Culture shock in my native land! Nay, in my own extended family!

[Machjo]

I'm Canadian-born (going back 300 years to New France on my mother's side, and with some Irish and American indigenous blood on my father's side), yet I'm finding myself experiencing a kind of culture shock in Canada.

On the one hand, the media, schools, etc., are teaching us about environmental awareness, human rights, animal protection, world peace, etc. etc. etc.

Yet on the other hand, our whole culture ignores what's taught in school, TV, etc.

I've chosen not to smoke out of respect for my health (i.e. self-respect), and thank God we have laws to protect us against that now, at least to some degree.

But when it comes to alcohol, I sometimes feel out of place at extended-family gatherings, the only one sitting there drinking a glass of water while everyone else drinks alcohol.

And these are the same people who complain of alcohol taxes and cigarette taxes, etc.! Or rising hospital spending by the government! Well maybe if you stopped smoking and drinking alcohol, we wouldn't have this problem!

I've chosen to go vegan to protect animals, and luckily I have vegetarian restaurants near home. But whenever colleagues or family members invite me for dinner (I usually don't have this problem with other friends sinse they're usually vegan too), here comes the carcass! Nothing more disgusting that animal flesh between your teeth (and I ate meat during all of my childhood and my dad was a hunter and in the air force!)

I've also chosen to not drive for the environment (I could afford a brand new car if I wanted to, so it's not about the money) and chose to live closer to work in the city instead, yet whenever I want to visit extended family members in the suburbs, I have to bus past row upon row of single-family units, each taking up so much land for only about three or four people living in it. It just boggles me when people complain about the cost of gas going up, or travel time to work, or traffic. I couldn't care less. In fact, the higher the cost of gas, the better (maybe people will stop buying these big anti-social dwellings and start moving into town homes or other higher-density residences, thus reducing my need to travel through miles of residential nothingness just to meet them; and save on pollution in the inner city caused by those neanderthal suburbanites).

Then we have Christmas. I don't profess the Christian Faith myself, so I don't particularly care about it. So what do many others do? They rush out to buy gifts and then complain about the cost of Christmas, get frustrated with line ups, get irate, etc. What's the point? I'm quite relaxed at Christmas time until all the invitations start pooring in and, of course, the dead hormone-ridden, previously force-fed turkey carcass sitting on the table.

I stroll to work and back every day. Yes my home is smaller, but I love it. I'm within walking distance of anything I want. I'm healthy, my food is relatively inexpensive (at least in summer anyway, and still not too bad in winter usually), I get to ride my bicycle often too, and it's a great lifestyle. Simple, but great.

I'm sorry, but even though I'm Canadian myself, I just don't get the Canadian mentality, the mindset, the culture.

What's the point of teaching about the environment in elementaty and high school if even university graduates can't understand such a basic concepts?

I'm sorry, but I'm really baffled and sometimes feel out of place in this country.

Can anyone here explain to me what is so exciting about living in the middle of a residential jungle in the suburbs? What is so tasty about ripping flesh off a bone? About drowing your lungs in smoke (though to be fair that is in decline but I still don't get it) and your brain in brandy? What am I not getting?

Oh, yes, and then there's religion. Most of my family is Christian, and I have nothing against it. But when they're trying to convert me to Christianity while drinking, polluting the environment, buying the most anti-social housing in the middle of a suburban jungle, contributing to the slaughter of countless animals (especially on holidays. Is the turkey a ritual sacrifice or what), etc. I really really don't get it.

So please, what is it that I'm missing that's preventing me from truly understanding Canadian culture?

Can anyone help?

 

[karrie]

I can name a couple things.

1. Children. The idea of raising children in an apartment building where they have no yard to play sickens me. No trampoline to bounce on whenever they feel like, grass to play on.... ack! If we lived in an apartment, my kids would get little outside time, because they can't be watched from the fifth floor while I cook supper. The behavioral disorders would run rampant from lack of exercise. Yuck. So, I will happily sit here in my single family dwelling with only four people taking up a huge foot print, as I listen to my kids run gleefully up and down the stairs, or laugh in the back yard as they play, without having to worry about anyone getting mad because my kids are healthy.

2. You don't like meat, but I do. I honestly like it. Crave it. Must have it. I'm not giving it up. No way, no how. Humanity evolved as hunters, and I'm not about to give it up just because some people don't like the taste or are concerned about how it's treated. I'll take up the fight for better farm conditions though... guaranteed... happy meat tastes better.

 

[Machjo]

I'm in a small townhouse, hardly an apartment. Yet it still takes less space.

As for animals, how do we kill an animal compassionately? We smile as we slaughter it?

Then how about this? Eater-kill! If you want it, kill it yourself. Just look at human molars, look at those teath of ours. They have more in common with a cow's than they do with a dog's. What does that say? And that's just the part of our bodies we can see. Then if we cut the body in half, you'd notice our intestines are long like a herbivore's, not short like a carnivore's? Did God make a mistake?

I believe in doing, not talking. When I first switched to soy, tofu, etc. yes it tasted funny. But I forced myself to get used to it in principle. After all, my parent's taxes were paying for my elementary and secondary school teachers. So if most people think like you do, then I'd like to recommend that we stop teaching anything about ecology, etc, otherwise it just confuses people like me who think the teacher was teaching it for a purpose other than to just fill classtime. Yet considering that most teachers themselves eat meat, drive a car to work, etc., maybe they are just filling time by not practicing what they preach.

So might I suggest that we get back to basics and just teach material sciences, and cut all the civics classes and social geography. No one, not even the teachers teaching it, adhere to it anyway.

Silly me, to have thought that we were supposed to actually apply our knowledge to our daily lives. God forbid! I should have known geography and civics education was just for the test, not application.

Silly me.

 

[dancing-loon]

I much admire you, such clarity of thought! You are definitely not a herd animal! :smile: Canadian Culture is just an expression. Don't narrow your view.

A simple thought:
Recognized the truth? Follow it!

 

[Zzarchov]

Funny, I notice my Canines look like, well , Canines.

We are omnivores. We kill to eat things. You think god made a mistake? thats your perogative. And I do kill things and then eat them, and I think factory farms are bad.

But the idea we all have to hunt to eat meat is ridiculous. Do you have any idea how many animals are killed in farming grains and other crops? Alot.

How about if you want to eat you grow or forage your own food, if you want electricity, generate it yourself. Wood? Grow your own trees. Plastic? Drill for oil, then crack it etc etc etc

We are a specialist society, we all have our roles to play.

And you know what? If I wanna destroy the planet and leave it a smoldering wreck, good for me. Cause I guarantee you, I can dump radioactive waste in every river I see and whack every endangered species I see with a stick and still leave a smaller footprint than you will.

You know why? Im not a breeder