Friday, 15 May 2015
Toronto
Friday, 8 May 2015
Weaving of Identities
Like many other "visible minorities", I often get asked where I'm from. I don't get peeved or annoyed when people do that, because then I can ask them. I have a line for them now, "I was born in Canada but my parents are from Hong Kong." All that passive-aggressiveness that comes from "Where are you from?" has been analyzed, the notion of citizenship, belonging and inclusion. I'm luckier: "visible minorities" whose families have been in the country for generations are more pissed off, whereas I guess I can still say that I'm 'from' somewhere else that is 'not here'.
I'm currently reading Susan Ossman's Moving Matters in which she talks about what she calls 'serial migrants'. The thing that links all serial migrants together is that their migration starts out of immigration. And, although I have not immigrated in the way that the migrants in her book have, I would say that, as a child of migrants having long looked to other cultures for freedom from the binding, suffocating bi-cultures she grew up with, I see myself in these serial migrants' situations.
In Iceland, I found like I could breathe. At the same time as I was tied down to my Canadian nationality and my Chinese/Hong Kong ethnicity, it also gave me access - to language, to people, to sharing of experiences. I felt like I had a sort of power that neither the Europeans nor the Asians had.
I am both of those, yet I am not really fully any one of those. I speak English, but I still make non-native mistakes. I speak Cantonese and look the part, but after a few sentences I usually stop. I have Chinese mannerisms, but a Western individualism. So I'm those, and yet for the past few years I really admired and wanted to become Quebecois, which did not work out for economic reasons. I found this third culture freeing.
I think I've already said this before, but during my European tour, I spoke French in Italy, Spanish in Austria to an Italian, and when I got to Budapest my mind was already in Hong Kong, so when I heard some phrases that I understood, I looked to them and exclaimed, "Hey! Cantonese-speaking people!"
There's a lot of observation/criticism of people who go to a different place and then gravitate towards those who are more familiar. Theories say that these people are reluctant to get out of their comfort zone and there's a whole superiority factor in breaking out of that zone.
If someone had observed my joy in meeting Cantonese-speaking people in Budapest, they would have (probably correctly) surmised that I was looking for a familiar voice or face removed so far away from 'home'. I had spent the last 3 months in Europe, and so it was cool to hear Cantonese again, but I just said hi and went on my way. It was because I was in neither North America nor Asia that I so reveled in that aspect of myself.
So ultimately, will I move to that crucial third space, towards which immigration propels me? Or do I stand my ground and fully incorporate more of myself as being both Chinese and Canadian? Guilt holds me back; so does shame. I think by immigrating elsewhere, I would be escaping. Not everyone has that freedom to do so.
I'm currently reading Susan Ossman's Moving Matters in which she talks about what she calls 'serial migrants'. The thing that links all serial migrants together is that their migration starts out of immigration. And, although I have not immigrated in the way that the migrants in her book have, I would say that, as a child of migrants having long looked to other cultures for freedom from the binding, suffocating bi-cultures she grew up with, I see myself in these serial migrants' situations.
In Iceland, I found like I could breathe. At the same time as I was tied down to my Canadian nationality and my Chinese/Hong Kong ethnicity, it also gave me access - to language, to people, to sharing of experiences. I felt like I had a sort of power that neither the Europeans nor the Asians had.
I am both of those, yet I am not really fully any one of those. I speak English, but I still make non-native mistakes. I speak Cantonese and look the part, but after a few sentences I usually stop. I have Chinese mannerisms, but a Western individualism. So I'm those, and yet for the past few years I really admired and wanted to become Quebecois, which did not work out for economic reasons. I found this third culture freeing.
I think I've already said this before, but during my European tour, I spoke French in Italy, Spanish in Austria to an Italian, and when I got to Budapest my mind was already in Hong Kong, so when I heard some phrases that I understood, I looked to them and exclaimed, "Hey! Cantonese-speaking people!"
There's a lot of observation/criticism of people who go to a different place and then gravitate towards those who are more familiar. Theories say that these people are reluctant to get out of their comfort zone and there's a whole superiority factor in breaking out of that zone.
If someone had observed my joy in meeting Cantonese-speaking people in Budapest, they would have (probably correctly) surmised that I was looking for a familiar voice or face removed so far away from 'home'. I had spent the last 3 months in Europe, and so it was cool to hear Cantonese again, but I just said hi and went on my way. It was because I was in neither North America nor Asia that I so reveled in that aspect of myself.
So ultimately, will I move to that crucial third space, towards which immigration propels me? Or do I stand my ground and fully incorporate more of myself as being both Chinese and Canadian? Guilt holds me back; so does shame. I think by immigrating elsewhere, I would be escaping. Not everyone has that freedom to do so.
Fast/Slow
I'm a pretty fast person myself; that is, my pace of life is fast.
So when I go to order some take-out shawarma, I have my earbuds on listening to a podcast, I order, I stand waiting for my order, prepared to run out the door and back to my office.
First comes the tea. The woman who placed my order offers me tea, and I stand around sipping it.
Then a man (the owner or manager?) comes asking me how I like the tea (it's a blend of several types of tea, including rosewater which I can deliciously taste through all the other blends).
When I finish the tea, I am asked whether or not I want another cup of it (it's a small cup). At first, I hesitate and then I give in because it's so good. I feel guilty so I give a tip. The second cup of tea is really hot, and I go and sit on this waiting bench.
Then the man says that my order will almost be ready. A few more minutes go by, and out comes the potatoes with garlic sauce and a falafel. I was actually going to order those but I didn't! Yum. While I'm eating the potatoes (tea still waiting to be cooled down), the take-out order comes out. By this time, I would feel weird if I got all this food but then left it in a jiffy - would it mean that I don't like it? But what if I ate it all - would it look like I'm greedy? So I sit for 10 more minutes eating and drinking this food I didn't order.
Half an hour has passed for a take-out order and I don't know what to feel. Full, pleased, annoyed, guilty, pleasantly hospitalized (as in catered for). I mean, this has happened at sit-down restaurants, especially when service is slow sort of as an apology, but I think this is a different type of slowness in which take-out has transformed into a taking in of the place.
So when I go to order some take-out shawarma, I have my earbuds on listening to a podcast, I order, I stand waiting for my order, prepared to run out the door and back to my office.
First comes the tea. The woman who placed my order offers me tea, and I stand around sipping it.
Then a man (the owner or manager?) comes asking me how I like the tea (it's a blend of several types of tea, including rosewater which I can deliciously taste through all the other blends).
When I finish the tea, I am asked whether or not I want another cup of it (it's a small cup). At first, I hesitate and then I give in because it's so good. I feel guilty so I give a tip. The second cup of tea is really hot, and I go and sit on this waiting bench.
Then the man says that my order will almost be ready. A few more minutes go by, and out comes the potatoes with garlic sauce and a falafel. I was actually going to order those but I didn't! Yum. While I'm eating the potatoes (tea still waiting to be cooled down), the take-out order comes out. By this time, I would feel weird if I got all this food but then left it in a jiffy - would it mean that I don't like it? But what if I ate it all - would it look like I'm greedy? So I sit for 10 more minutes eating and drinking this food I didn't order.
Half an hour has passed for a take-out order and I don't know what to feel. Full, pleased, annoyed, guilty, pleasantly hospitalized (as in catered for). I mean, this has happened at sit-down restaurants, especially when service is slow sort of as an apology, but I think this is a different type of slowness in which take-out has transformed into a taking in of the place.
Saturday, 31 January 2015
Narcissism/Stillness
I haven't written in here in a long time, partially because I haven't been travelling, although I have been trying to notice things with "travellers' eyes" while living in Kingston.
I came across this link the other day: Henry Wismayer: Has travel become another exercise in narcissism? There's also a response piece in which he tries to defend what he has written. After reading these, I thought they were pretty elementary. In defense of the people he criticizes for saying that once-in-a-lifetime experiences are "awesome", I would just say that a) you're putting those people on the spot - perhaps they're better at articulating their experiences through drawing, poetry, film, photography, writing? b) Perhaps they haven't had time to reflect on their experiences, partially because they're always on the move c) Try asking the same thing about eating an apple, "It was crispy." "It was sweet." Unless we're a specific sort of writer, we don't get asked those same kinds of questions about eating, do we?
The first piece is hypocritical, which just goes to show many peoples' complex relationships towards travel, globalization, development. Yes, I did say all those words in one breath. Basically, he's trying to say that travel is now more about consumption than adventure. Right?
I am aware that I myself am a perpetrator of some of those things and ideals he mentions in his first piece. I believe that when I first travelled abroad, as a young 20-something student who had just worked her way into (relatively) a lot of money for the first time in her life, travel was freedom.
One of the interesting things about my internship right now is that I help facilitate not only pre-departure sessions for students, but re-entry sessions, and I think these are the more challenging sessions. I want students attending these sessions to think and reflect. When I came back from my year abroad, I lost a lot of friends. They either graduated or were in classes that were years ahead of mine. It seemed as if everything had changed, but it had probably never occurred to me that they were jealous of me or angry that I had missed a whole year of their lives. I did ask what they had been up to, but compared to my stories, it seemed as if they had just gone on with their usual lives, which is exactly what happened.
Even the marvelous travel writer Pico Iyer's newest book is about The Art of Keeping Still. In such a mobile world, it takes more and more work to keep still, and yet I believe we need stillness more than ever. I used to say with pride that for the past X amount of years and counting, I have barely lived in one city for more than two years. I don't regret doing that, but it does have to stop. There is a quality to stillness that doesn't come with agitation, and that is depth.
I came across this link the other day: Henry Wismayer: Has travel become another exercise in narcissism? There's also a response piece in which he tries to defend what he has written. After reading these, I thought they were pretty elementary. In defense of the people he criticizes for saying that once-in-a-lifetime experiences are "awesome", I would just say that a) you're putting those people on the spot - perhaps they're better at articulating their experiences through drawing, poetry, film, photography, writing? b) Perhaps they haven't had time to reflect on their experiences, partially because they're always on the move c) Try asking the same thing about eating an apple, "It was crispy." "It was sweet." Unless we're a specific sort of writer, we don't get asked those same kinds of questions about eating, do we?
The first piece is hypocritical, which just goes to show many peoples' complex relationships towards travel, globalization, development. Yes, I did say all those words in one breath. Basically, he's trying to say that travel is now more about consumption than adventure. Right?
I am aware that I myself am a perpetrator of some of those things and ideals he mentions in his first piece. I believe that when I first travelled abroad, as a young 20-something student who had just worked her way into (relatively) a lot of money for the first time in her life, travel was freedom.
One of the interesting things about my internship right now is that I help facilitate not only pre-departure sessions for students, but re-entry sessions, and I think these are the more challenging sessions. I want students attending these sessions to think and reflect. When I came back from my year abroad, I lost a lot of friends. They either graduated or were in classes that were years ahead of mine. It seemed as if everything had changed, but it had probably never occurred to me that they were jealous of me or angry that I had missed a whole year of their lives. I did ask what they had been up to, but compared to my stories, it seemed as if they had just gone on with their usual lives, which is exactly what happened.
Even the marvelous travel writer Pico Iyer's newest book is about The Art of Keeping Still. In such a mobile world, it takes more and more work to keep still, and yet I believe we need stillness more than ever. I used to say with pride that for the past X amount of years and counting, I have barely lived in one city for more than two years. I don't regret doing that, but it does have to stop. There is a quality to stillness that doesn't come with agitation, and that is depth.
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Canadian Culture
I just came back from participating in my first Success for Skills in Canadian Culture session given at Queen's University International Centre.
The session brought up a lot of questions about what Canadian culture really is. So, for a bit of background, over three 2-hour sessions, newcomers to Canada, with the help of Canadian mentors, teach communication skills for specific situations. Which is great! Because to socialize, to network well, to get a job, to work in teams, everyone new to a culture needs this kind of training and I think newcomers to other cultures would benefit from similar training.
However. And this might also be pertinent to other countries. The session, even though the Canadians emphasized that every Canadian is different, that everyone has an opinion on what being Canadian means and so on, to teach some tangible skills, there had to be directions.
So, things like:
-stand a bit back from the personal; do not invade their personal space
-ask a lot of questions to fill the silence
-be assertive
-shake hands and make eye contact when greeting someone
Basic, right? But I grew up not really having many social skills like this until I was in my late teens. I am still working on my communication skills every day. Is this due to culture? To personality? If I do something else, am I then not Canadian? I am so confused.
I mean, I fit in to Canadian culture, I function in it, I've worked and studied and lived most of my life here. Yet some parts of what other people call "Canadian culture" I don't recognize in myself. I'm sure that's true for all Canadians, I mean, who can be 100% "Canadian" by the "rules" of being Canadian?
I am getting a bit personal now, so...when my parents came here, I think all they wanted to do, and I think all they still want to do is fit in to the culture, what I've read is the "dominant Canadian culture". This is what is mentioned above. They wanted to immigrate, get a relatively secure job, work hard, be with family, and retire well. But on the basis of that, what does that mean? Is this "dominant" culture based on Native American, Anglo-Saxon, Gallic culture? Is this "dominant" culture based on demographics?
I was Googling this and this article came up in the search result:
http://www.straight.com/news/anu-sandhu-bhamra-if-you-are-not-white-you-are-not-canadian-enough
Let me share my own story. I studied in a Montessori establishment in preschool, so in Grade 1 I was a new kid at a new school. One of the first things they asked me was (other than if I was supposed to be in Kindergarten because I was so tiny!) to put me in an ESL class. They didn't ask if I could or could not speak English. It's just that I didn't speak much just like I don't now.So sometime every week, I got pulled out of class to learn English (I was really confused about why I was there). I also learned how to cook pasta (because that is soooo Canadian) and I learned how to cook butternut squash. I'm sure they thought they were doing me a favour, but already I was singled out as being different, not "from here".
Some people from other countries also think this. I once was talking to someone not from Canada and they said that they would really love to meet a Canadian, when I had just introduced myself from being Canadian! "They would know what to do in so and so a situation." It's true.
The thing I want to differ from the author of the other article is that I did eventually learn, about other Canadian cultures. In grade 2 I made latkes for Hunakkah, we painted hands for Diwali, I learned about Kwanzaa. Throughout grades 3-5 we learned about Aboriginal peoples (although it wasn't until university I learned about residential schools, unfortunately. I think that would have had a great impact on me had I learned about it earlier). History textbooks in high school did not leave out experiences of the Chinese Head Tax and Japanese internment camps. We had substitute teachers from India and Hungary. What interested me most about different cultures, and what drove me to study linguistics, is when I started singing in the Oakville Children's Choir songs from all over the world in different languages, and also travelling with the choir and meeting people from all over. But they wanted to instill what is considered the dominant "basic Canada" in me as much as possible first.
The session brought up a lot of questions about what Canadian culture really is. So, for a bit of background, over three 2-hour sessions, newcomers to Canada, with the help of Canadian mentors, teach communication skills for specific situations. Which is great! Because to socialize, to network well, to get a job, to work in teams, everyone new to a culture needs this kind of training and I think newcomers to other cultures would benefit from similar training.
However. And this might also be pertinent to other countries. The session, even though the Canadians emphasized that every Canadian is different, that everyone has an opinion on what being Canadian means and so on, to teach some tangible skills, there had to be directions.
So, things like:
-stand a bit back from the personal; do not invade their personal space
-ask a lot of questions to fill the silence
-be assertive
-shake hands and make eye contact when greeting someone
Basic, right? But I grew up not really having many social skills like this until I was in my late teens. I am still working on my communication skills every day. Is this due to culture? To personality? If I do something else, am I then not Canadian? I am so confused.
I mean, I fit in to Canadian culture, I function in it, I've worked and studied and lived most of my life here. Yet some parts of what other people call "Canadian culture" I don't recognize in myself. I'm sure that's true for all Canadians, I mean, who can be 100% "Canadian" by the "rules" of being Canadian?
I am getting a bit personal now, so...when my parents came here, I think all they wanted to do, and I think all they still want to do is fit in to the culture, what I've read is the "dominant Canadian culture". This is what is mentioned above. They wanted to immigrate, get a relatively secure job, work hard, be with family, and retire well. But on the basis of that, what does that mean? Is this "dominant" culture based on Native American, Anglo-Saxon, Gallic culture? Is this "dominant" culture based on demographics?
I was Googling this and this article came up in the search result:
http://www.straight.com/news/anu-sandhu-bhamra-if-you-are-not-white-you-are-not-canadian-enough
Let me share my own story. I studied in a Montessori establishment in preschool, so in Grade 1 I was a new kid at a new school. One of the first things they asked me was (other than if I was supposed to be in Kindergarten because I was so tiny!) to put me in an ESL class. They didn't ask if I could or could not speak English. It's just that I didn't speak much just like I don't now.So sometime every week, I got pulled out of class to learn English (I was really confused about why I was there). I also learned how to cook pasta (because that is soooo Canadian) and I learned how to cook butternut squash. I'm sure they thought they were doing me a favour, but already I was singled out as being different, not "from here".
Some people from other countries also think this. I once was talking to someone not from Canada and they said that they would really love to meet a Canadian, when I had just introduced myself from being Canadian! "They would know what to do in so and so a situation." It's true.
The thing I want to differ from the author of the other article is that I did eventually learn, about other Canadian cultures. In grade 2 I made latkes for Hunakkah, we painted hands for Diwali, I learned about Kwanzaa. Throughout grades 3-5 we learned about Aboriginal peoples (although it wasn't until university I learned about residential schools, unfortunately. I think that would have had a great impact on me had I learned about it earlier). History textbooks in high school did not leave out experiences of the Chinese Head Tax and Japanese internment camps. We had substitute teachers from India and Hungary. What interested me most about different cultures, and what drove me to study linguistics, is when I started singing in the Oakville Children's Choir songs from all over the world in different languages, and also travelling with the choir and meeting people from all over. But they wanted to instill what is considered the dominant "basic Canada" in me as much as possible first.
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