misslynx, posts by tag: cultural diversity - LiveJournal

This weekend, there's a "Pedestrian Celebration" happening on St. Clair from Vaughan to Winona, called Feet on the Street. They've closed that section of the street off to car traffic, kind of like the Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market, except that it included part of today as well as most of the day tomorrow.

I wandered around a bit today and it was pretty cool - not a mob scene like Salsa on St. Clair or anything like that, but a fair number of people out walking (and biking, rollerblading, etc.) on the street, particularly families with kids. Most of the restaurants in the area had put tables out on the sidewalk like a sort of extended patio, and they were nearly all full, so the event seemed to be doing a lot of good for them. And a lot of stores were having sidewalk sales. Here and there were random tables with various things out on them to encourage people to have fun - everything from Scrabble games to kids' hockey and badminton equipment, skip ropes, coloured chalk for drawing on the street (which neighourhood kids had already put to good use by the time I came by. There was also a giant chessboard in one place (about 10' square, with pieces a foot and a half high or so), which seemed to be really popular.

For the most part it did seem a bit quiet and subdued compared to most street-festival type things, but there was definitely more noise and energy happening toward the western end of the strip, where the concentration of Latin American restaurants is higher. Some cultures know how to party on the street better than others, I guess. There was a very lively drum session going on outside a Peruvian restaurant. The Hungarians were also right into it, with the Hungarian community centre near Winona having some kind of folk festival of its own going on, with food tents outside and live music.

Even in the quieter parts, though, it was really nice. Having so many people out on the street, walking dogs, kids riding trikes or playing ball, etc. really made for a lot of community feeling. As far as I know, this is a one-off event, but I would love it if it became a monthly thing like the Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington.

Anyway, it continues tomorrow, from 9am to 8pm, and I'd definitely encourage people to come check it out, even if you don't live in the area. I will be probably be making the rounds with the Lynxcub for at least part of tomorrow afternoon. Who wants to come out and join us?

...to acquire a Dutch flag to put on my bike and/or in my window. I narrowed it down to just one like a sane person, but that one seems maddeningly hard to acquire. I checked about five or six different places today, and got answers ranging from a blank look like they'd never heard of the country (despite my running through all the synonyms I could think of ("Dutch flag? Netherlands? Holland?") to "No, no carry that one," to "Oh sorry, just sold our last one". Grrr. If nothing else, this has given me a whole new incentive to learn to swear in Dutch.

However, at least one place said they get restocked daily, so they'd probably have some by tomorrow. We'll see.

In the meantime, I have printed myself off a small cheat sheet so that at least I can recognize the flags I see while out and about. At this point, it would be easier to list the flags I have not seen than those I have. So, out of the 32 countries playing, the only ones I don't think I've seen on any cars yet, or outside any stores/restaurants/bars (other than those that are displaying the whole lot on general principle) are: Honduras, North Korea, Switzerland, Denmark, New Zealand and Japan. All the rest I'm pretty sure I've seen, most of them multiple times.

And today's winner of the "Wow, who knew there were that many of those in my neighbourhood?" award is: Uruguay. Which I suppose should not really surprise me, as St. Clair in the Vaughan to Glenholme-ish stretch had been evolving into Little Latin America these past 10 years or so. I have seen Brazilian, Chilean, Colombian, Cuban, Dominican, Ecuadorian, Mexican, Peruvian, Salvadorean and Venezuelan businesses crop up, though not all have stuck around long-term. So really, discovering we have a whole bunch of Uruguayans too should in no way come as a surprise. One more reason to get cracking on my Spanish lessons, I suppose.

But I still want a Dutch flag, damn it.

OK, those of you who know me know I have, as a general rule, absolutely zero interest in sports of any kind.

However... I do always enjoy one thing about the World Cup: all the different flags people have on their cars/houses/etc. Every time I see one I can't identify, I have to go look it up, and then end up thinking something like "Cool! Who knew we had so many Ecuadorians/Uruguayans/etc. in my neighbourhood?!" I just like seeing the crazy diversity of Toronto on display as everyone gets caught up in the urge to represent their homeland.

And said urge can even infect people who, as a general, have no interest in sports. My stepmother caved this year and put up a Dutch flag, and the last couple of times, I've been increasingly tempted to do something like that as well.

The only complication is... how would I narrow it down? I am, ancestrally speaking, composed of at least seven different nationalities that I know of for certain, and there are a couple of other maybes. Add to that that I've lived in three different countries, which have zero overlap with the seven I'm descended from. So we're up to ten flags there (twelve if I count the maybes), if I wanted to be really thorough about it. Plus one more that I was supposed to have lived in at one point but bailed on due to family tensions, but where my dad has lived at a number of points and something like half his friends come from, so I'd kind of want to add theirs just on general principle.

So, if I was going to really represent, I'd have to use the giant-sized window in the bedroom, because I'm not sure where else I'd be able to fit (in order of their occurrence in the above paragraph) the English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Dutch, Belgian, German and maybe Norwegian and, er - is there an Ojibwe flag? - plus American, Mexican, Canadian and Chilean flags all together.

Of course, this could be somewhat simplified by the fact that, if I actually do this in reference to the World Cup, not all of them are in there (and thus, not available from all the flag-selling places that have cropped up lately). Also by the fact that I would sooner undergo a root canal with no anaesthetic than display a US flag anywhere at all, and really the English flag doesn't rank all that much higher in my affections (plus, my Irish ancestors would probably come back and haunt me). Also, my stepmother would probably murder me in my sleep if I had any contact with the German flag. (It's so complicated when portions of your ancestry insist on invading other portions of it.)

So really, I suppose it would just be Mexico, Chile and the Netherlands. I'd thought Ireland was in it up until I found this handy guide to what all the flags I've been seeing are (which I think I may print out and carry around with me as a cheat sheet), and realized it was Ivory Coast, whose flag is the mirror image of the Irish one. Oops. And if it's just those three, the graphic designer in me would have to veto Mexico, because its colours clash with the other two.

I suppose it is remotely possible that I am overthinking this whole thing... :-)

But... what do you think, interwebs? Will I lose all my anti-sports cred if I succumb to the temptation to put just a teeny little Dutch and/or Chilean flag in my window or on my bike or something?

Well... I have discovered one interesting side-effect of my new location.

As most of us that live in Toronto, and some who don't, are aware, this is a very, very multicultural city. Also, a city that is very big on street festivals: one of the world's largest Pride celebrations, plus Caribana (a Caribbean festival), Taste of the Danforth (Greek), Corso Italia Festival (Italian, obviously), and a whole bunch of others I can't think of offhand, most notably including the Salsa on St. Clair festival -- a Latin American festival.

Which takes place this weekend. On St. Clair West, between Christie and Winona.

We all recall that I live a block west of Christie, right?

So yes: there is a Salsa festival going on directly outside my apartment. Crowds, booths of Latin American good and merchandise of various sorts, sound stages with live music, dance areas (one of them being the very intersection I live at the corner of), etc. The dance area right outside my apartment is one where they are giving lessons, so the music I have been hearing all day has been frequently been accompanied by an announcer's voice calling out things like "Right! Left! Right! Left! Now, forward! Cha cha cha!"

Despite the fact that this is an annual event, and there are posters up everywhere, I had somehow managed to completely forget about it until last night.

On the bright side, I do not need to bother to play any music in my apartment this weekend, as that would be quite redundant.

On the less bright side, if I want to listen to any other sort of music this weekend apart from Salsa, I am out of luck.

Anyone who phones me this weekend should probably bear in mind that I will not be able to hear the phone unless I am sitting right next to it. And even if I am, hearing you on the other end may be slightly challenging.

Were I inclined to feel like a cranky misanthropist at this particular point in my life, I would probably be finding this all highly annoying. Instead, I have opted to find it entertaining, and I think I will now go out and check it all out from closer up. I have to go get cat food anyway, and that means going straight through three blocks of the festival to get to the pet supply store, so I might as well check it out along the way.

However, we will see how entertaining I still find it by the end of the weekend. This may be a test of my ability to maintain a positive attitude in the face of all things, including unexpected Salsa festivals.

Due to a mega work crunch, I will not be going to as much Pride stuff as I'd hoped to, but two things I will be going to are Funkasia tonight and the Dyke March tomorrow.

The Funkasia event tonight - which is free, and happening from 7-11pm, at the south stage of the Pride Festival area - has been really under-publicized and for some reason doesn't even appear on the Pride Toronto web site. And Funkasia itself, and its host/organizer DJ Zahra, doesn't have a web site of its own any more, since it's been on hiatus for the past couple of years. But back when it was a regular event, it was amazing. Awesome Indian dance music - Bollywood songs, bhangra, etc. - and just a huge amount of fun.

Anyone else going tonight?

A discussion earlier tonight helped crystallize something I'd been thinking about on and off for a while - about one of the ways that the choice of words used to express something can have a lot of subtle impacts, and sometimes expose certain underlying assumptions.

Very often, when people are speaking to or about someone who has a different lifestyle or belief system than they do, the word "need" seems to creep in there in a way that I find interesting:

Examples:

• Atheist to spiritual person: "But why do you need to believe in X?" or "I don't need to believe in X."


• Monogamous person to polyamorous person: "Why do you need to have more than one partner? Why can't one be enough?"


• Vanilla person speaking about kink: "I don't understand why some people need to mix pleasure and pain."


• Pagan kvetching about other pagans: "Why do so many pagans feel the need to [insert disapproved-of behaviour here: wear occult jewelry, use Craft names, wear robes in ritual, incorporate mediaeval/renaissance elements into their everyday clothing, etc.]?" (actually, that sums up about half the posts in nonfluffypagans...)

Or occasionally it's "have to" instead of "need to". There's an assumption here that I think needs (so to speak) to be addressed: that if someone for some reason chooses to do, think or believe something that you don't, that it can't really be a free choice -- they must somehow feel that they have to do this. And by implication, that means there's something wrong with them.

A need is a lack -- something missing in a person. A weakness. Think of your mental image of a "needy" person -- chances are that the qualities that come to mind are weak, pitiful, high-maintenance, a pain to be around. If someone else needs a particular thing and you don't, the implication is that you are stronger, more together, more complete than they area. They have a lack that needs to be filled, a shortage that must be compensated for -- you are above all that. You don't "need" what they do. So implicitly, using that terminology positions the speaker as better or stronger than the person they're speaking to or about.

In addition, it removes agency from the "needy" person -- if their difference is something they need to or have to do or believe, then they aren't really making a free choice. The matter in questions ceases to be something where an intelligent adult could consider all possible options and choose freely -- it's something people either feel compelled to do or they don't. Which of course also means that the choices of the person speaking are also not simply choices, and thus not open to question or challenge -- they become the default, the way things automatically are if you don't "have to" or "feel the need to" do otherwise.

Here's something interesting to try: the next time you find yourself thinking or saying something like the above examples, try reframing them, substituting something like more neutral like "choose", "prefer", "like" or "enjoy". See how different things sound when you credit the other person with the ability to make a choice or express a preference.

Or take a step further and try something like "be open to" -- "Why are some people open to the possibility of multiple partners/the existence of divinity/etc.?" sounds a lot different than "Why do some people need multiple partners/etc." It inverts the power dynamic inherent in need-speak and positions the person being spoken of as having more choices, more options. Which is not exactly neutral, but can be an interesting way of challenging your own perspective and trying to put yourself in another person's shoes.

The specific topic under discussion tonight that sparked me thinking about this again was the atheism vs. spirituality example, but I've run into the same dynamic in all the other contexts listed above and then some. Sometimes, if I'm feeling obstinate, I'll respond to the "Why do you need to X?" with simply "I don't" and let them puzzle it out. Other times I'll say something more like "I don't need to -- I choose to. There's a difference."

Of course, this will probably all sound like just semantic nit-picking to many, but I find that communication tends to happen more easily and clearly when we think about the words we use and what baggage they bring with them. Language is rarely value-free.

It would appear that Italy has won the World Cup.

I would know this even if I had not looked at the news, by the volume of cheering, honking, screaming, whistling, etc. outside my windows.

And the occasional sirens of emergency vehicles -- I don't know whether the fans are getting carried away and setting things on fire, or keeling over from heart failure due the excitement of it all, or whether the cops and firefighters and whatnot are out there celebrating with them, or what.

But on the bright side, thunderstorms are expected. Hopefully soon.

I present this handy guide to identifying all the flags of the participating countries:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/worldcup2…

Far easier than having to sift through six pages of flags at http://www.mailorderflags.com/worl… as I was doing before.

Sighted thus far today: the Netherlands (yay!), Portugal, and Mexico (many, many times). I think the Mexicans are winning the enthusiasm award, at least around here.

Alas, I appear to be alone in finding all this entertaining rather than annoying, at least in my household. Oh well.

I have, for some while, had a love-hate relationship with the World Cup. Particularly since moving to the highly international St. Clair West area of Toronto.

I should mention, first of all, that I have a near-total lack of interest in sports as such, and don't really care who wins or loses. But... in the case of the World Cup, in Toronto, which is reputed to be the most multicultural city in the world, who's playing and who's winning have an impact on everyone, sports fans or not, by virtue of which nationality or nationalities are at any given point driving around the streets waving flags, honking and screaming. It can be annoying or entertaining, depending on how you look at it.

The two dominant nationalities in my neighbourhood used to be Italian and Portuguese, and since two of the prominent teams tend to be Italy and Brazil (which as a former Portuguese colony, tends to be supported by Portuguese people), that would make for an awful lot of celebrations on St. Clair. But just over the 8-9 years I've lived in, that's shifted. A lot.

Tonight, we saw cars driving back and forth with quite a variety of flags, including some we had never seen before. We recognized Brazil and one or two others, but there was also a blue one with a diagonal stripe that we hadn't seen before, and even more occurences of one that was yellow on top with a couple of other smaller coloured stripes below and some kind of symbol in the middle. That one was all over the place, so some country with whose flag we were unfamiliar was evidently (a) now plentiful in our neighbourhood, and (b) having a very good time.

So of course, I had to hit Google upon getting home. First, I identified the blue flag as Trinidad and Tobago, which made sense given that there's a fairly strong Caribbean presence near here, but the other one took a while longer. However, I finally found it -- Ecuador! That's right, it's the Ecuadorians (having apparently just beaten Poland) who are currently tearing up and down St. Clair West with flags and horns and much enthusiasm.

I suppose it makes sense. I've mentioned before that the fastest-growing demographic around here seems to be Latin American in general, and there are at least two Ecuadorian restaurants within walking distance that I know of, maybe more. But still... There's something vaguely surreal about a nation that small and relatively obscure being able to muster such a strong presence here, and oddly endearing as well. I mean, hey, how often does Ecuador have an international achievement to celebrate? Live it up, amigos. Viva Ecuador!

(Though for pure surreal appeal, seeing partying Iranians driving around Serena Gundy Park during a previous World Cup, with women in hijabs leaning out the cars shrieking and cheering, was fairly impressive.)

So of course I then had to see who was playing next, so I'd know what other flags to be on the lookout for. Trinidad, unsurprisingly (since they're out celebrating early) is apparently up tomorrow, along with Argentina and Paraguay -- at least, those seem the likeliest of the lot to show up on St. Clair. If Sweden wins something, I suppose they'd -- I don't know, drive around the Ikea parking lot or something? But St. Clair, being apparently en route to becoming little Latin America, will be full of partying Ecuadorians, Argentinians and Paraguayans, I think. I shall be on the lookout for their flags...

And I really must get around to signing up for Spanish lessons one of these days.