This Offbeat Life
New Economy Cooking
Backpacking by Bus

INTO THE GREAT WHITE UNKNOWN:
Culture Clash in Canada

by Jeremy Hart

It started in Calgary. I didn't even notice at first, I must admit; I've been prone to paranoia in the past, particularly while traveling, so I've trained myself to *not* notice stuff like this. But there we were, my traveling companion and I, wandering through the airport gift shops like any giddy tourists just off the plane, and a man walking towards us did a real-live double-take, the kind I'd seen only on TV sitcoms. After that, it was hard to miss -- everywhere we went, people were watching us. In the mirrored wall of the Chinese restaurant, waiting in line at the Orange Julius, strolling in Vancouver's Stanley Park, Canadians were *staring* at us.

Now, you have to understand that as a nation, collectively, Americans aren't generally starers. Even in the friendlier-than-average state of Texas, if you stare right at someone for more than a few seconds the two most commonly accepted scenarios are that A) you're flirting, or B) you want to get in a fight. People watch other people, naturally, but rarely openly; that's the reason behind sunglasses, after all. Flat-out staring just isn't something Americans do.

Canadians, however, seem to be a different sort. Everywhere my friend and I wandered in Vancouver (our main destination), we received quizzical, searching stares, like the person staring didn't quite understand what they were looking at. Was it my hair? Did I have egg in my mustache? Had we both unknowingly sprouted exuberant, peacock-like feathers from the tops of our heads? Who knows? Of course, it was fairly obvious we were Americans, but then, how much of the population of Vancouver is actually native anyway? (About 67%, it turns out, as of 1996 or so.) It happened so often that when one of us noticed somebody looking at us, we'd whisper "Staring!" under our breath to the other.

This isn't to say, by the way, that Canadians are rude. On the contrary, most Canadians we met were very nice, exceedingly polite people, a far cry from the random people you might meet on the sidewalks of the average American city. And maybe there lies a clue to the phenomenon: Canadians are fascinated by Americans. We all smoke and drink like mad, all carry guns, all complain incessantly that our government is doing too much, and all apparently watch nothing but utter crap on TV (populated, largely, by funny Canadian people). How the hell do we survive? Some Canadians seem to be under the impression that life in the States is like one big episode of "Cops," and American tourists probably don't do much to alter that view.

Hard as it is to believe, while our American and Canadian cultures appear to be quite similar, there's an underlying current of alien-ness that separates the two nations. Stepping out into the streets of Vancouver, my friend and I might as well have been wandering blithely through the back alleys of a New Guinean village. Our closest neighbors in the world, Canadians view Americans with a mixture of distrust and awe, unsure just what to expect; and for our part, neither do we Americans. Canada's gotten a lot of exposure in the American media lately (see films like "Canadian Bacon" and "The South Park Movie"), but it's far from a clear picture -- what do we really know about Canada, beyond Dudley Do-Right, hockey, Molson Golden, and "Strange Brew"? The Maginot Line is like a funhouse mirror held up between our two countries, reflecting back a strange, distorted image of ourselves on either side of the border.

To Americans, Canadians are something weirdly familiar, yet alien at the same time, a sister nation separated and Europeanized by a fluke of history; we could *be* them, if not for a few stray cannonballs way back in the 18th century. The familiarity creeps up on you; during conversations with Canadian friends, I found myself referring to the city of Vancouver as if it were a suburb of Houston, just a 20 minute drive from my house. The money looked almost like what I expected money to look like, the ads were all the same, the accents were just about identical...but then I'd notice that things would be spelled differently than what I'd expect, and that everything would be in English and French. It felt like home, but it wasn't.

So maybe that's it. Despite our apparent similarity, Canadians and Americans view one another as something just short of Pod People - creepy, funny-sounding people who look and act just like normal people, but somehow aren't. For my part, I felt it while touring the sights of British Columbia. The fear hit us right as we got off the Air Canada plane in Vancouver and were funneled down a glass-walled hallway overlooking the departure areas. As we passed overhead, my friend tugged at my sleeve and pointed down, to where several oblivious people sat, waiting for their plane to wherever.

"Canadians!" she whispered, a panicked expression on her face. We both shook our heads, laughed nervously, and cautiously headed on out into the unknown.

Jeremy Hart lives in Houston (where it is either very hot or very wet), and spends his time writing frantically, drinking far too much coffee, attempting to surf, putting out his own magazine on local music (Space City Rock), and getting the heck out of town whenever possible. And contrary to pictures, his eyes are not always closed. Only when he's frightened by Canadians.