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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.