The Cultural Divide
The other day we celebrated a belated Fonda day. Nacho gathered everyone together to make traditional and delicious Chilean food to commemorate the two hundredth year of Chilean independence. We all went to Jayson's new house to eat, drink and dance.
We needed to use an oven - which is not standard in a Turkish kitchen. So, Nacho decided to ask the restaurant at the top of the hill to use their wood burning oven. I thought that it was a innovative solution but I was skeptical that a business would allow outside food to be baked in their oven. There was no problem, the owners at Sultan Sofrasi were actually enthusiastic about lending out their oven.
I thought that it was so generous and out of the norm, yet all the others at the house didn't think a second thought about it. This is not out of the norm for them …
It is not out of the norm to be late for work because you ran into a friend on the street, for someone to introduce themselves to you and ask where you're from, invite you to their home, ask you to take of picture of them on your camera or even to treat you like they have known you their whole lives after ten minutes.
I then started thinking about Canada. Now being out of the country for a few weeks and interacting with people from all over the world I am questioning my view of Canadians. Relax, I'm not hating on Canada. When I'm asked about Canada and Canadians in Turkey, I routinely answer that we are friendly, accepting, diverse etc. I truly believe and am proud to say that Canadians are accepting and diverse, I don't know if I can label us as friendly (or to the extend I thought) anymore.
Are we polite? Yes, extremely so. Are we politically correct? Absolutely, and in comparison to some comments I have heard in the past few weeks … Canadians might just be the model for PC behaviour. I wonder though, have Canadians understood friendliness to be a fusion of politeness and political correctness?
It is just little things like lending an oven out to a relative stranger that makes me think - this probably wouldn't happen in Canada. Would I be invited into someones personal life after visiting their cafe a few times? Doubtful. I have seen numerous little random acts of kindness and observed the understanding of friendliness that is present outside of North America and I don't know if now I can say that friendliness is a describing characteristic of Canada.
Friendliness isn't about the obligatory smile or please and thank you. It isn't faking your way through the forced stop and chat to an accquitance. It is about a genuine desire to interact with the people around you - even for a second or a minute. This quasi revelation may just be an issue of time and space - but for me it has been the push to abandon a few aspects of Canadian (or, North American) culture and to further embrace and appreciate the aspects of our culture that I am proud of and believe in. And no, not all of these aspects are from a beer commercial ...
