Welcome! This blog is part of a larger body of discussion in ENGL 470A, officially known as Canadian Literary Genres. Unofficially, the course has the rather skeptical name of Oh Canada! …Our Home and Native Land? In this course, we will be taking a look at a number of ideas and stories about being Canadian. Probably.
My name is Florence Ng, I’m an English Literature major and a first generation Canadian. In other words, I’m that skeptical question mark at the end of the title. I moved to Vancouver when I was 5 years old, and I am one of those kids who know where home is, yet don’t. Being first generation is a very interesting status where your “motherland” shifts according to your mood. In fact, your background is almost like a trophy that you show off to certain people when it makes you feel special, but hide when it doesn’t. Like a trophy for being #1 in grade 5, you might want to hide it when the #1 kid in grade 6 comes over to play. Here is a real world observation:
Last year, when I went on exchange in the UK, my friends and I traveled a lot. Whenever we met new people and they asked us where we’re from or who we are, we would say, “Canadian!” Of course, a number of jerks pushed on: “No, where are you REALLY from?”
“Um, Canada,” we’d reply.
“Where are you PARENTS from?”
“…Canada.”
And that’s when we’d leave, thinking, “Oh my God, that was so rude.” A lot of the times, it seemed like they wanted us to admit that we are not just Canadian, because saying you’re Canadian is a cop-out. Like they wanted us to stop pretending we prefer poutine over dim sum, pizza over sushi, forks over chopsticks, and just ADMIT that we belong in another culture.
To be fair, I don’t really understand why it’s so hard to say, “I’m Chinese.” Let’s face it: I only speak Cantonese to my parents, my family eats Chinese food 90% of the time and Japanese food the other 10%, and our Thanksgiving dinner consists of a Costco rotisserie chicken, despite how many times we’ve asked for a turkey.
Still, I probably should have said, “I’m Chinese-Canadian.”
My friends and I in Paris. We were hoping to be the first 83% Chinese-Canadian girl band pop act. I’m in the middle, third from the left. The one who breaks up the band and gets a solo career, obviously.
At the same time, I feel like much of this identity crisis is afforded by Vancouver’s cultural diversity. I’ve heard many times that Vancouver is not “real Canada,” whatever that means. Last semester, I learned a lot of rather exclusively Canadian words (a lot of which are found here). I always thought language is a big part of culture, but weirdly enough I’ve never thought of “Canadian” as a language, or even thought about it much as a dialect. In high school, a teacher told me that the spirit of Canada is encapsulated in one song by the Barenaked Ladies (you probably know the one!). That was kind of the extent of my understanding of Canadian language.
I’m a big fan of language; learning about it, using it, etc. That’s why I’m very excited for this course! I want to get to know Canada, and get to know the way language is used in the stories we don’t talk enough about.
Nice to meet you, everybody! Let’s share and learn a lot from one another 🙂
Hey thanks Florence, an excellent beginning! 🙂 And, nice to meet you.
Hi Florence! It’s nice to meet you. I read your blog and realized that I can relate to you in my struggles of a Canadian or Chinese-Canadian identity. For myself, when I am around members of the Chinese community, I find that I am more willing to be identified as Chinese-Canadian. But to pretty much everyone else, I would rather be identified as simply Canadian. I’m wondering if you experience this fluidity in identity as well?
Hi Jasmine! I was just about to post on your blog as well! Fluidity is definitely a good word for it. When I went to Macau (my hometown) this year, I was really super keen to blend in…but, as I always speak to my sister in English, I felt a bit self-conscious. My little sister would actually sometimes do or say things that make us overtly Canadian as well. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It’s the little things really! For example, she’d often say, “Good thing we’re Canadian!” or “We have to help those people! We’re Canadian!!”
When people think I’m an international school student from the Mainland, I get upset. Reflex? Something subconscious?!
Thanks Florence for your blog post and introduction! Believe me when I say this, I’ve had my fair share of “Are you really ‘Canadian’?!” glances, and I know what it feels. It will definitely be cool to continue looking at what it is that makes something ‘Canadian’, and the historical aspects of an indigenous influence throughout the course. It was interesting reading your blog after I looked at Lesson 1.2 and the section about story-telling and a “practice of believing”. In many ways, I feel that telling someone our identity is a form of story-telling, a story about your heritage and culture. It’s when people don’t ‘believe’ you, like your example and experience, do we get thrown into a feeling of commitment to proving or making others believe we truly are ‘Canadian’. Chamberlain also talks about the strangeness of a story and it’s strange effect on an audience’s belief level. I think I’ve already come to realize a self-strangeness in coming to terms with my own identity as a Canadian and not Chinese…but why? Do you see being Chinese-Canadian as a potential identity marker being easier for other’s to ‘believe’ you as Canadian? Why do we even care what others ‘believe’ to be our identity?
Hey Jeff! I never really thought about identity as a form of story-telling! That’s a really fantastic way to look at it! Actually, I had this epiphany moment today on this subject and I think it’s exactly what you’re saying about identity. My grandparents were telling me a whole bunch of random anecdotes about their life today during dinner, and the majority of the imagery these stories gave me were…hard to imagine. In my mind, these stories should exist on paper, partly because it doesn’t feel like real life and partly because it was in these stories that I wanted to remember my grandparents. Stories make up so much of our identity, doesn’t it?
I think the bottom line is, Jeff, that I think you’re right. We shouldn’t care what others believe to be our identity, because to explain our identity is to lay out your whole life and the lives of the stories around you. Is that being too dramatic? 😛 In a way, this identity wouldn’t exist without both the Chinese and the Canadian sides of you.
There really is no easy way of putting it, hahaha!
Hi Florence,
I enjoyed reading your blog and like our peers that have commented on your post, I too have encountered people that look at me cross-eyed when I refer to myself as a Canadian. Have you been back to your birthplace recently? I ask this because i am interested to know if you refer to yourself as Canadian when you are back in China? When I traveled to Italy, I found myself telling people that i was Canadian; however, when I visited India (the birthplace of my parents) I instantly tell people that I am Indian, and even in Canada when people ask my nationality, I tell them that I am Canadian. Do you experience the same conflict in national identity when you are speaking to people of your own culture or country of origin?
I look forward to reading your response,
Thank you,
Rajin.
Hi Rajin! Actually, I just went back to Hong Kong last June! I don’t go back very often so I often feel like a rather unexotic tourist in the city. In Macau where I spent a few years of my life as a todd, I’m much more familiar, yet I don’t identify very closely with either cities. Even when I’m over there I feel like I’m stuck in between! When I talk to people in Hong Kong and Macau, I often find myself disagreeing with their ideas about…well, life, I suppose! I often don’t get why they do certain things…This whole national identity business is really quite baffling the more I think about it!