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American, New Orleans native and Canada-phile checking in. Just a quick hitter to say hello and thanks to all that have made this a wonderful thread. I'm not as Canada-experienced as some here (just Toronto, Montreal, QC and most recently Van) but have loved all four cities (Van and Montreal being my favorites). Politically I'd call myself one of those more center-left Americans who identifies more with what's considered a "typically Canadian view" (if I may, and I know that's all over the place) as opposed to the rabid Dubya/Hannity/Tea Party nonsense that it seems so many Americans are painted with these days.
Just wanted to give a shout out to Acajack - I've really enjoyed your postings here and on other forums - I've found your posts to be always interesting and informative, and quite often eye-opening and surprising. I bring this up because you and I seem to have similar backgrounds (that is, to a point - like you, I am a descendant of French Canadians, but mine ended up making the long trek down south). Would be interesting to compare notes on an appropriate forum.
One last bit - when I was doing my undergrad in finance at LSU, my Investments teacher was a PhD student who was from Saskatoon - great fellow, he had an awesomely understated sense of humor. I still remember on July 1 he came in and asked everyone, "OK, what day is today?" Blank looks all around, so I volunteered, "Uh, Dave, it's July first". He just kind of glared at me in an amused way (yeah, this guy could do that), and then I burst out mock-absent-mindedly: "Oh, you mean Confederation Day? Why didn't you just say so?" Yeah, he was a tad surprised
American, New Orleans native and Canada-phile checking in. Just a quick hitter to say hello and thanks to all that have made this a wonderful thread. I'm not as Canada-experienced as some here (just Toronto, Montreal, QC and most recently Van) but have loved all four cities (Van and Montreal being my favorites). Politically I'd call myself one of those more center-left Americans who identifies more with what's considered a "typically Canadian view" (if I may, and I know that's all over the place) as opposed to the rabid Dubya/Hannity/Tea Party nonsense that it seems so many Americans are painted with these days.
Just wanted to give a shout out to Acajack - I've really enjoyed your postings here and on other forums - I've found your posts to be always interesting and informative, and quite often eye-opening and surprising. I bring this up because you and I seem to have similar backgrounds (that is, to a point - like you, I am a descendant of French Canadians, but mine ended up making the long trek down south). Would be interesting to compare notes on an appropriate forum.
One last bit - when I was doing my undergrad in finance at LSU, my Investments teacher was a PhD student who was from Saskatoon - great fellow, he had an awesomely understated sense of humor. I still remember on July 1 he came in and asked everyone, "OK, what day is today?" Blank looks all around, so I volunteered, "Uh, Dave, it's July first". He just kind of glared at me in an amused way (yeah, this guy could do that), and then I burst out mock-absent-mindedly: "Oh, you mean Confederation Day? Why didn't you just say so?" Yeah, he was a tad surprised
As an American living in Canada I haven't had any problems. If they make fun of me for being American it's in a playful way, and I find most Canadians make fun of themselves too. You just gotta respect the country you're in and you'll get respect back. I sometimes hear the bashing of my country but it's usually about something dumb our government did, which I usually don't disagree with haha. I love America despite its flaws, it is my home, but I love Canada too and most likely will be living here for a good long while.
Nope. Leo Major's event involved Hill 355 while the 2PPCLI was on Hill 677.
I had forgotten completely about his heroic deeds is both world WWII and Korea. Those two Koreans episodes have one common denominator. In both engagements they were precipitated by an American withdrawal due to the heavy action overwhelming them. In the Hill 677 action they, the U.S. first and ninth corps, withdrew under "heavy pressure" leaving the area in the hands of two regiments of the ROK 6th Division who summarily saddled up and literally ran back through the Canadian line.
In the Leo Major action the American 3rd Division, some 10,000 men were pushed out firstly by an artillary barrage from the Chinese 64th Army then by Chinese of the 190th and 191st Divisions. The Chinese then encircled the American positions while also occupying another nearby hill 227. A Canadian commander in the area, Lt-Col J.A. Dextraze attempted to take some heat off the beleagured Americans by ordering Leo Major and his elite sniper team to engage the enemy which they did by sneaking into the midst of the chinese on Hill 227 with Bren Gunners and firing outward. The Chinese fled the hill when the firing was coming from within their midst.
Were the story to end there would be exciting enough stuff but the Chinese some 14,000 of them, attacked to retake the hill with mortars etc., and Major was ordered to withdraw but refused and fought them off at close quarters for THREE days.
Summation: TWENTY French Canadians successfully resisted the assault of two Chinese Divisions while an entire American Division was forced to retreat. Very few would be worthy of walking in their shadows.
For this action he received a bar to his previous WWII awarded DCM for single-handedly taking a German held Dutch town. Quite the guy.
Canada, along with most other Commonwealth Allies were noted for NOT giving out medals like "Cracker Jack" prizes as they were already an "all volunteer" force while medal awards from a country that needed to institute the draft were more gratuitously awarded to help stimulate volunteer enrollment.
These are yet more examples of military actions you will very likely never see depicted by Hollywood.
The DCM is normally given for a just missed on the VC, to have a DCM and Bar means he must have been good. No, Commonwealth countries are not known to be generous with awards which is where the USA got it wrong with giving MacArthur the Medal Of Honor, a Medal of Honor for a General ? Interesting that around 1350 VCs have been awarded, against over 3500 Medal of Honors.
I've noticed Canadians are quick to say bad things about America, but don't mind individual Americans. That's been my experience. I've never been given crap for being American, but I have often been told my country does crappy things, when I've been there.
Canada stands next to America at the urinal and sneaks a peek. And then feels very inadequate.
When America's pants tighten, the rest of the world notices. And that sticks in our craw. America is that guy in the locker room who takes a few extra seconds to stretch before getting dressed, knowing that everyone else is noticing the elephant trunk sticking out from under the towel, sniffing for a peanut.
I love America. And I love my own country, Canada. Both are seriously flawed, yet magnificent in their own way.
Spent nearly two decades living abroad, mostly in East Asia, where you are bound to meet hundreds of Canadians (1,000's?) teaching English. I've met folks from nearly every province, and found it interesting the way Canadians slag on each other (especially on Quebec and Toronto), very similar to how Americans slag on different cities/regions.
Needless to say, I've heard it all. My observations...it's generally younger Canadians who seem the most obsessed about America and trying to compare their country in a more favorable light. This is fine, if it is just among Canadians/Americans/etc....but honestly, if I had a dollar for every time I've been told by Koreans, Japanese, Chinese that they had a Canadian ESL teacher who said bad things about my country, I could have retired by now.
Having an inferiority complex is fine, loving your country is fine (Canada is fabulous btw), but spreading dislike of my country is not fine. Please Canadians, if you know someone heading abroad to teach English, tell them to zip it when it comes to all things America, we have enough problems as it is.
Here is one story that highlights this. A friend of mine from Pennsylvania (of German descent like that Office guy) was heading to a house party in Tokyo with two German friends. He is totally fluent in both German and Japanese btw. Well, they get to the party and the only other westerners there were a couple of Canadians who were regaling their Japanese hosts with examples of how Canada was so much better than America. One example they gave was how Americans don't speak foreign languages like the oh-so bilingual Canadians. Well, my American friend is listenting to this, amused and speaking German. One of the Canadians then asks them, "So you guys are from Germany?" To which my friend responded, "Oh no, I'm from that country where people don't speak foreign languages"...and then he switched into perfect Japanese and told them, "Never ever believe anything Canadians ever tell you about America". And apparently all of the Japanese had a good laugh.
Spent nearly two decades living abroad, mostly in East Asia, where you are bound to meet hundreds of Canadians (1,000's?) teaching English. I've met folks from nearly every province, and found it interesting the way Canadians slag on each other (especially on Quebec and Toronto), very similar to how Americans slag on different cities/regions.
Needless to say, I've heard it all. My observations...it's generally younger Canadians who seem the most obsessed about America and trying to compare their country in a more favorable light. This is fine, if it is just among Canadians/Americans/etc....but honestly, if I had a dollar for every time I've been told by Koreans, Japanese, Chinese that they had a Canadian ESL teacher who said bad things about my country, I could have retired by now.
Having an inferiority complex is fine, loving your country is fine (Canada is fabulous btw), but spreading dislike of my country is not fine. Please Canadians, if you know someone heading abroad to teach English, tell them to zip it when it comes to all things America, we have enough problems as it is.
Here is one story that highlights this. A friend of mine from Pennsylvania (of German descent like that Office guy) was heading to a house party in Tokyo with two German friends. He is totally fluent in both German and Japanese btw. Well, they get to the party and the only other westerners there were a couple of Canadians who were regaling their Japanese hosts with examples of how Canada was so much better than America. One example they gave was how Americans don't speak foreign languages like the oh-so bilingual Canadians. Well, my American friend is listenting to this, amused and speaking German. One of the Canadians then asks them, "So you guys are from Germany?" To which my friend responded, "Oh no, I'm from that country where people don't speak foreign languages"...and then he switched into perfect Japanese and told them, "Never ever believe anything Canadians ever tell you about America". And apparently all of the Japanese had a good laugh.
Spent nearly two decades living abroad, mostly in East Asia, where you are bound to meet hundreds of Canadians (1,000's?) teaching English. I've met folks from nearly every province, and found it interesting the way Canadians slag on each other (especially on Quebec and Toronto), very similar to how Americans slag on different cities/regions.
Needless to say, I've heard it all. My observations...it's generally younger Canadians who seem the most obsessed about America and trying to compare their country in a more favorable light. This is fine, if it is just among Canadians/Americans/etc....but honestly, if I had a dollar for every time I've been told by Koreans, Japanese, Chinese that they had a Canadian ESL teacher who said bad things about my country, I could have retired by now.
Having an inferiority complex is fine, loving your country is fine (Canada is fabulous btw), but spreading dislike of my country is not fine. Please Canadians, if you know someone heading abroad to teach English, tell them to zip it when it comes to all things America, we have enough problems as it is.
Here is one story that highlights this. A friend of mine from Pennsylvania (of German descent like that Office guy) was heading to a house party in Tokyo with two German friends. He is totally fluent in both German and Japanese btw. Well, they get to the party and the only other westerners there were a couple of Canadians who were regaling their Japanese hosts with examples of how Canada was so much better than America. One example they gave was how Americans don't speak foreign languages like the oh-so bilingual Canadians. Well, my American friend is listenting to this, amused and speaking German. One of the Canadians then asks them, "So you guys are from Germany?" To which my friend responded, "Oh no, I'm from that country where people don't speak foreign languages"...and then he switched into perfect Japanese and told them, "Never ever believe anything Canadians ever tell you about America". And apparently all of the Japanese had a good laugh.
I think a lot of Canadians are simply mistaken for something else when they travel abroad and most likely it is being an American. This immediately gets your back up and you kind of make a proclamation that no, I'm not American i'm Canadian. Similarities yes but also differences. I'm not so sure it is an inferiority complex as much as it is a defense mechanism for our own culture and values and really our own identity.
When I travel (I don't shame the U.S) but if I am mistaken as American I will state that I am not. I think Americans need to have some empathy in the sense that if you travelled and were mistaken as Canadian or something else- you too would defend your own national identity. It wouldn't be to slight Canada, just to set the record straight about who you are as representative of your country. Additionally, and I think it needs to be said - rightly or wrongly or perhaps somewhere in between, the U.S doesn't have a fantastic reputation in many countries around the world and we as Canadians know this, thus making proclamations that we are not American and are different is possibly a wise move depending on the country you are visiting. Believe me, I don't need to start a conversation about America with many people in distant lands - once they know you are not American they quickly can open up about the disdain they have for elements of Americana. This is something that the U.S needs to address and not Canada.
Beyond all that, if Canadians are intentionally slighting the U.S and engaging in nationalistic superiority than I agree with your comments. I just find you are probably embellishing things and making a mountain out of a mole hill with respect to how Canadians portray the U.S.. I really think at its root - its just to differentiate ourselves from another country which is fair really. You may have an amusing and ironic tale, but by and large I think it is an outlier example and not the norm.
Last edited by fusion2; 02-03-2014 at 04:27 PM..
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New to the forum - terrific discussion!
