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phillipmccavety
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Posts: 91
Location: China
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 Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 5:00 am Post subject: Canada Day |
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They're as un-American as maple syrup, as fashionable as a mullett, and really quite sweet when you get past the accent.
Break out the pancakes, fire up the mounties, warm up the beavers: it's here, it's here . . . TODAY IS CANADA DAY. That's right: for those of you who don't know - and let's be honest here, who wouldn't? - every year on July 1, there's a glorious international celebration that captures the hearts and minds of Canadians and Canada-lovers everywhere.
A day where people dress up in the Canadian national costume - a flannelette shirt, a mullet haircut and a backpack with so many maple leafs stitched onto it, if you stand too still, everyone thinks you're a tree.
A day where people do traditional Canadian folk-dancing, like the Canadian Hornpipe, and the Canadian Barn Dance and the Canadian Twelve-Step, which is a bit like the Canadian Two-Step, only with a lot more Canadian Club whisky.
A day where people listen to Canadian indigenous music, like any album by Avril Lavigne, or Alanis Morissette, or Sarah McLachlan, who has a big hit song on the charts at the moment called Stupid, so now everyone's saying to each other "Hey, have you heard Sarah McLachlan's Stupid?" which I think is pretty funny, in a Canadian kind of way.
Yes, all the world loves Canada Day, and that's because all the world loves Canadians; it's true, it's true, I know it for a fact - because I myself happen to have been born in Canada, and everyone simply ADORES me.
I don't know what it is that makes us Canadians so lovable, but we are; maybe it's our gentle, laid-back disposition, maybe it's our charmingly humble demeanour, maybe it's the fact that we're the most inoffensive, irrelevant, innocuous nation on earth and if we just disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn't make much difference to the great scheme of things - there'd just be less Mike Myers movies and more imitation maple syrup, which, let's face it, isn't all that different to the real stuff that comes in the fancy glass bottle with the annoying little handle that you can't even fit your finger into, and costs more than a bus.
But I think the main reason why everyone loves a Canadian is the short, simple fact that we happen to NOT be American.
Whenever I meet someone for the first time, and I say "Hello" in my whiny, nasal Canadian accent, I see them automatically freeze up: they give me a long, suspicious stare and say "Are you American?" and I always leave them waiting with a big, dramatic pause, then I let rip with a nauseatingly sweet, maple-syrup smile and say, "No, actually I'm a Canadian", and instantly their anti-American, anti-imperialist, George Bush-hating faces MELT into an expression of relief and utter adoration, and they say "Oh, you're a Canadian . . . I just LOVE Canadians" and they shake my hand and give me a hug, and ask me if I know their cousin Jennie who backpacked through Vancouver in the early '80s, and I just nod my head and say "Of course I know Jennie, good ol' Jennie" even though I don't know Jennie, and I've never even been to Vancouver, and I haven't lived in Canada since I was four.
Because as much as people love Canadians, Canadians need people to love them: we will even let them play the Canadian Accent Game, which is a delightful and endlessly amusing little activity where people go "I just love the Canadian accent, can you say something? Go on, say anything" and we just stand there going 'Ummmm . . . what do you want me to say? . . . um . . . I don't know what to say . . . uhhhh . . ." because it's almost impossible to think of something to say when people want you to say something.
And then they go "Just say out and about?" and we go "Why do you want me to say 'out and about?' " and as soon as we've said "out and about" they start laughing hysterically, mimicking us, going "oot and aboot, oot and aboot" which is apparently how we said it, although we don't think we sounded that ridiculous.
But we don't get mad, we don't make a fuss, we want them to love us, so we just stand there, grinning like an idiot, like a stupid Sarah McLachlan. Yes, it's Canada Day today, so let the world rejoice in our funny accents, and our shoulder-length mullets, and our maple-syrup smiles, and our Mike Myers movies, and our global irrelevance, and our Vancouver full of backpacking cousin Jennies.
Yes, to Canadians everywhere, I wish you a happy happy day, and I hope you get oot and aboot
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gugelhupf
Joined: 24 Jan 2004
Posts: 575
Location: Jabotabek
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| Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 7:09 am Post subject: |
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| And a very happy Canada day to everybody - I shall don my check flannelette shirt as a mark of respect to ya. |
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Rhino
Joined: 29 Mar 2004
Posts: 153
Location: frosty cold one...ehr, Canada that is
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| Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 9:14 am Post subject: |
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Ah, and soon I will return to my igloo in Canada, knocking down accorns with my hockey stick and sweeping my frozen kitchen floor with my curling broom. I'm dreading returning to my days of hard labour tapping maple syrup out of the maple trees and pulling my labbats blue out of the yellow snow. Despite what the other forum says about beer, us Canadians know we have the best. The wild natives have now been replaced with wild lacross players running rampant throught the forest  Rumor has it that Canada will soon have electricity, so no more melting living room ceilings! As a fellow Canadian, Happy Canada day! |
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foster
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
Posts: 485
Location: Honkers, SARS
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| Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!
The party in Hong Kong was amazing!!! Had a great time and paying for it today! |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 3:02 pm Post subject: |
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Warm regards all the Canadian posters here - and a free subscription to what may be Canada's best newspaper:
http://www.globalbs.com/vancouverscum.htm
Regards,
John |
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Hector_Lector
Joined: 20 Apr 2004
Posts: 548
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| Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2004 2:35 pm Post subject: |
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Canada is good.
My brother is Canadian (?) and I have been there 5 times.
The passport police are, however, miserable scum sucking sons of hoors. |
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kait
Joined: 17 Jun 2004
Posts: 93
Location: Lungtan, Taiwan
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| Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2004 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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Slap me now! I wasn't reading closely, and I was wondering why we had a thread about ginger ale (Canada Dry).
Happy Canada Day, a little late! |
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tarzaninchina
Joined: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 348
Location: World
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| Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 9:42 am Post subject: For Canadians in China especially |
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For those who have been to China, fireworks going off everywhere all the time is nothing new. So, I decided to get back at those mommy-doers (can't curse here right).
So I stocked up on fireworks and firecrackers. July 1st rolls around. I wake up at 3am and setup my whopping expenditure of 1500RMB worth of fireworks. Oh yeeaaaaaaaah. 
For those thinking about it, get some friends in on it and each of you splurge getting about 500RMB each. Oh yeeeeeeaaaaaah.  |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 2:53 am Post subject: Happy Canada Day - two months late/ten months early! |
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phillipmccavety wrote:
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TODAY IS CANADA DAY. That's right: for those of you who don't know - and let's be honest here, who wouldn't? - every year on July 1, there's a glorious international celebration that captures the hearts and minds of Canadians and Canada-lovers everywhere.
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Unfortunately, I was so busy teaching at a summer school at my primary school that thoughts of Canada Day were the last thing on my mind. Now that I have "discovered" this particular thread nearly two whole months after the event, I want to add my toonie's worth.
I am not Canadian myself, but I am very much a Canada-phile.
Hector_Lector wrote:
| Quote: |
| Canada is good. [...] I have been there 5 times. |
Canada IS good, and I, too, have been there five times. Unfortunately, I missed Canada Day in 2001, the last time I visited Canada before coming out to China, because I arrived in Toronto from the U.K. two days later - pity! Still, I'm sure that I must have had a few Canada Drys in order to celebrate the event myself.
I visited Chinatown in Spadina Avenue, though I did not sample any of the local dishes - though, having been in China itself since the month after 9/11, I've had more than ample opportunity to make up for this "woeful deficiency", especially as I have married into a Chinese family.
My wife knows that I want us to immigrate to Canada some day, although there is absolutely no timetable for this. I loved Vancouver the first time I saw it back in the summer of '94 and, though I have travelled to a number of cities which can be found on Trans-Canada Highway 1, it remains my personal favourite.
So if there are any Vancouverians out there, who may have a grasp on the situation regarding the chances of any prospective British expat with a few years of TESL experience under his belt getting TESL employment at any kind of school or other educational institution in either Vancouver itself or somewhere else in B.C., I'd love to hear from you! (Would doing an online MA in Education from a Canadian university increase my chances, do you think?)
Although this comes nearly two months late, HAPPY CANADA DAY (2004) to all Canadians and all Canada-philes!
Just to make sure I'm not late for next year, HAPPY CANADA DAY (2005) (ten months early)! (Ha, ha, ha!)  |
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The Great Wall of Whiner
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Posts: 4946
Location: Blabbing
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 3:41 am Post subject: |
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Well, here it is:
My parents both moved to Canada from England in 1966. My mother was in tears, my father was excited.
My dad was recruited by a head-hunting firm that was looking for a telephone engineer (called the post office in England, though I never could understand why the telephone company was called the post office.)
But those days are long gone.
One of my best friends (let's call him Mr. Scouser) moved to Canada in 1991 from Leevuh-peeool. I would leave Scousertown too! Who wants to live in a pool full of liver?
Now he manages a gas station and is doing fairly well. He is most popular with the girls "Oh! Talk like an English guy again!" although he prefers spending his time at home playing Civilization on his computer instead of finding some real defining moment for his life.
I admit, back at home I would sometimes turn on my Liverpool accent when meeting girls for the first time. "Ah! You sound like John Lennon! Ahhhhh! I want to be your Yoko Ono....ahh!!!"
But seriously, you should have little problem moving to Canada. All you need is to invest 250,000 dollars, or have someone sponsor you, or just land their and claim political assylum. Or, you can do what 6,600 Chinese did in 2003. Secretly sneek into Canada.... |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 4:26 am Post subject: Sneaking into Canada |
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GWOW wrote:
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| you should have little problem moving to Canada. All you need is to invest 250,000 dollars, or have someone sponsor you, or just land their (sic) and claim political assylum (sic). Or, you can do what 6,600 Chinese did in 2003. Secretly sneek (sic) into Canada.... |
"Assylum"? Maybe I should go there and kick some! Thanks for your input, Whiner. I understand from previous posts that you hold both U.K. and Canadian passports, which I hope I will do someday by choice.
Saving up enough money to meet the CIC requirements for immigrating as a skilled worker with a wife and child is going to be a challenge. At the moment, I believe the minimum is CAN $14,645, which translates to about 85,000-90,000 kuai, depending upon the exchange rate. Immigrating as a business person is out of the question, since one needs at least CAN $30,000 capital if one wants to be self-employed. I don't suppose CIC takes any account of the fact that the price indices and, hence, salaries in China are so low compared to Canada that it will take b****y ages to save up enough money if one wants to immigrate directly from China to Canada.
Why bother sneaking into Canada? Just come on a tourist visa and return ticket. Isn't that enough?
BTW, I'm from Birkenhead on the other side of the river, but I've never learned or spoken Scouse....... On the other hand, my sister was born in Liddypol and can put on a good Scouse accent. Then again, she's lived and worked in "Paree on Fronce" for at least 22 years...... |
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