This is an interesting thread. My parents were Canadians, but they were living in Palo Alto, California, when I was born. We all moved back to Canada when I was only about six months old, but it did give me my dual citizenship. My preteen years were spent in the suburbs of Toronto and Montreal. I mowed the lawn. I shoveled snow off the walk and the driveway. I chipped away icicles and walked the dog. We had guinea pigs and cats. We took ski vacations. I played a TON of street hockey with my friends growing up, and joined an ice hockey league when I was about nine, but I sucked at it, so I didn’t stay with it. Hockey is HUGE in Canada. Canadians don’t excel at many sports, but we claim hockey as our own. We think we OWN hockey and we expect to be the best at it. We cry when we lose and we cheer and have parades when we win. The theme music to “Hockey Night in Canada” is probably one of the most recognized pieces of music in the country. My Dad was an executive with Hewlett-Packard in those days. There were no personal computers in the late 60s and early 70s, just mainframes, but sometimes he’d take me to the office with him and I learned to program in BASIC when I was eight or nine years old. That’s not amazing now, because everyone has computers, but in 1970 I was kind of special – a little kid who could program! My preteen years were actually pretty great. I have lots of wonderful memories of those times. When I was thirteen, we moved from Montreal back to Ontario, to a rural area about forty minutes north of Toronto. We had a ten-acre woodlot there and a huge house. Those were my high school years. There were lots of chores to do around the place. Looking back, the thing I remember most is our huge Newfoundland dog and the fact that it was my responsibilty to bring in the firewood. Our house had four fireplaces (what did Santa Claus think of all that?) so there was a lot of firewood needed. I think I spent most of my high school years with an axe in one hand and a chain saw in the other. Also, I spent a lot of time driving a tractor, hauling logs around, and driving a really aggravating Chevy pickup truck. What a pain in the ass that was. When I was in high school, everyone in class – all of my friends – also lived on large properties. We were separated by miles. If I wanted to see my friends after school, my mom would have to drive me to their house and pick me up when it was time to come home – sometimes a very long trip. So all of us – every kid I knew – got our driver’s licenses literally on our sixteenth birthdays, and most of us owned our own cars by then. Usually old battered shitboxes, but driveable cars. I had a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle with huge gaping holes in the floor. I didn’t mind – I’d rip that thing up to 150 km/h on Highway 401 without a second thought. I had a friend who lived about twelve miles away, and when he came over to my house, he had to put a quart of oil in his old Chevy Vega. When it came time for him to go home, he’d have to put another quart in. That ugly green piece of crap drank oil at the rate of a quart every twelve miles, but my friend was happy to have it! My grandparents on my father’s side had been German Mennonites living in Ukraine at the time of the Russian Revolution. They were forced to flee there in 1920 or so, and came to Canada. So the food I grew up eating was influenced by that culture – lots of borscht, boiled beef, watermelon, zweiback (double buns – GREAT!), paska at Easter time, and so on. My grandmother would cook a goose every New Year’s. She made us lots of varenyky (similar to Polish pierogies) filled with cheese. She’s probably the reason I’m fat now. There’s a lot more I could say, but this post is big enough already.
YES!!!! Thank you so much for elaborating! This is going to be long-winded but I'm really excited so bare with me: Much of what you're talking about, outside of the historical/cultural content (which is all super interesting and I hope we get into it more here), is the identity formation process it all speaks to for youth of color -- from stuff I've read. POC kids growing up being told in both overt and covert ways that a) white people achieve all the stuff worth achieving, and b) people of color pretty much don't achieve stuff worth achieving, are a lot more likely to develop a poor self concept. The colorblind fools out there (and lurking now, posting soon) will say "but why would black kids need to see black people in the history books to feel good about themselves? IT'S JUST A SKIN COLOR AND IT DOESN'T MATTER!" But we know that children begin internalizing racial prejudices and stereotypes sometimes as early as preschool, so it is tremendously important. It's not even that there are too many negative messages about people of color (although that's true for sure), it's the lack of genuinely positive, empowering ones. It's the "you can't be what you can't see" thing. A black studies professor recommended a book to me a while back called Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria? -- which was one of the central inspirations of the film Dear White People. The author Beverly Tatum, a clinical psychologist, was asked by lots of white teachers in schools where she taught the exact question of the title of the book. She was asked over and over, at schools all over the place. White teachers didn't quite understand. They, like many white people, just didn't think about race much. Shhh! Don't talk about the thing that doesn't matter anymore!! White people ended slavery a thousand years ago! Race disappeared when Martin Luther King used the word dream with all that vibrato!! Tatum breaks down racial identity development for black kids, then gets into other races. According to her (and lots and lots of other psychologists), it's very important that youth of color form a positive racial identity they can be proud of. This means seeking out a positive place in history, finding pieces of culture that really speak to them (rather than ignore or outright insult them). The research says this is true for not only African-Americans, but for Latinos, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, biracial Americans, and others. The most interesting thing for me, maybe because I'm white (!), was her chapter on white racial identity development. I was like, holy shit they study us! Just as there are identifiable stages of racial identity development for black people and other people of color, there are identifiable stages of racial identity development for white people. I had written like 5 more paragraphs then realized I'm getting WAY too into this. This is already too long, but it's not off topic! Race! Culture! CAT VIDEOS! Hmm? Shh.
Colorado: Ridiculously fit. You come in to work on Monday everyone is telling you about where they hiked, how far they biked, and how great they feel about it. Because of this, another red state 10 is a Colorado 5 Warring between red and blue. The cities and deep mountains are blue, the front range and the plains are red. No one here gives a single fuck about anyone on the plains. Colorado starts at the front range. Altitude is everything. In other states you'll see signs that say "bumfuck Idaho, Population 5,027". In Colorado they say, "Red Feather Lakes, Elevation 7598" A ridiculous number of micro brews. Personally? Running with a ridiculous art crowd Way too crazy to use drugs Computer is everything. Computer is life Hiking is also good
I'll help you out. Winter sports, mounties, bacon, maple syrup and pancakes, mountains, forests, why's-everything-also-in-French, lumberjacks, checkered shirts, hairy men, predominantly white, Commonwealth, universal healthcare, half-of-what-you-see-on-TV-is-Toronto-not-America, politeness, awesome at ice hockey, horrible pop music exports, overseas Scandinavia, lots of rape, cold, cold, and cold. Those are the stereotypes of your culture / country that are prevalent over here just to name a few. Once or twice a year Finland hopes Canada would just go away, move to Neptune, so we'd have a better chance at the Ice Hockey World Championships or Winter Olympics. Please take Sweden with you. Europe is kind of huge, so depends where you go and how exactly you define feeling secure. I'd imagine you'd feel as secure in rural Finland as you'd feel in rural Canada. But then again, maybe you'd feel just as safe in rural Brazil or Russia? But of course there's visible poverty, crime, and guns in Europe, especially in urban areas. London is different from Sofia. Bukarest is different from Helsinki. Helsinki is different in this respect even from Oslo. Just as I'd expect there'd be at least poverty and crime if not guns in bigger Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver. Just as you struggle coming up with "Canadian culture," I can't really come up with "European culture," but you, as non-European, might be able to see things that in your mind make up a European culture (like security), but those ideas (or stereotypes) are likely to be just as shallow as what I listed about Canada.
I would not feel safe in rural Brazil because it's infested with giant venomous spiders. I would also not feel safe in rural Russia because infested with a giant shirtless Putin.
@KaTrian Hali minua I had a gf learn Finnish at school, so the only other term I remember is mina rakastan sinua - and I probably spelt that very wrong. Not too bad for learning those terms 24 years ago though. I don't know what my culture is. I don't like Aussie sport or drinking beer. I don't get drunk. I'm not a rev head. Family watched cricket as a kid but it bored me shitless. I dislike noise and crowds and pubs or clubs. I prefer the mountains to the beach. That's my perception of Australian culture.
LOL Putin, yeah, I agree with you there. I quite like spiders, even if they're venomous. Don't fuck with them and they won't fuck with you. While Putin will fuck with you even if you sit quietly in the corner. You spelled it correctly. Sans the umlauts, but that's ok 'cause you don't have them on your keyboard. Hali minua - that's such a sweet thing to say! I like the word hali. I demand many halis from my husband every day.
Living in Steamboat Springs well before they built the freeway through town. Sharing a mansion with 6 friends made it cheap. My bedroom had a window with a barn-like door that opened to the living room below. My roommates would play Boz Skaggs, Leonard Skynyrd and the Alan Parsons Project albums late into the night and I never minded at all. The living room ceiling was 3 stories high with stained glass skylights and tree trunk supporting pillars. There were two balconies that overlooked the valley, gorgeous. You kept your ski tags because you could ski from the house to the second lift where they looked at the color but didn't look closer at the word when loading the lift. Not being a skier before moving there, I used to take the easy run down from near the top. It was incredible weaving back and forth through fresh powder down the mountain on a gently sloping trail. Once cross country skiing by Moonlight with a bunch of friends, the entire snowbank shifted making a loud 'whomp' sound. That was scary. And once cross country skiing in the day, 20F outside, the lake should have been frozen, there were snowmobile tracks across it. But there was a hot spring in the lake and I fell through the ice. Fortunately it was only knee deep water. But I made the mistake of reaching down with my glove on to get my ski, because when you pull your foot up the ski stays. My glove became an ice cube within minutes. With no ski on to distribute one's weight, each step broke through the ice again. I took the other ski off before it too came off in the water. There was a bit of distance to the shore, fortunately without any deeper spots I plodded out of the lake, each step breaking through the ice. Back on land I had the problem of completely numb feet and chunks of ice on the skis. Everyone told me to wear three pairs of socks but when I put the shoes on, three socks wouldn't fit in the shoes. So by miraculous intervention, I had the third pair, still dry in my pocket. Chipped the ice off the skis, and put on the dry socks, and an hour back to the car we burst out laughing. That was a close call. In summer we rode horses across the tops of plateaus. Your legs got very sore, but no one cared. We hiked a lot and once in the fall we hiked up to a 10,000 foot pass. Lightning started hitting all around, scary as hell. Back down in town we drank hot buttered rum sitting outside in the hot tub at one of the bars as the snow started falling. Coldest night of the year I forgot to plug my engine heater in, 35F below. You have no idea how cold that is unless you've been in 35F below temperature. The oil in your car is so thick the engine cannot turn over fast enough to start. My friend and fellow nurse drove me to work, everyone helps out on nights like that. There was a hospital in Steamboat but a new nurse could never get a job there. I worked in Craig, small town, 35 miles away. Like day to Steamboat's night, it couldn't have been a better place to begin my nursing career. You could see births and deaths in a single night and wonder that not everyone sees such things in their whole lifetimes. The drive to work was through a beautiful valley and in the wintertime at night when the Moon was out the snow glowed. I never got tired of that drive. But I did get serious eye strain driving straight through back from Mardi Gras in New Orleans. My vision blurred and it was hard to work but I managed. Yep, that was Colorado, loved the place.
Belgian. Definitely not your standard Belgian family, though. Mom was Dutch, dad Belgian. Both became christian in their late teens. Got married, joined a christian group that travelled around in countries such as Italy, Portugal, Spain to tell people about the gospel. They had some kids, moved back to Belgium, and sticked with English as main language in the family. I ended up with 14 awesome siblings. I was raised as, what people would call, a conservative (protestant) christian, speaking not-so-great English, homeschooled since the age of 10. Compare this to the "regular" Belgian families: 2 kids, non-practicing catholics and obviously just speaking dutch and sending their kids to public school. As far as the Belgian stereotypes go: yes, I like french fries, chocolate and waffles, not too fond of beer. I don't really feel Belgian though. I'm not even sure what that's supposed to feel like. To be honest, I get more excited about the 4th of July than our national holiday. About me personally, I usually stand out because of what's mentioned above, but according to some people I'm also crazy because I'm not too fond of going out or clubbing, dating around, and then there's also the fact that you should probably feed me in time or I'll completely shut down. Other than that, I'm all smiles usually. In short: Belgium is this tiny country that so desperately wants to be progressive, which is ok, if you keep some standards and morals. Personally, I think it's a little pathetic. The countryside is great, though.
Personally, I'm interested in knowing what it's like having a family that huge! I was one of five kids, and I thought we had a big family. But goddamn!
Super High School World (I don't do most of these things, illegal or otherwise, but they're part of our environment) Curse words More curse words Calling people niggas Calling people bitches Calling people faggots Cultural appropriation Rap music Country music Country rap music Ebonics for people of all skin colors Coke Sprite Monster Energy McDonalds Gay pride Confederate battle flags Smoking weed Getting drunk Chewing Grizzly and throwing the empty tins in the toilet Using ADHD meds WITHOUT A PRESCRIPTION (oohhhh nooooo ) Trippin' on that Delsym Trippin' on them mushrooms Trippin' on that NyQuil Talking about how much sex you're having Talking about how you're from the streets Talking about how much of a bitch your teacher is for giving you a bad test grade
I'm sorry, I think you meant Australia. Y'know, the country with the giant animals that can kill you in hundreds of horribly painful ways? Brazil's got nothing on them. Then again, in the Deep South, we have a spider species called the Brown Recluse spider that, if one bites you, the venom literally causes your flesh to rot off. Do not look up the pictures, my dear squirrel friend. Do not!!
I feel like everywhere warm has too many wild nasties - spiders, snakes, crocodiles... no, thanks! I guess we have bears in the north, but they're pretty rare, and they're not stealthy. It's the stealth that really freaks me out.
I'll take the polar bears over spiders that make your hand rot off any day. At least polar bears are cute and cuddly. And you can actually see them coming and know where to avoid them. Snakes and crocodiles/alligators, I don't mind. They seem to stay where they are and so long as I don't mess with them, they don't mess with me.
It's kind of hard to explain, because obviously I can't compare, but I've always thought it was great. There hasn't been one moment in my life that I thought: "man, I wish I didn't have so many siblings". Even now, I dislike being alone or with just 2 or 3, I get lonely quickly. That doesn't mean I don't have to get away sometimes, but I like knowing that there's always someone around. We're kind of a hectic family, and I know I'd do things differently myself if I had to organize things. However, that's easier said than done, because I still don't know how my parents have managed to raise us all as normal human beings (well, you know, kind of normal).
Grew up without doing extra-curriculars, didn't take school seriously till I was 17. At one point, lived in a group home for a year before finishing high school. Managed to get into university and became dogged about becoming a professional. Didn't want to do anymore fast food, just beef up the c.v. with research assistantship. Left university before finishing the degree due to unforeseen circumstances. Continued seeking white-collar work, but eventually got into construction and warehousing. So a lot of ups and downs, different work environments and going to university with mostly upper-middle class kids has given me a broadened perspective on class and work, which I think defines culture, for myself anyways, in profound ways. I'm reminded that I'm not fully of one class or the other when with people of either class. To complicate things further, my dad's a professional engineer and my mom has a high school diploma. They divorced when I was seven.
I wonder if that technically counts as a prose poem. I think it's actually going to end up on my blog. It fits better thematically than the really amateur song review I was about to put up.
Sorry, I don't conform. Lol. Just kidding, I'm not sorry about that. And there is no "normal" there is simply what is socially acceptable in different places around the world. And again, I tend not to follow it. I follow what I think is right and wrong and learned it from just living. My parents tried shoving their Christianity "stuff" down my throat as a child and I just didn't believe in any of it. I think the things that influenced my behavior the most were stories, from books or movies to even videogames. And then when I grew older I learned how to respect others in the small things I do by my older friends. I genuinely feel more comfortable around people who are older than me because; A) They are less obnoxious than the people my age were (and to a point still are) and B ) We shared a lot more likes than I did with people my age. But as for being a part of a "culture", I really wouldn't put myself in any culture. I like a lot of different things, understand a lot of different things and a lot of things I like aren't usually socially "correct" or is socially "looked down upon" so I really don't tie myself down to any of them. I love different cultures but overall I belong to none of them.
Sounds to me like you may very well be an old soul... perhaps you've had numerous lifetimes to work this out
