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Marshall Jones
By Marshall Jones
We sat watching some pre-Olympic American television show the other day and the host made a joke about Canada, sending my son down that well-travelled Canadian road.
“Is Canada boring?” he asked. “They always say we are boring. Once I saw this show and they got this girl all excited that she was going to win a trip. And then she found out it was to Canada and she started to cry.”
He has an off-and-on love affair with Canada. He wants to be proud of his country, and he is, especially when national holidays and their discussions remind him why. Every now and then he encounters American television and a different view of us.
“Yes,” I said. “We are terribly boring.”
Terribly boring is about worse than death to kids.
“Really?” he says.
“Well, I can see why they say that. When you think of Canada, it’s not a very exotic picture, is it? You don’t think beaches. You don’t think parties. You don’t think grand architecture. No one craves ‘Canadian’ food like they do ‘Chinese’ or ‘Italian’ or ‘French’ or ‘Japanese.’ You don’t think of our history much, not compared to some of the great recorded histories of Egypt or Europe or Asia.
“When I think of Canada, I don’t think relaxation and palm trees. I see majestic mountains. Or big skies of blue over fields of yellow or green. I see salmon. Or cod. Almost a land without people, in a way. Nothing exciting about that.”
“What about the CN Tower?”
“Yes, good point. I suppose that’s something of ours that stands out. I say a land without people but it’s more that there’s a lot of room for the people we have. But I’d still say our people are pretty boring too. We have some great ones and I tend to think we like a good joke and a good time but mostly just… pretty boring. We don’t go around picking fights… unless it’s on ice but… mostly we are pretty polite. We are just nice to people. I think we all feel safe and partly because we work hard to keep it so.
“We’re like a good host at a party; Everyone’s invited and they can do what they like so long as they don’t break anything. We don’t get all bossy about it. I said no one goes out for ‘Canadian’ food, but really Canadian food is everybody’s food because that’s who we are. A little bit of the whole world.
“Yep. It’s a wonder other countries even know we exist. You don’t see us threatening other countries or going to wars. We never invaded anyone. We never really did anything bad to anyone….”
“Wait, wait, wait. What about the Japanese?” he asked. “And the Indians?”
Ah, bless you Grade Four Social Studies.
“Well… yes, those are things we aren’t proud of, but I like to think that in our short history we learned from our mistakes. We try hard to make amends and to make sure it never happens again. Do the right thing, you know?
“If you think about it, we didn’t even need a war to start our own country, did we? That’s almost unheard of. We just sat down and talked about it. Took a couple hundred years, but we made it. I suppose we had a few battles with the French but even there, look what happened? We just made friends and learned to live together.”
“So, we are boring….” he said with some defeated finality. “That’s why no one is proud of Canada.”
“Woah, who said that?” I asked.
“Well, in America they’re always bragging that they did this or that. Canadians don’t do that.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “Well Americans aren’t the only ones. There’s a lot of that out there. But I like that we don’t go telling the world how great we are. That’s vanity and it leads to resentment. I think we are quietly confident about who we are and let others come to their own conclusion. It’s not flashy but people who know us tend to love us. That’s what makes me most proud to be a Canadian. There’d be a lot less fighting and a lot more fun and cooperation if the whole world was more like Canada.”
“I suppose so,” he said. “So being boring makes us special.”
“It’s just too bad you can’t export it like wood,” I said.
marshall@kelowna.com
Tags: canada, Canadian, Kelowna, marshall Jones, Olympics
