Allan:
One other thing I would note is that Canada is surprisingly egalitarian, or to put it another way egalitarian in surprising ways. This has a bunch of interesting manifestations that are quite subtle but surprisingly… “rigid” is not exactly the right word, but “de riguer” doesn’t quite convey the importance.
Things like
- Opening doors. If two people are passing through the door at once, one person holds the door — either one the outside, or they go through first but keep their arm on the door. And the second person acknowledges the act. That entire little ballet is deeply culturally ingrained. Failure to participate is unthinkable.
- Letting cars in. You let cars in, and the person who is let in acknowledges it in some way.
- Respecting personal privacy. It’s not particularly rare to see political figures or other well-known people around. You are expected to treat them like normal people, and in return they treat you like just another person.
- Acceptance of The Other. Not saying that Canada does not have racist asshats, but broadly speaking you’ll find that Canadians as a whole have concluded that people are people, and that most people want to live a happy and safe life and raise their children to be happy and productive members of society. The fact that some people wear funny things on their heads or are a different colour is sort of secondary. Habib had a funny answer once about how he felt invisible in Vancouver because other Blacks in the restaurant didn’t give him “the look” when he walked in.
It’s all pretty interesting, really. One of the things that I always find quite interesting (I’m born in the USA) is that in some ways Canada resembles a sort of idealized America, sort of Mayberry meets The Walton's.
It really is quite peculiar.
Scott Welch
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