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  #101  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 9:09 AM
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Originally Posted by cornholio View Post
Just to make it clear the opinions of the "regular people" on the ground for the most part differ greatly from those of their politicians and leaders. For 25 years there has been a very concerted effort in eastern Europe to ensure its people align westward and every trick in the book has been used. Its a very complicated subject and not something really anyone from eastern Europe (regardless of country) will ever discuss openly/honestly with any outsider, in fact most people will be insulted if you want to discuss their politics/history with them and at best will tell you what you want to hear or at worse tell you to f off. I just want to make it clear that what happens in the public, and what you hear here in the west, is not representative of the opinions and attitudes of the people from those parts who have a actual history and past that is not as black and white.
Yuri approved! Perhaps I shall discuss this post with him..
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  #102  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 9:32 AM
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This is what makes this so difficult. Reliable information doesn't really exist, and what you get from individuals is shockingly disparate.

I know a Russian Canadian who has been here 20 years. He hates Russia. He loves Russia. He misses Russia. He would never go back there. He has fond memories of his days in the Soviet army. He thinks Putin's regime is evil. He felt the Soviet regimes were evil. What does he miss? When he answers this, everything he says he quickly notes how it wasn't 'like that,' or wasn't 'really that good,' and so on. He admits his thoughts and feelings about Russia are a mess. Then he says "but, that's Russia!" You figure it out.

I know a woman who is from Kazakhstan. She thinks the west is heaven, but would never live here. She lives in Astana, which she considers too new, too sterile, too orchestrated. But she is proud that her home is "a future place." She refuses to consider the nature of her government. And the same goes for the Russian government. She still feels attached to Russia, but the evolving system under Putin does scare her a bit. She has no idea that Putin's government actually writes laws for her government's legislators. She thinks the real dictator is "capitalism," but feels that nothing good is coming out of the former Soviet states, while the West is the only generator of progress.

Things are quite a bit more messy in the post-soviet realm than we typically see and hear. The confusion can be astounding. They knowingly threw off the oppression they were living under, but then there was a great failure of leadership. People were not brought along into a new and freer culture, but instead, they were confused with a systemic economic upheaval which was accompanied with an insidious new form of political oppression. When I talk to people (and I have with many more than the two I describe), it doesn't matter if the mood is a negative complaining one or one of fond memories - either way, if the discussion becomes serious (politically, socially, economically) they quickly begin to display a sense of deep shock in which confusion reigns.

I don't find any of this surprising. That part of the world has changed immensely. The people have experienced a complex of changes affecting their daily existence. But at the same time, they have experienced a profound loss of wholeness, and a vacancy where they have long been told 'progress' will fill.

By the way, I also know people who would paint a different of completely opposite picture from this. So, again, you figure it out. As someone else said, "blanket statements do not apply."
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  #103  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 12:02 PM
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Originally Posted by OutOfTowner View Post
Speak for yourself, suburban Outaouais guy! I have a Russian-owned apartment building in my hood - Dmitri, owner - and it is home to many Russians and former Russians. Yuri, who has become a great friend of mine, is Dmitri's 'representative' when it comes to rent etc. Yuri is Ukranian (though veers pro Russia) and used to be a film director of some note back in the Soviet days. We regulary discuss the pros and cons of democracy/communism whilst downing shots of bootleg Cuban rum. He's an invaluable source of tips on photo taking (my god he knows photography!) and is generally acknowledged, in our little zone, as being "The World's Most Interesting Man".

Don't make sweeping generalizations!
It's not really a sweeping generalization. Obviously there can be exceptions to every rule. I don't think it's a stretch to say Ukraine isn't on the radar in Quebec as it is on the Prairies.
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  #104  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 12:03 PM
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Originally Posted by dleung View Post
The bolded is your post, right?

You brought up the apparent double standard, now it's "not the dominant discourse" lol.

Also not sure what is this All Lives Matter group you keep trying to disassociate from. There's only the non-caps statement, which has no more meaning than any other platitude (ie "humans need food") other than its use against BLM.

The reason I brought it up in the first place is why only homophobes wonder "where's the straight pride parade?", and why only racists say "all lives matter", or other stupid statements that assume the falsehood that everyone is on equal footing
Nice attempt at pigeonholing.
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  #105  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 3:06 PM
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Originally Posted by lio45 View Post
For the record, the only times in my life I've heard of "perogies" is on SSP Canada, and from these posts I've managed to gather that it's some form of food, and that it's Eastern European (and at least Ukrainian, but I have no idea if they have exclusivity over it or if their neighbors have nearly identical food they call theirs).
I was familiarized with pierogies while living in Ontario in my younger days. I have no idea how commonly known they are in Quebec, though Gatineau's Costco does have them.

Even in Ontario they are associated with Ukraine. Though later in life I had a Polish friend and when they served us pierogies, silly me I said "oh, so you guys eat pierogies too". And he said "pierogies aren't just Ukrainian, and anyway... borders and nationalities in that part of the world... let's just say... it's complicated".
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  #106  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 3:11 PM
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My parents made them all the time when i was a child.

I just assumed that they were a common food item throughout Canada.
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  #107  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 3:18 PM
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"The food is not the same here, but I like perogies," Forest said when asked about his impressions of Arborg. "I also saw straight streets for the first time. Ours go up and down and around curves because we are a region of hills, mountains and trees."

http://www.interlaketoday.ca/2010/05...h-arborg-visit
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  #108  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 3:54 PM
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I do love the potato and cheese filled dough pockets common amongst Eastern European cultures. I even make them at home. But they are all different. Same with cabbage roles. The variations are astoundinng and I'm still struck by a couple of friends -- Ukranian and German heritages -- who on first having supper at each respective parents both had the same question of "what is with the weird cabbage roles?"
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  #109  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 3:56 PM
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Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes View Post
I do love the potato and cheese filled dough pockets common amongst Eastern European cultures. I even make them at home. But they are all different. Same with cabbage roles. The variations are astoundinng and I'm still struck by a couple of friends -- Ukranian and German heritages -- who on first having supper at each respective parents both had the same question of "what is with the weird cabbage roles?"
Would that cabbage be in a leading role or a supporting role? (Just teasing you.)
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  #110  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 5:37 PM
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And I suggested to my Polish co-worker(s) that cabbage rolls evolve into something more 21st century: cabbage trolls: cabbage rolls inserted inside a taco. Or pierogies with cheese curds and gravy stuffing.

I'm not Russian but I grew up eating both cabbage rolls and the Russian Pirozhki stuffed with sauerkraut or meat or really anything you please: basically the Russian version of the Cornish Pasty or Jamaican patty. Then there's the Long John, which is essentially a sweet version I associate with buggy Amish/Mennonite cuisine in Waterloo County.

I've been eating multiculti food since I was a small child, so using my unlimited imagination I love remixing cuisines into something new.

It's hard to ignore Ukraine when your sibling lived in Kiev for many years, your neighbourhood--Bloor West Village--is basically known as Little Ukraine in Toronto, and the women are so beautiful...

Last edited by urbandreamer; Feb 15, 2017 at 5:58 PM.
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  #111  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 5:48 PM
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Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
"The food is not the same here, but I like perogies," Forest said when asked about his impressions of Arborg. "I also saw straight streets for the first time. Ours go up and down and around curves because we are a region of hills, mountains and trees."

http://www.interlaketoday.ca/2010/05...h-arborg-visit
I'm still surprised that people are amazed at the amount of French names for regions and towns on the Prairies. Do history courses in Quebec touch on the subject of New France and its exploration of the interior of North America? Or is it like the rest of Canada and kind of glossed over?

Dunrea, a small farming community close to where I grew up is/was predominately French-Canadian. It seems there was a small flood of settlers from Quebec that dried up quite quickly. Was that a result of the Manitoba Schools Question? (Thank you Orangemen...not!)
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/stfe...catholic.shtml
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  #112  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 5:56 PM
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Originally Posted by 1overcosc View Post
I was born in 1993 so I did my elementary school education from 1997 to 2007. Surprisingly, in my school library we actually had plenty of outdated atlases from the 1970s and 1980s that still had the USSR & the old Eastern Europe in it. I remember looking at maps in the eighth grade--so in 2006 or 2007--getting confused about whether or not Czechoslovakia was a country or not, because some maps in my school had it, others didn't. That was a full 13 years after Czechoslovakia ceased to be a country.

Maybe my school was just really bad at updating resource materials but if my story is anything close to typical there'd actually be a lot of younger people who grew up well after the Fall of Communism who have an outdated map of Eastern Europe in their heads.

As an adult I'm fairly worldly so I keep track of these things but I can see it getting very confusing, especially as Eastern Europe's map didn't stop shifting in 1991. Yugoslavia's breakup didn't complete until 2008, and then just last year, the Czech Republic requested that its actual country name, Czechia, start being used in English. In the Czech language it's always been known as Czechia (Česko) and comparable terms are common in other European languages (ie. Tschechien in German, Tchéquie in French). This bizarre happening stems from the fact that the English language never actually had a word for the Czech homeland; historically we've called it "Bohemia" but that term is technically incorrect as it only refers to part of the country (much like how "Holland" is only one small part of the Netherlands), so when the country became independent in 1993 English language media called it by its full long form name, "Czech Republic" and that caught on throughout the anglosphere.
8th grade is considered elementary school in Ontario??

Anyways, I noticed the same thing with textbooks, but that by the end of elementary school, into junior high, the textbooks began to be updated. There were also a lot of relatives with old atlases.

With that being said, based on the immigration history of the Prairies, and even places like Toronto (I assume), young people are more aware of the different countries, at least superficially because they're likely to have a Croatian, Serbian, Slovakian, or Ukrainian friend.
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  #113  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 6:18 PM
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8th grade is considered elementary school in Ontario??

.
Ontario's school structure is a bit hard to follow sometimes. Even within the same school board in one area you might have an "elementary" school to goes from JK to grande 8. And then high school for that zone starts in grade 9.

And in the very same board 3 km away elementary is JK to 6, and then high school is 7 to 12.

It's very arbitrary though I think they are moving to a greater standardization of things now. At least within boards.
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  #114  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 6:36 PM
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For the longest time, I thought that Ackee and Saltfish was a traditional dish for special meals like Thanksgiving and Christmas, same as turkey or tourtière. It was only in my teens that I realized that it was a West Indian dish and that none of my friends had ever, ever heard of it.



But to this day, Christmas just ain't Christmas without turkey, stuffing, tourtière, and Ackee.
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  #115  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 6:43 PM
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You definitely get different cabbage rolls depending whose home you're at.
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  #116  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 6:50 PM
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Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN View Post
I'm still surprised that people are amazed at the amount of French names for regions and towns on the Prairies. Do history courses in Quebec touch on the subject of New France and its exploration of the interior of North America? Or is it like the rest of Canada and kind of glossed over?
It is most definitely covered but as part of the history of exploration. One of my kids is actually doing a project on Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, who founded Louisiana, right now.

But they don't really cover much about the history of the peoples left behind, like the Franco-Manitobans, Franco-Ontarians, etc. For kids who are into history they'll hear about the Manitoba schools question and Regulation 17 in Ontario, and of course the deportation of the Acadians starting in 1755 is covered. But except for the Acadians (who have pretty high visibility in Quebec), it's almost as if all of these people vanished (were assimilated), kind of the same way that francophones vanished from those areas where they modestly settled in the central U.S.

In fairness, French is pretty discreet in most places you go outside Quebec. Even if I just go to Ottawa everything seems pretty wholly English from store signage to the service you get to conversations between strangers. Yeah there is some French here and there but if you are not very attuned to these matters it's easy to think that bilingual road signs are for Quebec tourists or because it's the capital, and any French you overhear is simply people from Gatineau who schlepped over the bridge to shop in Ontario.

If you dig deeper you discover the francophone side of the city, but it's a bit of a matter of luck, or you have to be the type who goes looking for it.

I doubt that those students from Baie-Comeau would have clued in to the francophone reality of Manitoba, had their hosts not explicitly taken them to St-Boniface (or St-Pierre-Jolys or... etc.) so they could see their "western cousins" in the flesh...
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  #117  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 6:51 PM
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Originally Posted by Aylmer View Post
For the longest time, I thought that Ackee and Saltfish was a traditional dish for special meals like Thanksgiving and Christmas, same as turkey or tourtière. It was only in my teens that I realized that it was a West Indian dish and that none of my friends had ever, ever heard of it.



But to this day, Christmas just ain't Christmas without turkey, stuffing, tourtière, and Ackee.
That's so cool!
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  #118  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 6:55 PM
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My grandmother was a Franco-Manitoban raised in a small francophone village in Saskatchewan. That village no longer exists and her children were raised in a nearby town not knowing a word of French. I'm sure this story is typical of the francophone experience in the west.
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  #119  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2017, 7:04 PM
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Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN View Post
I'm still surprised that people are amazed at the amount of French names for regions and towns on the Prairies. Do history courses in Quebec touch on the subject of New France and its exploration of the interior of North America? Or is it like the rest of Canada and kind of glossed over?

Dunrea, a small farming community close to where I grew up is/was predominately French-Canadian. It seems there was a small flood of settlers from Quebec that dried up quite quickly. Was that a result of the Manitoba Schools Question? (Thank you Orangemen...not!)
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/stfe...catholic.shtml
Dunrea is actually the hometown of a global francophonie superstar: Daniel Lavoie. He's sold millions of records, and though he has slowed down as he approaches the age of 70, in the 80s and 90s he was a household name in Quebec, France and the francophone world. His biggest single, Ils s'aiment, sold around 3 million copies in France and 7-8 million worldwide. He redid the song in multiple languages. He's won countless Félix (Quebec) music awards and twice won the Victoire trophy (France's equivalent to the Grammys) for best francophone album.

Ils s'aiment is a good song, but my favourite of his is Jours de Plaine. The song is extremely soulful and real, and the animated video, which is stunningly beautiful in how it evokes the Canadian Prairies, has won many awards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjaAZFJen6c
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  #120  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2017, 12:00 AM
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Dunrea is actually the hometown of a global francophonie superstar: Daniel Lavoie. He's sold millions of records, and though he has slowed down as he approaches the age of 70, in the 80s and 90s he was a household name in Quebec, France and the francophone world. His biggest single, Ils s'aiment, sold around 3 million copies in France and 7-8 million worldwide. He redid the song in multiple languages. He's won countless Félix (Quebec) music awards and twice won the Victoire trophy (France's equivalent to the Grammys) for best francophone album.

Ils s'aiment is a good song, but my favourite of his is Jours de Plaine. The song is extremely soulful and real, and the animated video, which is stunningly beautiful in how it evokes the Canadian Prairies, has won many awards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjaAZFJen6c
Thanks for that! Sad that I never heard about him.
Just checked his Wiki page, father was a shopkeeper, they likely left Dunrea in the late 50's early 60's as the small towns started their decline. There are no other Lavoies in the district.
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