By Stever's request, another GTKY post
gimmietimmies
member
I was lurking on another board when inspiration hit, or hysterical laughter, I'm not sure which was first (maybe it was the Granville Island Maple Cream Ale, Stever lol). So, sound off on your misconceptions/myths about Canada, and I'll answer you true or not - Stever, no cheating. No, we don't live in Igloos, and we obviously have the internetz.
Oh, and true story. My mom's family lived in Independence, MO back in the 60's for a few years, and my aunt's 6th grade science text book had a section on Canada that said that north of 49 was a frozen wasteland with pictures of the Arctic, quite obviously in the dead of winter. My aunt told the teacher that the text book was wrong, and the teacher didn't believe her. The teacher even gave her an F on her exam because she said text books were never wrong. WTF!
And, go.
Re: By Stever's request, another GTKY post
Your poor aunt. Textbooks and those who teach from them, myself included, are often wrong.
I believe no myths.
Myth or Fiction:
Women can get Government paid tummy tucks after C/S?
Canadian bacon is better than U.S. bacon?
Molson is superior to LaBatts Blue?
I want to believe that you all sound like Bob and Doug MacKenzie, go fishing and play hockey a lot and drink Molson and eat at Tim Hortons.
Oh, and you have a pet moose. That would be a cool thing!
I know only some of that is true!
And in contrast, I am originally from Iowa, which also raises lots of stereotypes. I was NOT raised on a farm with pigs, cows and corn. But I did work in farm fields a lot as a teen, so I can fully describe the process of detasselling.
Not really fact or fiction but why can;t we get good maple cookies or Horotn's maple cream?
Do you play dead or American? :-)
I think that I win on the stereotype meter. I was born, raised and currently live in West Virginia.
No I do not live near Richmond.
No, it is not Western Virginia
Yes, it is a separate state.
Yes, I do have all my teeth (minus the wisdom teeth)
No, I am not married to my cousin
No, I do wear shoes every day.
No, I do not make moonshine (but my grandfather was a revenuer, worked for the IRS during Prohibition)
I do live in a house with reall floors and I am not related to anyone named Hatfield or McCoy.
Oh, no! I'm from Indiana, and I WAS raised on a farm with pigs, cows, and corn. I don't think there are any Canadian stereotypes I believe that I know of. I have a pretty well-known Canadian "rodeo-er" in my next class I teach. Our college (where I teach) has a great rodeo team, so we get a few students from Canada each year on our team.
So embarrassing. I just read vanverth's post, and my guy is related to one of the Hatfields (and someone else I dated in high school was, too--his grandparents were Hatfields), and my guy and I actually made moonshine recently. It's a grape brandy.
*blush*
I promise, I'm fun, despite my "white trash-ness"!
Mac and cheese lover!
TAKE OFF, EH!! Naw, we used to imitate Bob and Doug when we went far south for sh!ts and giggles. People are pretty gullible. Fishing is boring. I only like the end result of hunting, again, boring. Molson sucks, but I love their commercials. True story, our beer has a higher alcohol content than the US (last night's Maple Cream Ale was 7%).
And, shoot, BB, I've been to Iowa, so I know it's not like the stereotypes. And I too can atttest to the freaking corn rash you get on your forearms detasselling. I've spent many summers in southern Ontario doing the very same thing. Blech.
I don't know about that - I heard Vermont has good maple cookies, but the rest of you must be sol. MMMmmmm to the maple cream though. I can always Fedex some!
Do I play dead or American? Mmmmm tough choice!!
I know, right!!
And good for you for not buying into the myths. You must be a Rick Mercer fan. Seriously, people believed him when he told them we had one daily newspaper.
OMG, that new show (Moonshiner's I think, and Hillbilly Handfishin) is doing nothing to help the stereotype!!
LOL to the white trashness. Rodeo people up here usually aren't, it takes a lot of money to do that, so they tend to be well off. I live in spitting distance of a lot of the training centers, and those are huge, with big fancy houses.
And I think you're safe, that's enough generations removed from the original Hatfields to be "normal". Hey, as long as your grape brandy wasn't made in a still in a random stream then you're not a moonshiner.
I don't think I have Canadian misconceptions.
While I haven't been to many provinces, I've been to Ontario and Quebec several times (since they are the closest to my home state of New Jersey).
There are, however, MANY misconceptions about New Jersey--which TV shows such as The Sopranos and Jersey Shore have managed to perpetuate. I live in the suburbia that John Hughes shared (albeit not a Chicago one) and there are malls, parks and houses and nary a trash dump to be found. Sadly the many dumps and chemical plants are closest to Newark Airport and that's why many people associate my state with that.
I won't go any further with this... but I do get tired of all the Jersey jokes. My home state is actually quite nice. Yeah housing prices and property taxes are too high, but overall it's a good place to live with excellent public schools.
Bronx Zoo: Summer 2013
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Yeah, this rodeo-er is way well to do. She talks about their home in Hawaii. Hahaha!
We watched a bunch of YouTube videos on how to make your own moonshine/brandy, so it was made on our stove-top, not in a stream
We decide to give ourselves weird projects like that once in a while.
I grew up with my mother's side of the family being "country people" and my dad's side being Jews from Brooklyn, so life has always been an interesting little niche of stereotypes that people have about me.
There's actually a "Jewbilly" movement and Jewish musicians who play "bluegrass" and call it "Jewgrass," so I'm not totally alone
Mac and cheese lover!
Hi, I am Bride Buddies. I have a potty chair on my front porch, in full view of all the neighbors. I am White Trash.
(Two weeks ago I bought a potty chair for Charles at the neighbor's yard sale. I fully intend to clean it up a bit before I bring it into the house. I have not yet done this, as I am a procrastinator.)
And the thought of corn rash makes me itchy!
Actually, a good redneck would make it in an old radiator (after all the antifreeze is cleaned out and the lead just makes you stronger.)
Mmmmm... Granville Island. Mmmmm... ale.
Sniff, how I miss booze, sniff sniff.
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Well, before I went back to Ontario to meet a bunch of my mom's family I imagined everyone seeming like they were in Kids in the Hall. Aftwerwards I thought everyone lived in scary suburbs.
My tongue in cheek answer is that the tops of their heads aren't attached to their jaws - thank you South Park.
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"I gotta piss so bad I can taste it."
No really, I do. I'm 7 months pregnant, eh.
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OMG! I crush you!
Meh, NJ can't be all bad. I've likely seen worse, I've been in some shady places in Detroit and Chigaco - seriously, my dad got off the exit at 8 mile, who does that?!
I went to college in WV and hear the stereotypes in bold from ppl in Tx.
And the stereotype for me is that I grew up in MI - just outside the City of Detroit boarder and I lived off 8mile (but in Livonia) but my step-dad was a city of Detroit employee and way back in the day, all city employees had to live within city limits. My parents live in an amazing neighborhood IN Detroit - right at 8 mile and Woodward - way nicer area than where I grew up.
I grew up going to Windsor all the time, had a family member that worked in Windsor so he would cross the boarder 5 days a week. 2 of my closest friends are from Montreal and I have been a few times.
I currently live in MN and we all know those stereotypes - I don't fit any of them but have met people that do somewhat. One of my close friends here grew up in Tower, MN - pretty close to the boarder - graduating class of 10 - her family owns the town butcher!!!
Ha! then you know what I mean. Driving through Detroit was an education for DH, he'd never been, but we go all the time (my family is over on the Windsor side). It never phased me that in one little area it could be rough, but blocks away it would be completely different. When he came there were massive fires in some of the row housing, so not a great impression. I wasn't bothered, I was on a mission for Target and JCP anyway (over on 12 mile and 16 mile). You wouldn't see that diversity in such a short space here, it's really hard to describe how the neighborhoods are set up, but they are massively different. Except Toronto. Toronto is just, ugh.
Toronto is one of the most diverse places in the world and most people don't find that "ugh". I don't know what you meant by that but it didn't sound very nice.
I'm not a fan of Toronto. It has lots of good points, but I wouldn't choose to live right in the GTA for a lot of reasons. Nothing majorly bad, just not my style at all. The 401 was a huge turn off, the suburbs all look the same, and the crazy humidity bubble right around the city isn't my cup of tea. We looked at moving out to central Ontario, but not Toronto, at all. I far prefer Kitchener/Waterloo, Brantford, Cambridge and further out, Hamilton (love), and St Catharines. There weren't enough positives to move there.
It can still be diverse, I love that part, that's why I choose to visit there. But, no sorry, I don't like Toronto as a place to live, for me.
I can completely respect someone not wanting to live there and wanting a different style of living and the 401 can be crazy, although anyone from the core would rarely get that far north unless they were headed to the cottage. (the 407 is much better) I can't agree that the suburbs look the same but some do. (York region, Durham region both part of the GTA and both have beautiful towns/cities which in no way resemble the actual city or other suburbs) It just sounded like the same old stereotypes and hatred that people have without just cause--that kind of thing bugs me because so many people really do hate the city and everyone in it for no good reasons. I was raised in the city and much of my family now lives about an hour north of downtown Toronto (still GTA) in a beautiful town on Lake Simcoe--they also wanted a different style of living. I work in the core of the financial district and I love all the diversity of the city, especially the food. (I also live just north now)
So, after my long winded response I just wanted to say Thanks for the making that clear. I was really enjoying your post and the replies.
And FTR, I admit to agreeing with Gimmietimmies knee-jerk assessment. My family lives in the outskirts of Toronto in the scariest, Stepford Wifiest suburb I've ever been to... And I'm FROM a suburb.
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