Canada
From Various Perspectives
Montreal, Vancover And
More ~
by Jurgen Klemann
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| My
first name and my last name are both distinctly German and nothing else.
My father and my mother are both Germans and nothing else. They have only
lived in Germany and nowhere else. Yet there is only one reason why I am
German and not Canadian. That reason is – of all people – my mother. The
explanation is quite simple. About five or six years before I started blessing
the world with my presence, my folks had made the decision to emigrate
to Canada. A little more precisely, they wanted to settle down in Montreal.
After finalizing the paper work with the Canadian immigration authorities,
all that was left to be done was to get on a plane or a ship to hop across
the creek. That was exactly when my mother chickened out. As a result,
my folks have never left – what Donald Rumsfeld is fond of calling – the
Old Europe. Margaret Thatcher’s famous phrase “the lady is not for turning”
obviously does not apply to my mother.
However, in
the course of time, since I am cruising around all over the globe, I have
been to Canada twice. Since spending some time in Canada, I was tempted
more than once to have a serious word with my mother about Canada and the
events preceding my birth. Why should anybody have the desire to live in
Germany when you can live in Canada instead? I do not know. It goes completely
over my head.
Montreal
The first time
I graced Canada with my presence was during my stint in Miami. After a
friend of mine in Miami and I flew from Miami to Boston, we spent a few
days in Boston. The purpose of the exercise was primarily to visit his
sister there. At that time, she studied medicine at Harvard. I liked
Harvard and Cambridge – where Harvard is located – immediately. Give me
a college or university campus surrounded by a bunch of bookshops
as well as a heap of restaurants and cafes, and I usually feel at home. |
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Anyway, after
spending a few days in Boston and at Harvard, we rented a car and went
through New England to spend a weekend in Montreal. Crossing the border
from the United States to Canada turned out to be a pain in the butt. Dealing
with the custom agents on the border took us a couple of hours. An American
and a German crossing together the border from the US of A to Canada should
have been a cakewalk. When the custom agents learned that we got to know
each other in Miami, they presumably reckoned that we were drug dealers.
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I
and a drug dealer? There are not a bunch of people on this planet, who
lead a more innocent lifestyle than I do. I drink very little alcohol and
do not smoke. Reading and writing as well as playing soccer and golf fill
my leisure time. When it gets really wild, I spend hours in cafes and restaurants.
A lot of mothers in law would be proud to have me as a son in law. Please
do not get me wrong. For the time being, I am rather disinclined to put
up with a mother in law. The point of all this is just that you cannot
explain this sort of thing to custom agents. They are civil servants.
Anyway, we
made it eventually into Canada and spent the weekend in Montreal. As my
home town Munster in Germany is rather provincial, perhaps not very surprisingly
I have been into international and cosmopolitan cities for quite a while.
Dusseldorf, Miami, Johannesburg and Auckland all fit the bill in this respect.
So does Montreal.
Montreal combines
a few things that are a little out of the ordinary when put together. The
city center of Montreal looks like a typical North American city with its
high rise buildings and skyscrapers. Despite the outward appearance
of Montreal as a typical North American city, the flair and atmosphere
there are distinctly different to other international cities in Canada
and the United States. For a big international city, Montreal radiates
a rather relaxed atmosphere. You do not experience this sort of relaxed
atmosphere in cities like Miami or Boston, not even in San Francisco. |
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One reason
for this special atmosphere is the bilingual character of the city. Both
English and French are spoken there. However, the French that people speak
there is called Quebecois and does not have a bunch in common with the
French that I learned at school. It rather sounded to me like a chainsaw.
Never mind. Do try to speak French there. People there will greatly appreciate
the effort. Because of the French influence in Montreal, there are some
choice French cafes. You can enjoy there the French ambiance while listening
to French background music and writing postcards. When looking out of the
window, you see Montreal’s skyline as a backdrop and snow falling. We were
there in winter. In a nutshell, Montreal is different.
Vancouver
Lin Yutang
wrote a book with the title “The Importance of Living”. In “The Importance
of Living” the author notes that “those who are too busy can’t be wise”.
The statement makes perfectly sense to me. You cannot always work. You
cannot always put business deals together. Of course you can. But then
you are to be pitied. To create some balance in your life, you have to
relax every now and then. Every now and then you have to make time to read,
to have an extensive breakfast or dinner at a pleasant restaurant, play
golf or….whatever you may need to relax. That is more or less what I needed
a few years ago. It was overdue. So I did it properly and spent an entire
summer doing this sort of thing in Vancouver.
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| Vancouver
is breathtakingly beautiful. Besides San Francisco and Cape Town, it is
one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to. Vancouver is surrounded
by the Pacific Ocean and a range of mountains. From various parts of Vancouver
you can enjoy mind boggling views of the Pacific, a number of bays and
the city itself. Stanley Park is a huge park in Vancouver, in which I managed
to get lost more than once. Vancouver gave me the impression that it is
something like Canada’s gate to Asia, economically and culturally. Similar
to San Francisco and Auckland, there is a significant Asian population
living, working, studying in Vancouver. The city radiates a very relaxed
and liberal flair that you can find in many English speaking cities on
the Pacific Rim.
Those cities
on the Pacific Rim with a relaxed and liberal atmosphere are usually the
remedy that I prescribe when something or somebody – in my opinion rather
provincial – annoys me every now and then in Colima. Friends of mine in
Colima who know me very well are familiar with the phrase that comes out
of my mouth in those situations: “Put them on a plane to Vancouver, Sydney,
Brisbane or Auckland and let them live there for at least five years. It
will turn them into useful human beings”. Of course London is also an option
for this sort of transformation process. The city itself is great. But
the weather is usually a disaster. |
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Anyway, because
the purpose of the exercise in Vancouver was the relaxation thing as outlined
above and not the tourist thing, I did not stay in or near the city center.
Instead, I stayed on campus of the University of British Columbia. The
campus of the University of British Columbia is the most beautiful university
campus I have ever come across anywhere in the world. The campus of Harvard
is impressive. The campus of the University of Cape Town is beautiful.
But the campus of the University of British Columbia blows you away. Let
us wait and see. Perhaps I will end up teaching there sooner or later.
A Song of
Nassau
Fred Winslow
Rust wrote “A Song of Nassau”, which goes:
“If you’re
feeling the need for real relaxation,
In a climate
that’s lazy, a perfect vacation,
Away from
the snow and the slush that annoys you,
Away from
the worries and cares that destroy you,
Try Nassau,
the Island of June.
There are bluest
of seas at your door to enthrall you,
With no sudden
temperature changes to gall you,
And laziness
comes on you, quietly stealing
Along with
a cheerful, a world’s all right feeling,
In Nassau,
the Island of June”.
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University
of British Columbia
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That
song presumably puts in a nutshell what a lot of people dream about
doing. They dream about quitting their nine to five jobs. They dream about
dropping out of the rat race. They dream about living in a warm and pleasant
climate. They dream about doing something they truly identify with. Of
course it does not have to be necessarily in Nassau or the Bahamas. The
place is more expensive than necessary anyway.
There are a
bunch of opportunities for this sort of thing all over the world. You just
need to be serious enough about finding your niche and then doing it instead
of only talking about it. For some it means having a coffee plantation
in the Dominican Republic. For some it means having a wine or ostrich farm
in South Africa. For some it means teaching at college in the less developed
world. For some it means teaching online while living on a yacht. For some
it means having a bed and breakfast in Patagonia. The list is endless. |
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When you actually
do what you have been dreaming about, it does not mean that you run away
from work and responsibilities. Your new work and responsibilities are
just different. They are more stimulating because you like doing what you
do. Moreover, you leave loads of stuff behind that you do not really need.
We are human beings, not human havings. All this means in my case that
I would not have presumably ended up living in Canada for all my life,
if my mother had not chickened out. Often one thing leads to another, one
way or another. In case you do have this sort of dream, do something about
it. The accent in life is on living, not on dreaming.
The Quiet
Revolution
Even though
French speaking Canadians live primarily in Quebec and thus French Canadian
culture is alive primarily there, the culture is vibrant and deserves to
be sussed out. One example of French Canadian culture and literature is
Rejean Ducharme. Rejean Ducharme is a French Canadian novelist and
playrwright. He published a few of his novels – for example “Lez Nez qui
voque” – during “The Quiet Revolution” in Quebec.
“The Quiet
Revolution in Quebec” covers more or less the period from 1960 to 1966
in Quebec. When that revolution started, Quebec was characterized by being
more conservative than the rest of Canada. That conservatism in all spheres
of life significantly contributed to Quebec’s falling behind economically.
However, during “The Quiet Revolution in Quebec” the province was being
revamped. The period resulted in social change and a new definition of
the role of French Canadians in Canada. Rejean Ducharme did make an impact
on that modernization of Quebec.
After a rather
lengthy period of silence, this original voice of Quebec literature wrote
a couple of more novels. Assuming that I am still up to date, his latest
novel is “Va Savoir”, published in 1994.
“The Quiet
Revolution of Quebec” must have been a period in Quebec when it was worth
living there. People there must have been overwhelmed by the desire to
do things. Once more, the accent in life is on living, not on dreaming.
On the other
hand, do not overdue it. Take it easy. After mulling things over a little,
I have come to the conclusion to quit playing soccer. Last year I managed
to faint on campus after playing soccer. On the first day of the new semester
this year, I crashed with my head into a goal post, in the second minute
of the game. After being treated by the paramedic, I look now like a war
hero. At the age of forty one the time is right to finish a soccer career.
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