Toujours Sexy

Since I started teaching in Quebec, I feel like I've been in a constant state of shock. I was spoiled by the respectful, well behaved students I taught in Korea and I still have trouble adjusting to the differences. Fearless six year olds are a frightening thing. They know that there is absolutely nothing that you can do to them to make them work. I have witnessed temper tantrums involving ripping posters off walls, running around the classroom throwing things around, even spitting water all over the place. Each and every time I encounter one of these situations, I contemplate how happy I am that Fred and I agree on never having children. It is becoming harder and harder, I think, to point to the parents as the source of trouble. It's society as a whole.

Last year, I was shocked by the grade two class I was teaching when I noticed them giving each other the finger. That same class used the word sexy to describe everything under the sun- a word I know was never used in any of my classes... although I did go to Catholic school. Then the other day at Provigo, I passed by the deli section and saw the sign below;


It's an ad for tourtière, a traditional québécois pie, described as Always Sexy. What? Really? What is so sexy about tourtière, I wondered. Does it take a special person to make sexy tourtière? Is there a dress code? Does the beef and the pork have to be ground by sexy hands? What about the garlic? Is there garlic in a sexy tourtière? I wouldn't think so. I guess that's where these kids get it from. If a tourtière is sexy, why can't I call my classmates sexy? Why not my teacher? My eraser? The colour blue?

Embarrassing errors in Asia were understandable. English signs were everywhere, but they didn't have enough English speakers to correct and edit them before they went up. And they were too proud. In Canada, it's a completely different story. I would be interested in sitting down with the marketing team for this particular brand of tourtière, to help me understand what it is they were trying to say with this campaign. They definitely know what sexy means. So it isn't in the same category of errors as the sign I saw at La Ronde last week that said Dis is a Trill Trill Ride. To be fair, they were screwing up the French as well at La Ronde. Apparently the Office de la langue française hasn't been around in awhile. Or nobody knows how to write the French language. One or the other. Maybe a little of both.


It's unfortunate that we're getting to a point where so few people can write effectively. Can be understood. An Anglophone girl in one of my classes spelled dumb D-I-M-E. That's trouble. If she were francophone, I'd let it go. But for a girl of eleven not to be able to spell a simple four letter word, there's something that's not right.

In studying for this stupid French test that I still haven't taken, here's some French terms brought to you by the Office de la langue française. For those of you that speak French, it's hilarious. Ils sont pris de la section vocabulaire du livre de révision, qui cherche à adresser le problème d'anglicismes, barbarismes, paronymes et de synonymes dans les textes français.

• J'ai fait une demande d'emploi (au lieu d'application).
• N'oublie pas de verrouiller la porte (au lieu de barrer).
• Mets des agrafes dans l'agrafeuse (au lieu de brocheuse).
• Voilà un bel appareil photo (au lieu de caméra).
• J'ai apporté mon acte de naissance (au lieu de certificat de naissance).
• Nous avons l'air conditionné dans nos bureaux (au lieu d'air climatisé).
• Vous devez remplir un formulaire (au lieu de complèter).
  
• Je descendais de l'autobus au moment où tu montais (au lieu de débarquer et embarquer).
• Lisez bien le modes d'emploi (au lieu les instructions)

Il y a plusieurs des examples qui s'emploient jamais au Québec et semble être tellement ridicule- (comme le terme air conditioné), mais au moins ils ont des normes...

A Rant From a Tete Carre

Having lived in Korea for a year, I became accustomed to being treated like I didn't quite belong. Whether it was the blond hair or the blue eyes that gave me away I'll never know, but it didn't take long for this treatment to get old. True, it bought me plenty of attention, discounts and over-the-top service, but there are days when you just want to blend in. Now in Montreal, surrounded by the French speaking majority, the same feeling of unease is setting in.

The developments of the reasonable accommodation hearings have become as common a topic as the weather, and slightly more heated. With PQ leader Pauline Maurois's recent proposal of a Quebec citizenship card, I feel ill at ease. This card would require new immigrants to sign a contract agreeing to conform to our culture and to learn French within three years. Apparently this ridiculous proposal has now been expanded to new arrivals from other parts of Canada.

Seven years in this province have shown me that no matter how fluent you are in French, if your last name is not Gagnon, Lefebvre or Levesque you will never be fully accepted. Despite having two Anglophone parents, I was lucky enough to be registered in a French immersion school. Having learned French at school, I never picked up on the joual (Québec slang). Some of my teachers were Québécois, others were French, resulting in an accent that was neither Anglo, Québécois or French. A little confused, one might say. Upon return to Montreal, I confused both the Régie de l'assurance santé (Health board) and the Société d'automobile (Automobile association) when I turned up and requested a Quebec drivers license and health care card. Speaking in French at the Régie de l'assurance santé, they were completely confused when I told them I needed to renew my health care care but had been gone for nineteen years. The women asked if I had been in France or Belgium. When I told her I had been in Alberta all this time, she was shocked. Such experiences have proven to me that my French is pretty good. I still try to challenge myself to improve it- my written French is far from perfect and I try to make an effort to push myself to learn more.

For every time I've been mistaken for a foreign francophone, there have also been times when someone has gone out of their way to point out that my French is different from theirs and I should be ashamed. Serving a large table in my days at the restaurant du Vieux-Port, one man turned to me and asked where I was from. Before I could answer, he said your accent is not quite québécois. I explained that I was born in Quebec, but raised in Alberta and learned French at school. "Ahhh, that's what it is! An Anglophone accent!" he said, both of us knowing full well that if he really thought I was Anglophone, there would not have been a need to ask. He knows full well what an Anglophone accent sounds like. Not to mention the fact that I was there a year and a half and the management always addressed me in French. A few weeks before I left, they heard me speaking English and it was only then that they realized I was English. The other day at school, I got really angry. I was sitting at the lunch table talking to the homeroom teacher whose class I had just taught. I was telling her how terribly our English class had gone and how her students had shown no respect for me whatsoever. After we finished ranting about her class, I asked her who was sitting beside her. I taught for three months at this school last year, so I know most of the teachers. But there was someone new sitting next to her. She introduced us and the woman asked if I was replacing the English teacher. I said yes and she announced that she knew I was English from my accent. I wanted to scream, "That's not how you knew I was English! You knew I was English because I've been sitting here talking about my terrible English class for ten minutes!" I shot the other English teacher a look and she was clearly holding back as well. An unwritten rule at this school prevents the English teachers from speaking in English in the lunchroom. Whether that is because of the school full of separatists working there (who are not anti-anglo, but anti-Canada), or because they feel uncomfortable not understanding what is being said, I've never been sure. What I am sure of is how frustrating it is to have someone speak to you so condescendingly about the quality of your second language when you know damn well that they couldn't get out ten words in English. Of course, such condescension is reserved for those Anglophones who do speak French very well. There would be no point in making such a comment to someone who does have a pronounced English accent, after all, they already know they sound English.

To those outside Quebec, these may sound like petty frustrations. I once thought so too. But the longer I spend here, the more disillusioned I become. The discussion about maintaining the French language is getting not only old, but ridiculous. Saku Koivu and the Montreal Canadiens were attacked this week for introducing the team in English at the home opener. Coming from Finland, Koivu's French is minimal and he was attacked, raising a debate about whether or not players for the Canadiens should be required to learn French to be on the team. How could he spend twelve years here and not speak French? Perhaps he was a bit busy overcoming cancer to attend his language lessons. While the rest of the world is struggling to learn English, Quebec is struggling to keep it out. They ignore the fact that the international language of business is English and the vast majority of their population is unemployable anywhere else in the country, if not the world. I am embarrassed for Quebec, determined to remain unilingual. It will be a rude awakening when they realize that the basis for the reasonable accomodation debates is a reality. The immigrant population will take over. They will take over the economy because they will be the only ones that can communicate with the outside world and understand the reality of the global economy. The more I think about it, the more I want to pack my bags and move to BC.

The Evolution of Language

I finally received my study guides for my upcoming French test and have realized that it won't be as easy as the woman on the phone promised me. It seems that the Quebec government is picky about details that no one else cares about. And apparently the beloved Office de la langue française has made some new rules for writing. Perhaps they heard a rumour that Francophones were actually becoming somewhat capable of writing their language and decided to further complicate it while they had the chance. For part of the test, we're given a paragraph of text and asked to correct the errors. The prep-booklet suggests that we keep in mind that the proper way to write 21, for instance, is no longer vingt et un, but the Office de la langue française has fallen in love with les traits d'unions and has declared that vingt-et-un c'écrit comme ça. The text also contains des anglicismes. Some are fairly obvious. Ça ce dit pas appointment en français, mais plustôt rendez-vous. Mais y en a d'autres qui peuvent facilement nous tromper. La phrase; 'Veuillez compléter le formulaire' contient un anglicism, mais ça ce dit souvent. Compléter, allegedly, should only be used in the sense of adding something, or to complete it- not à remplir un formulaire. Then again, it was likely printed in France and they speak funny French. They say things like cake instead of gâteau or ticket instead of billet, words that would surely give me a failing grade on my knowledge of government of Quebec approved vocabulary. The Université de Montréal Department of French lists the following as words and abbreviations often contaminated by English:

• adresse (address)
• app. (apt. - meaning apartment)
• Dr (Dr. - note the lack of period in French)
• h (hr. - meaning hour)
• n^{o (no. - meaning number)}

The Office de la langue française is so terrified of my contamination of the above French terms that it fears allowing me to teach English to young Francophones could have disastrous effects on the French language. Just imagine if there were consistency in abbreviations across language barriers! Quelle horreur!

Foreigner in a Foreign Land?

Foreign substance. Foreign object. Foreign affairs. Foreigner. Words like waitress, actress, Eskimo, Indian (meaning Native) and retarded have all mysteriously dissapeared from our vocabulary in a short period of time. I imagine they now find themselves lounging on an old, coggity beach with a slew of racial slurs that we have tossed from our speech in an effort to even the playing field. Many of the words seemed harmless and we scoffed when we first learned that fireman had become fire fighter. But the truth is that the meaning behind the words is what people have fought to change. Our language reflects who we are- how we view the world. As the British Empire raced to spread themselves across the globe, so has the English language. Although it's the Americans that have really stepped it up. English is an intensely complex language that has appropriated countless words from other languages. The suffix 'ess' (as in actress, waitress, stewardess) means 'less than'. So for years after the sexual revolution, we were still indicating that women were inferior by their job titles. Eskimo means eater of raw fish. As though you can sum up an entire people by their diet. Wouldn't it be horrible if Canadians were called grease eaters by the rest of the world? Most baffling to me is the use of the word Indian, meaning First Nations people. How did that word actually last so long in our vocabulary? How is it that no one pointed out that the only reason it was in use was the fact that Christopher Columbus was a very confused man? I don't know that I have ever looked at an Indian person and wondered if they were First Nations. How did he? Blinded by the skin tone, I suppose. But as the English language is exported across the world, we run into problems keeping up with the evolution. Printed in my phonics books are the words Indian and Eskimo- alongside pictures of what Koreans associate with these words. Of course because it drives me nuts, these are the words that kids pick up the fastest and repeat the most. Try as I might to change their wording, it never words. And then of course you deal with the terms left behind by teachers before you that perhaps were not as aware of the ever-changing language that we speak. Forgot to open the email maybe. Missed the billboards that were plastered about with the latest updates. I have tried - with some success, to get my children to stop calling the colour peach 'skin colour'. Of course the success depends on consistency and Korean teachers generally have little patience for our political correctness.

English is imperialist. It has seaped into homes and minds across the world like no other. It has come to be an indication of a person's education and social standing. But as much as it is finding its way into cultures across the globe, English has a polite respect and careful way that reflects the culture from which it comes. Rice is such an important part of the Korean diet that it is reflected in the language. There are numerous words for rice- although I only know one. One of their greetings literally means "Have you eaten rice today?". English has so, so many words that it is hard to pinpoint anything specific and say that we have many words for it. But what does stand out is the ever-changing correctness that, as ridiculous as it many sometimes seem, is really striving for equality. Western culture is difficult to explain to Korean people. They ask if we can tell the difference between Canadians and Americans, or the British and the French. They fear that they are offending us by even asking the question, but they really don't understand that there is no Canadian 'look'. As my kids flip through my photo album, they pause at the sight of Kenshi and Miranda. Kenshi is of Japanese heritage, but has lived most of his life as an American and the few years he's spent away have been masquerading as a Canadian. Miranda is half Vietnamese. But apart from Miranda's international trips, she has spent her entire life in Canada. The kids ask me where these people come from and look genuinely confused when I say Canada. Often times the kids insist that Kenshi is Korean- proving that sometimes even they cannot be sure of heritage. The kids don't seem to think that Fred looks any different from their vision of a Canadian- although some of my Korean friends have tentatively asked if it's okay that we're together. They see me as Canadian and him as foreign- despite the fact that Fred has spent his entire life in Canada. They are unable to wrap their minds around the idea of a culture that is not homogenous. Many are unable to fathom how we could both be so blind to the issue of race and simply don't understand that we are equally Canadian.

Over the last ten months, I have used and heard the word foreigner more times than in my entire life. And I contemplate the experience that someone foreign to Canada would have were they to live there for a year. I can't imagine any greater contrast. No one is foreign in Canada. When I daydream about walking the streets of Montreal in November (in my head November is a beautiful sunny month and I don't need a jacket) it is not white faces that I see passing me by. I contemplate the word foreign. It means something that doesn't belong or is out of place. I had a foreign object in my eye- it was an object that didn't belong there. As I walked by a bar last night (on the occasion of my 26th birthday, although my Korean co-workers insist that I'm older) I laughed at a sign over the door. "Foreigners welcome," it proclaimed. You don't belong here, but you're welcome. How strange. This was, of course in sharp contrast to the signs that indicated they did not welcome US military. We sat down for dinner- my Korean friends shocked that on my birthday I wanted to eat Korean food- and they asked how we celebrate birthdays in Canada. Why is there such a perceived difference between us and them? Apart from not speaking the same language and having a little more variety in our hair and eye colour, are we not the same? Why can't some things be universal? The desire to come together in times of celebration or grief is common to every culture, as far as I know. Why does everything have to be different? The question was innocent enough, but the birthday cards were equally strange. My friend Song passed me a beautiful gift and a card that expressed how lucky she felt that we were friends and asked me to stay in touch when I go home. She is a friend. My co-worker Kristine passed me a card that expressed how happy she was to have made a foreign friend and she hoped that when I go back to Canada she will not lose her foreign friend. Following the painful convention last week-end, she told me that she was so happy to work with us (Reg, Leslie and I) because the other foreigners at the meeting were not as good looking. And they were strange- with tattoos and piercings. I wished that I had a remaining piercing to shock her with. I look forward to going home and am anxious to break back into my Canadian lifestyle with my Canadian boyfriend. I can't wait to sit at a table in a coffee shop and listen to the different languages all around me. I'm going to rebel hard against Korean culture, but no one in Canada will know it. I'm going to wear a tank top. I'm going to stop painting my nails and let them break funny. I'm going to live, unmarried and unbothered by it, with Fred. I'm coming back with a tan so we might look equally un-Canadian in the photos I send back to Korea. I'm going to work out at the gym while Fred cooks dinner at home. And I'm going to take photos of all of it. I want the friends that I leave behind to know how Canadian culture is actually different- not how they perceive it to be. More importantly, I'm going to revel in the fact that I won't hear the word foreigner in my day to day life. I might even work on getting it tossed out of the English language alongside other outdated terms. We have no use for this word in English anymore. All of the English speaking countries are such a mish-mash of cultures and colours that its use only has negative connotations. The French word, etranger (stranger), is a little more friendly and perhaps even more appropriate. It's not that you don't belong, it's just that we don't know you yet.