
Toronto is in America, isn't it? North America, that is :-)
Not you, too! ;-)
Usually it's only ardent lefties who insist on this hair splitting. You damn well know what I mean! :)
One of the best language teachers I ever had was a Spanish professor from Guanajuato, Mexico. One day in class, he was covering Mexican geography and mentioned a town in Guanajuato where "in 1811 Friar Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla gave El Grito de Independencia!" He said this with a heartfelt intensity that seemed to arise naturally from him ... but he was met with only blank stares from his class of Americans. For a second, he looked very sad, and I wished I could have felt what he was feeling about his country, his state, his history.
If there's one book that I really recommend from the literature list, it's "In the Skin of a Lion". I grew up in Toronto, and until I read that book I never really properly felt the rich depth of the history and the roots put down by the immigrants and workers who really built the city. Really great read, it allowed me better than anything to visualize the progression of Toronto through time. Atwood has some good Toronto though too.
Kim
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