Canada: kind of bland, lacking identity and a passive country.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Acajack

You can characterize it that way if you want but it is certain no one else in the world sees it that way.

I didn't realize everyone else in the world gets to define my identity as a Canadian. Again, other people's ignorance does not change my identity. It may affect THEIR VIEW of me, but that's now what identity is about.

Much like how just because you don't seem to notice regional English accents very well says more about you than it does Canadian or American English. Hell, I've mistaken a Quebecois for a Frenchman more times than I can count (with often comical results). I'm pretty sure my own inner hillbilly coming out does not mean that France and Quebec have indistinguishable cultures.

Honestly, some of this thread sounds dangerously close to a redneck saying "damn slant eyes, Chinese, Japanese, they're all the same to me, I can never tell them apart".

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

Les Stroud, aka "Survivorman," Ontario native. Noticable Canadian accent to me. It would be interesting to see if you guys think he has much of an accent. It is true that some/a lot of Americans think that Canadians have the "Fargo" accent...but to me a general Canadian english accent is much more clipped without those kinds of protracted, midwestern nasal-whines. I probably couldn't tell the difference between western and eastern Canadian english accent, but I have been in rural NW Ontario, where there was what seemed to me to be a heavier rural accent that sounded more, to me, like the Yooper accent.

Les has a very mild Ontarian accent but it's pretty flat to my ears. People from the populated areas of southern Ontario usually have a much more pronounced accent that is similar to, but distinct from, the upper Midwest accent - someone described it above with "hay-at". Ontarians aren't quite like that, but in some regions it's pretty close. I can usually spot a Hamiltonian within a minute or so because of this. They're the most noticeable (to my ears anyway) but plenty of people from Toronto also sound like this. We joke with them that they like to go day-an-cing at night. Stuff like that. Oddly enough, I notice a similar vowel shift in the less urban parts of Oregon of all places.

You probably can tell the difference between Western and Eastern Canadian - what sounds to you like a "Canadian" accent is somewhat Eastern. Western Canadians sound closest to the flat, average "Hollywood" accent from decades past. Most people in the US don't pick up my Canadianness from my accent alone, they often think I'm from LA or Seattle or something. Currently in Houston and I've had at least a dozen "wow, you don't sound very Canadian" comments this week.

Speaking of the weird little things that continually remind me that I'm Canadian - just shared a car ride with someone who got to explain to me the intricate state-by-state variations in gun laws. Where you can carry them, how you can carry them, what kind is allowed where, and every little detail in between. I mean, this guy isn't a gun nut or a hunter or anything. He's your average dude who just happens to own a gun (I'm not entirely sure why, but he talked like it's just something one does). It's something that as a Canadian I've literally never thought of - when living rural, we just carried our rifles wherever and however the hell we felt like it. And when living urban - who the hell has a gun?? And yeesh, why?? The gun thing alone is a strong reminder that culturally, there's a huge divide between our 2 countries.

And this is just one of dozens if not hundreds of tiny things I notice on a daily basis. Like the taste of food/candy/soda - anyone who thinks Canadians "just eat American food" has either NEVER eaten here or has a very poor sense of taste. Until Canada starts adding HFCS to everything, or until my taste buds rot away, I can always tell the difference. And it's so striking with many products that they might as well be an entirely different flavour. Coke, for one thing. Man I miss real Canadian Coke. And bread and mayo that don't taste like candy.

[Surrealplaces]

I don't think we have an identity issue....why? Because it's not an issue if nobody cares about it.

Frankly, I couldn't possibly care less if we have 'Canadian shops' or a 'Canadian style of cuisine'. It has zero impact on my daily life or my life in general..... I have no problem borrowing good things from other cultures....and leaving out the not so good things.

Also, as a Canadian who travels around the world a lot, it's nice not to have too much of an identity. People from other countries with 'identities' such as the UK are not as well liked abroad.

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

Yes, I am a Canadian who lived in Canada all my life, but I been living in the UK for 9 months now and I view my home country differently. I view Canada as a country that does not have a lot of identity in the world and also with its people. I view Canada as pretty bland and uninteresting - in the UK there is a distinct British theme that touches everything from food to dress to media. It's everywhere. There are so many British shops, British shows, British foods, music, etc. Yes, this country has a long history and it is an island, which helps. I'm just wondering when Canada will be proud of itself. What does it mean to be "distinctly Canadian"? Please don't say that it's the fact that we can't be defined. A country has to be able to define itself to the world. When are we going to have shops that are Canadian - fashion clothing, department stores. Marks and Spencer - so British! What store is so Canadian? Aussies have a distint identity and they are a young country, why can't we? What is Canadian food? What do I tell Brits Canadian cuisine is?

If you are thinking I'm crazy, then that answers why we have such an identity problem.

[Doady]

I think it's the people in the US who have the identity crisis. After all, they do refer to themselves as "Americans." They identify themselves with the continent (North/South America) rather than their own nation. I think that's pretty sad.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by Surrealplaces

Frankly, I couldn't possibly care less if we have 'Canadian shops'

Wow, I didn't think there would be people like you out there. So you are content to have your entire country owned by Americans?

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

Wow, I didn't think there would be people like you out there. So you are content to have your entire country owned by Americans?

Umm, no. If for some reason most of the retail is American based chains, so be it. If I'm the only person out there like this, then why do why have American chains here? Anyhow the comment was not meant to be about ownership, but rather on 'Canadian styled stores'. I'm fine with having a British candy store and not a Canadian one.

I'm curious as to why you be 'surprised there are people like me out there'... You haven't noticed that just about everyone in the country has no problem with American owned chains?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I wonder if there aren't people in, say, Newfoundland who could report the same experience.

There are some early recordings taken around Nova Scotia in the first half of the twentieth century and the accents are very strange compared to today. Some of them are from far-flung villages but many are from Halifax or nearby areas.

Even in the Halifax area now the "working class" accents are noticeable. Something to keep in mind is that visitors downtown are encountering disproportionate numbers of other visitors plus the kind of wealthier people who are always moving around. A substantial number of people living in Halifax now are from outside of the Maritimes -- Ontarians are one of the biggest groups that move there, and Dalhousie is something like 50% Ontario students, or it was when I went there. The lower/middle class suburban areas have more locals and more noticeable accents.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by someone123

There are some early recordings taken around Nova Scotia in the first half of the twentieth century and the accents are very strange compared to today. Some of them are from far-flung villages but many are from Halifax or nearby areas.

Its incredible how many accents there are in the United Kingdom. A country 1/4 the size of Manitoba probably has 30+ regional accents, which are very distinct. I tell people that apart from Quebec and the East, Canadians mostly talk the same.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Speaking of the weird little things that continually remind me that I'm Canadian - just shared a car ride with someone who got to explain to me the intricate state-by-state variations in gun laws. Where you can carry them, how you can carry them, what kind is allowed where, and every little detail in between. I mean, this guy isn't a gun nut or a hunter or anything. He's your average dude who just happens to own a gun (I'm not entirely sure why, but he talked like it's just something one does). It's something that as a Canadian I've literally never thought of - when living rural, we just carried our rifles wherever and however the hell we felt like it. And when living urban - who the hell has a gun?? And yeesh, why?? The gun thing alone is a strong reminder that culturally, there's a huge divide between our 2 countries.

if you were on the west coast, population 50,000,000, you might not of had the gun discussion. just saying.

i just think sometimes canadians are a little quick to paint the entire usa with such wide brushes after having an anecdotal type confirmation bias deal. i'm not saying you don't have a point and your example isn't exactly egregious, either, but you are in texas, which touches mexico. it's on the other side of the deal.

it's just a little weird to me when i see straight up comparisons of the usa to canada...i look at north america as being at least partially culturally kind of sectioned out in a different way than that. i see new england/maritimes, oregon/washington/bc, etc...

maybe it's the result of being in the middle of this thing and looking out of my panopticon. i just don't see the "huge" cultural divide at all. i see different regions kind of with their own thangs going on, it's not so easily broken down at the border I don't think. people sit in wood paneled drinking clubs in downtown boston holding their noses when they have to see footage of a trailerpark swept into the swamp.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

if you were on the west coast, population 50,000,000, you might not of had the gun discussion. just saying.

i just think sometimes canadians are a little quick to paint the entire usa with such wide brushes after having an anecdotal type confirmation bias deal. i'm not saying you don't have a point and your example isn't exactly egregious, either, but you are in texas, which touches mexico. it's on the other side of the deal.

Oh absolutely. I'm not trying to imply that all Americans are gun-toting yahoos or anything - hope that's not how this came across.

The guy is from Indiana, incidentally - not Texas. And sure, Indiana has some of the loosest gun laws in the lower 48 - but it's still something unusual for me. And the fact is, I've seen "no guns allowed" signs on malls in at least a dozen states that I can think of offhand, spread throughout every region. Casual gun ownership and possession by non-hunters is just a lot more "normal" in the US than it is in Canada - a few very restrictive states/counties/cities aside.

it's just a little weird to me when i see straight up comparisons of the usa to canada...i look at north america as being at least partially culturally kind of sectioned out in a different way than that. i see new england/maritimes, oregon/washington/bc, etc...

maybe it's the result of being in the middle of this thing and looking out of my panopticon. i'll go away.

I see the same regionalizations too - with the added flavour of subtle country-specific distinctions. It's kinda neat actually. I don't whine that Canada is not unique enough because people in Vancouver and Seattle are culturally more similar than people from Kansas - I relish it.

And don't go away - I like seeing a US perspective in a thread such as this (which at its core is claiming that you and I belong to essentially the exact same culture).

[Centropolis]

one thing that immediately springs to mind is the fact that - for myriad reasons - the rural population is much much larger in the US. if canada had a massive, often rambunctious, and diverse rural population, generalizations about differences between "US" and "Canadian" culture wouldnt be as easy. there's nothing to suggest that this rural population wouldnt be there if the area that is the U.S. had been a part of a much larger Commonwealth type state in which present day Canada was included. the white US south is massively derived of British stock, afterall.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

one thing that immediately springs to mind is the fact that - for myriad reasons - the rural population is much much larger in the US. if canada had a massive, often rambunctious, and diverse rural population, generalizations about differences between "US" and "Canadian" culture wouldnt be as easy. there's nothing to suggest that this rural population wouldnt be there if the area that is the U.S. had been a part of a much larger Commonwealth type state in which present day Canada was included. the white US south is massively derived of British stock, afterall.

Definitely another of those things that seems trivial but has larger influence than one would suspect. It kinda ties in with how Canada seems to be a dozen or so big cities, with a few scattered towns spread between them - while the US seems to just have people frigging EVERYWHERE (deserts and the grain belt aside). While not everywhere in Canada operates under a unicity model, most (?) of our big cities have a much more definable metro area... at least in comparison to the US. Obviously the eastern part of the country (thinking the Windsor-QC corridor basically) is a bit less like this, but the vast majority of the country is. When Canadians say "rural", they usually mean SMALL towns. Or living 3 miles from your neighbour. I've heard Americans say "rural" when they're talking about a city of 100,000 people. (This, like all generalizations, may be more me than most Canadians - don't know).

Related to this - the concept of a "college town" is foreign to most Canadians. Our big schools are (usually) in our big cities. And consequently there's much less reason for kids to "leave home" to go to school. Obviously some do, but they move to a different city. Not some town of 40,000 people. Growing up, that was one way in which US-produced films seemed VERY foreign - all these kids being packed up every fall to go to school. It's classic Hollywood Americana. And being driven by their parents. Just not as common up north.

[Bluenote]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Definitely another of those things that seems trivial but has larger influence than one would suspect. It kinda ties in with how Canada seems to be a dozen or so big cities, with a few scattered towns spread between them - while the US seems to just have people frigging EVERYWHERE (deserts and the grain belt aside). While not everywhere in Canada operates under a unicity model, most (?) of our big cities have a much more definable metro area... at least in comparison to the US. Obviously the eastern part of the country (thinking the Windsor-QC corridor basically) is a bit less like this, but the vast majority of the country is. When Canadians say "rural", they usually mean SMALL towns. Or living 3 miles from your neighbour. I've heard Americans say "rural" when they're talking about a city of 100,000 people. (This, like all generalizations, may be more me than most Canadians - don't know).

Related to this - the concept of a "college town" is foreign to most Canadians. Our big schools are (usually) in our big cities. And consequently there's much less reason for kids to "leave home" to go to school. Obviously some do, but they move to a different city. Not some town of 40,000 people. Growing up, that was one way in which US-produced films seemed VERY foreign - all these kids being packed up every fall to go to school. It's classic Hollywood Americana. And being driven by their parents. Just not as common up north.

Well Said, and I noticed the exact same thing when you got near any larger populated american state, the grain belt though is much like our own, sometimes even worse lol. But Canadians in the last 30 years have left the farms behind and flocked to the cities, where as in the US , they flock to many LARGE towns or cities if you want to call them. And they are all so close together you at times never realize you even left one and entered another.

But even in the US, as I love doing road trips and I think you get the best perspective of people that way, the USA is very culturally different everywhere you go just like we are in Canada. We have Quebec that thinks of itself as its own country, and they Have Texas that seems to think the same.

Either way I love being a Canadian and I would never change that even if I won Lotto Max. I would just travel more.

[Centropolis]

very well.

[Nouvellecosse]

So if we're measuring how unique Canada's identity is by comparing it to its closest cultural neighbour, then why would people say Oz has a more unique identity than Canada because it's more different from Canada's most similar neighbour rather than from its own? Shouldn't we be measuring its uniqueness by comparing it to say, New Zealand?

By that token, we'd also be measuring Sweden's uniqueness by comparing it to Norway or Denmark, measuring Germany's by comparing it to Austria, Ukraine compared to Russia, Malaysia compared to Indonesia, Uruguay compared to Argentina, etc.

Is there usually a striking cultural difference between any country and its closest cultural and/or geographic neighbour?

[Troll]

I might be in a minority here, but the single thing I am most proud of as a Canadian is the flag. It's one of the world's most unique and well designed flags, standing out amongst a sea of tricolours and union jack derivatives. It's also vastly better than the design disaster that people hang from poles south of the border.

[seaJ]

Originally Posted by rousseau

You clearly don't have a clue what you're talking about, but more power to you if you like American shows and entertainment in general. Some people will say that British shows are generally far superior to American ones because, well, they are, but other people are impressed by three thousand episodes of crap because for them quantity trumps quality.

You like Van Halen. I like the Smiths. It's a big world, and it's funny how not everyone likes Van Halen, innit?

It sounds like you have a very limited understanding of what American entertainment is. Have you ever watched a show like Six Feet Under, the Wire, Sopranos, Curb your Enthusiasm? All represent HBO but you can also find great network TV shows as well. Modern Family, Seinfeld (90's), Twin Peaks, the Middle etc..

I like the Smiths too and if you knew much about Morrissey you would also know his love of 1960's American Motown girl groups. The Marvelettes, Shangri La's etc. In fact, Johnny Marr and Morrissey bonded over this common love and formed the Smiths. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were pretty much cover bands of American blues and rockabilly early on in their careers.

Canada has contributed some greats too. Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen come to mind.

The U.S. has a very deep music, film, visual arts and architecture history that apparently goes beyond your understanding but is worth the exploration.

[patm]

Until someone else makes a show as good as Community, the US wins

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

So if we're measuring how unique Canada's identity is by comparing it to its closest cultural neighbour, then why would people say Oz has a more unique identity than Canada because it's more different from Canada's most similar neighbour rather than from its own? Shouldn't we be measuring its uniqueness by comparing it to say, New Zealand?

By that token, we'd also be measuring Sweden's uniqueness by comparing it to Norway or Denmark, measuring Germany's by comparing it to Austria, Ukraine compared to Russia, Malaysia compared to Indonesia, Uruguay compared to Argentina, etc.

Is there usually a striking cultural difference between any country and its closest cultural and/or geographic neighbour?

I think you make a good point there. One of the reasons that the UK has a strong identity is because they are an island, and a unique island they are where they have North America on one side and Europe on the other.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by seaJ

It sounds like you have a very limited understanding of what American entertainment is. Have you ever watched a show like Six Feet Under, the Wire, Sopranos, Curb your Enthusiasm? All represent HBO but you can also find great network TV shows as well. Modern Family, Seinfeld (90's), Twin Peaks, the Middle etc..

I like the Smiths too and if you knew much about Morrissey you would also know his love of 1960's American Motown girl groups. The Marvelettes, Shangri La's etc. In fact, Johnny Marr and Morrissey bonded over this common love and formed the Smiths. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were pretty much cover bands of American blues and rockabilly early on in their careers.

Canada has contributed some greats too. Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen come to mind.

The U.S. has a very deep music, film, visual arts and architecture history that apparently goes beyond your understanding but is worth the exploration.

he knows, he just isn't down. it's a matter of innate sensibility, not one of ignorance. i differ with rousseau on this point but have come to respect and appreciate his take. he's a canadian with a certain sort of lean, and i'm the other kind. his kind was once more prevalent than it now is, and once formed the mainstream in toronto and ontario. we forget that sometimes.