Where are you from?

This article was part of the daily news digest from our communications department at work. Many non-Canadians don't get why Canadians would be offended by the question "Where are you from?". I didn't at first either. After all, it's healthy curiosity, and in Mauritius, we often relate to people as cultural entities as much as as human beings (whether that's a correct thing is a debate for some day soon). Still, if you've grown up in a country and you relate to no other country than this one, it can get tiring really fast to have to answer this question ALL the time. Below is an excerpt:

The Top Ten Answers to the Question: “Where Are You From?”
Canada is made up of immigrants, some here earlier than others. It’s become a bit of a game to see who’s from here – as in their family has lived in Canada for a few generations – and who may not be from here as often experienced by Canadians of colour despite being born and raised in the country.
It tends to follow a pattern. You’re talking to someone when the Question comes up, “Where are you from?”
“Uh, here.”
“No, where are you really from?”
And so on.

So we did a quick and non-scientific straw poll to find the best answers to the Question. Here are our top ten:

Click here to read the Top 10 answers.

Notes from a newly-landed in Toronto

These are raw notes from a newly-landed immigrant in Toronto, two weeks after arriving in November 2008, in the middle of a recession: the angst, the puzzlement, the shock. Gauging the evolution in mindset and outlook since then, it's a vivid reminder of the resilience of human beings.

"Toronto is a big city. I watch people in the bus, and think of how much more difficult it is to spring to celebrity and greatness from within the morass. How amazing it is that Obama has become President in the States, where there are bigger cities and 10 times more people. This society ceaselessly invites and invites you to consume. Flyers with cheaper and cheaper prices for food, sales of buy 2 get a 3rd free. Canada is made in China.

Mothers speak their native language to their children, who respond in broken Russian, Spanish, Urdu and English. Mothers hug their babies close, having spent about 20 minutes just to dress the little ones against the cold. You have to think of everything before braving the conditions here.

It is strikingly absurd that we should persist in acting as if all is right with the world and carry on shopping, "bussing", working, eating and playing as we would have had it not been minus 10 degrees outside. Women still feel the need to be fashionable. Guys still have the willingness to style their hair in the morning. That must be part of the bravery. And the same bravery leads them to learn how to end up being exceptional.

Hot dog vendors attempt to personalise their stall: European-style hot dog; Polish-style hot dogs; veggie hot dogs.

Malls: collections of stores brought together with the intention of easing the necessary job of shopping to fufill human needs. But shopping... block-like agglomerations scattered along bus routes designed to drive droves of hungry minds to the branded and brandless outlets. The realisation that things are just things, that they are right there for the taking, and that beyond the interest for shopping to live will need to arise a fulfilment that comes from an active mind, a healthy body, and socially meaningful action.

This society creates deep, harsh poverty. Poverty of the mind, poverty of the heart.


Politeness is everywhere. People can be shocked at the rudeness of someone and share deep looks of contempt with strangers on the same bus. They will not acknowledge a tramp sleeping between cardboard sheets behind a store as a call for action. Because humans are like that. Creatures of habit.

The ceaseless reminders to shop are the most striking. Shopping is good for the economy... Which one? The Chinese one? Eventually, you're getting branded jeans for $99.99, Made in China and non branded jeans for $9.99, Made in China. What's making the difference between the two: better paid labour? Improved conditions of living for thousands? For whom? The consumer gaining the benefits of a heightened sexiness factor or the worker reaping the gains of better wages resulting in higher standards of living for his child (because children it isn't). And if it is the latter, what is that standard of living going to turn his child into? A consumer of someone else's labour? Whose?

Advertising in the Toronto subway and magazines ranks in popularity as follows: redesign your face (or rejuvenate your face), continuing education to gain employment (presumably to afford consumption that will keep the economy healthy), protecting yourself against the flu by staying away from anyone who has it.

Food portions are huge everywhere. People in public transport range from the fashionably thinly dressed to the bulky oversized folk. Grey is the predominant shade. My soul seeks the pockets of colour on wide, wide streets.

How weird we must look to Martians."

Myopia and Impressionism

When you're very myopic, all you need to do at any time is remove your glasses and the world becomes an Impressionist painting.

As a kid at a long boring wedding ceremony, removing my specs made all the fairy lights turn into large bright drops, creating what I later learnt were bokeh-like effects. On a rainy day, a dreary grey landscape only needs a red umbrella and suddenly you're looking at an abstract masterpiece. The quirky (if slightly dangerous) thing too is that if you first see something without your glasses (e.g. waking from a nap), really familiar objects can, for a second, look totally different, launching your mind into new imaginings.

Sitting in the bus behind a rain-spotted window, the changing effects are intriguing: it's the equivalent of setting your camera at its widest aperture on manual focus. With my specs on, I focus on infinity and the raindrops on the pain are almost unnoticeable. Without my specs, the focus is on the rain drops and the background becomes mere washes of colour. It's quite fun.