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 By David Jenneson June 15, 2004 Are we drifting apart from our American friends to the south? It is a rooty question. The evidence is contradictory. On one hand they appear to be intent on starting World War Four in the Middle East, or anywhere they can, while we’re showing the discretionary side of valour. Americans call us chickens, but forget that Canadian troops were more feared than Americans by the Germans in both World Wars. Perhaps it is because we have so few troops and sensibly can’t afford to have Islamic fundamentalists use them for target practice. Our leaders are very different. We have a benign dictator who faced down the Pope when the pontiff banned gay marriages. They have George Bush (a man who constantly looks like a dog who has heard a new sound and who, along with the major Democratic presidential candidates agree on a central point: They do not support granting same-sex couples the right to marry in the United States. The Republican incumbent and most of the Democratic candidates also agree on something else: They would rather change the subject. This hardly represents a broad-minded, tolerant population. It shows how our countries have grown lightyears apart. As further evidence, so many Americans kill each other every year in their own country, that the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta now apparently considers murder by a firearm as an illness. Their recent study revealed the U.S. showed global leadership with 14.24 murders by firearms per 1,000 population, while Canada hung back at a cowardly 4.31. In real numbers this means Americans killed over 12,000 Americans while we wasted just over a hundred of our own. Yet we are drowning in American culture. So ubiquitous are their TV and other media that they feel free to describe us as ‘a race of Homer Simpsons,’ - bumbling, ill informed but good-hearted morons. Another popular American perception is that we have international penis envy – they have almost everything and we have almost nothing so we fight back by insulting them at every turn. They are right to a degree. We called George Bush a moron, and Liberal MP Carolyn Parish recently had to apologize for calling them bastards. An American friend of mine responded with this stern warning. ‘It's not that I have anything against you people in the great white north, it is just that your country thinks it is so good and yet is so pathetic. I don’t care if you don’t like us…the French don’t like us and look how far that has gotten them.’ Yet paradoxically, Americans are migrating to Canada in increasing numbers. They are now our number one immigrant group. One wonders why this is happening as Canada appears to be becoming more liberal, when after 9-11 we should become more conservative. The fact is Canadians are not becoming more liberal, we are simply staying Canadian. It argues that a certain number of smart Americans see that Canada is like the US with less guns and money. We’re perfectly complacent, happy, multi-cultural to a point, have not done anything to become a huge terrorist target, and do not antagonize anyone apart from the conservative Americans. Which proves that some Americans may not be so dumb after all. They certainly have us snookered in the softwood lumber dispute. We love our lumber, they hate our lumber and they keep on winning. Yes, there are many smart Americans, but there are so many Americans that they produce a huge settling pond of dumb Americans as a byproduct. This is not to say there aren’t a lot of dumb Canadians but dumb Americans seem to be so much dumber. This is perplexing as our literacy rates are dead even at 97%. While 19% of Americans have earned a university degree, 27% of Canadians have but this is just a statistical speed bump. I believe the only accurate to gauge how different or similar we’ve become to Americans is to lie to them. That’s right. And I mean do it in person. We all do it. It is our national guilty pleasure. Lying to Americans is a kind of underground sport in which we all engage at some point or another. Not when they’re in Canada, mind you. It would be impolite to lie to a wealthy, paying guest. That would be un-Canadian. Next time you are in America, test for yourself what they are willing to believe about us. And I mean harmless, little white lies. The more outlandish the lie believed, the greater the gap between us. I will give you some examples and benchmarks. Thirty years ago I with friends in California and met some young American women. They were friendly, like most Americans, and old enough to have started university. When they discovered we were Canadian they reached out and touched our clothes, as if we were curiosities dressed in buckskin and feathers. Perhaps they expected us to hold the scent of fresh cut cedar or smoked salmon. They said we spoke oddly. They said we sounded like Scotsmen. This indicated to me a certain cultural isolation on their part, and gave me an idea. Here was a soft spot where maybe some hard truth could be found. The women drove a new Corvette and asked me how I liked it. I approached the machine and scratched my head. “You know,” I said, “in Canada they stopped making cars in 1925. So all we have are old cars that have been held together in bits and pieces, or cars made from parts of other cars. This, on the other hand,” I indicated the shiny red Corvette, “is …. beautiful. I’ve never seen a car like it. Who made it for you? Your uncle?” They immediately took pity on me. They patiently explained that in America they had factories that made cars, by the thousands. I looked around. “Yes,” I said with a lump in my throat, “there are a lot of beautiful cars in America.” I could see they wanted to pat me on the shoulder to comfort me in my moment of ignorance and privation. Then I brightened. “But I’ve got good news,” I said with national pride. They looked hopeful. “Up in Canada we’ve just developed a way to stick television aerials down through our igloos so now we can get American television.” They were overjoyed and congratulated me. It was indeed a proud moment for Canada. Try such an outrageous whopper about America on the average Canadian and they’ll fall down laughing. But that was thirty years ago. Have things changed? A Texada Island resident reports that fifteen years ago they regularly peddled the same lie to American tourists regarding oysters. When they Americans asked how the oysters were "caught", islanders told them ‘with special oyster guns.’ They said the oysters were so fast they could only be hunted by the light of the full moon, and it took all night to bag a dozen. This was routinely believed. It goes beyond our own borders. Last year on Australian television a segment of a trip to the US was shown in which they asked American people on the street to name a country which began with "U". One lady said with a question in her voice 'Utopia?' Another said 'Does Iraq begin with a U?' Another couldn't think of anything so the interviewer said 'How about the United States of America'. The woman laughed guiltily and said, 'Oh yeah!' As recently as last week a friend of mine was in Texas. He was bored, sitting in an airport cocktail lounge so he decided to amuse himself. He told the bartender he was on his way to Washington D.C. so he could see where the president lived - The Green House. “No no,” the woman corrected him gently with a pitying look. “That’s the White House.” “Ah,” said my friend. “Of course.” There you have the formula. Play dumb and if the American to whom you are playing dumb believes you then they are at least as dumb as you are pretending to be. I admit this is only anecdotal evidence, but I’m not finished. Because this is the nub - this is how we can tell how far our two nations have drifted, or not drifted, apart. Anyone willing to swallow some outrageous bogus information about the other country has indeed drifted light years away from their orbit. For example there are Canadians who were told Brian Mulroney was going to have his face chiseled into Mount Rushmore along with Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. They believed it. Similarly there was a hardware dealer from South Carolina who didn’t like or dislike Canadians, but felt sad for us. Why? Because he was told the only sport we were allowed to play was curling. “Every time I see those poor Canadians sweeping the Jesus out of that ice I feel so damn sad for them,” he said. I believe this is the only accurate way to tell, but we need more evidence pro and con. In this I encourage North Shore Times readers to send in their own stories having duped Americans or having been duped about them. We’ll run the best and let you decide. In the meantime, have a good day, eh? ------------ About the author: David Jenneson is a writer and noveliest who lives in Vancouver, Canada. You may reach him at his website www.davidjenneson.com email: dmail@telus.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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