Montréal 1 - Demographics
Jan. 27th, 2003 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseCame back last night from a weekend in Montreal with my parents and Snake (see last journal entry). It was a great break from life and, while it had its moments of high and unwelcome drama, a lot of fun. Here are some random notes spread through the day so I actually do get my work done.
Speaking to a woman I was sitting beside at the bar mitzvah luncheon, I was reminded of an experience Br'er Rabbit keeps having. When he speaks to another Chinese recent immigrant, he will often be asked "Do you live in Scarborough?" When he says no, they get a bit nervous and continue, "Markham?" He responds that he lives in neither of these neighbourhoods favoured by new Chinese Canadians, but rather downtown. They give him a quizzical look and say "That's not very convenient, is it?" meaning that he's far from the new Asian shopping malls and bank machines that speak Chinese, etc.
In a similar vein, the Conservative-verging-on-Orthodox Jewish, middle-aged woman beside me, upon learning I was also a Jew from Toronto asked, "So, you live in Richmond Hill?" and was somewhat non-plussed when I said, "No, downtown".
The whole weekend was a strange step into a world of people who live their lives by specific rules which they lay out for each other: You live in this neighbourhood, your kids go to these schools, you decorate your house this way, you dress this way. When the women show baby pictures, they coo like this; when the men gather in a circle, balancing drinks and overloaded hors d'oeuvre crackers, they speak on these topics and take these viewpoints. Suits are blue, skirts are modest. And if I were a total stranger to this milieu, I would be okay. I would view it like a newly discovered tribe in the Amazon and not feel that I should be following these strange tribal customs. But I grew up a middle-class, suburban Jew and these people are who I was supposed to become. My sister is the wife of a Conservative Rabbi and basically lives at these functions. My brother and sister-in-law, basically secular in their hearts, adhere to the rules, send their kids to the schools and dream of that Richmond Hill home they can't really afford.
Snake wore his silk traditional Chinese shirt on Friday night and a brown suit on Saturday. I don't own a suit and I wore my hair down, bouncing arond my shoulders. Oh yeah, and we were two men unattached to brides and babies. Everyone I know and care about there was incredibly nice to us, but I couldn't help feeling paranoid.
The bar mitzvah boy's uncle is a major conservative prick who, among other rudenesses, gave my sister dirty looks when she was called up to the pulpit to make one of the blessings on the Torah. In his even more conservative world, women don't do that.
At one point during the service, I found him staring at me with an indecipherable but stern look. I grew more and more uncomfortable and started creating conflict fantasies in my head -- at the luncheon he would start harassing me or Snake and saying "faggots aren't welcome," etc. I would rise and eloquently remind him that the true sin of Sodom and Gammorah was failure of hospitality to strangers, not homosexuality. Or I would knock him down and dump smoked whitefish on head; accountants and lawyers would rush to separate us.
At that moment, I realized that this anger was all about my own fear and not his supposed but unproven hostility. Unpious as I am (I'm in a synagogue less than once a year, and then only when invited to a celebration) I was looking at my own sin: making hatred for another out of my own fear. I took a deep breath and shook off the anger.
I've arranged most of my life to only be around people like myself - progressive thinking, deliberately breaking predefined life scripts. But that's as cowardly as living in a gated community in Richmond Hill. Get out and let them see your Chinese shirt! Don't assume you have nothing to learn from them or teach them. Take a chance on meeting their hostility. Your presence doesn't create the hositility, but it may help diffuse it.
Speaking to a woman I was sitting beside at the bar mitzvah luncheon, I was reminded of an experience Br'er Rabbit keeps having. When he speaks to another Chinese recent immigrant, he will often be asked "Do you live in Scarborough?" When he says no, they get a bit nervous and continue, "Markham?" He responds that he lives in neither of these neighbourhoods favoured by new Chinese Canadians, but rather downtown. They give him a quizzical look and say "That's not very convenient, is it?" meaning that he's far from the new Asian shopping malls and bank machines that speak Chinese, etc.
In a similar vein, the Conservative-verging-on-Orthodox Jewish, middle-aged woman beside me, upon learning I was also a Jew from Toronto asked, "So, you live in Richmond Hill?" and was somewhat non-plussed when I said, "No, downtown".
The whole weekend was a strange step into a world of people who live their lives by specific rules which they lay out for each other: You live in this neighbourhood, your kids go to these schools, you decorate your house this way, you dress this way. When the women show baby pictures, they coo like this; when the men gather in a circle, balancing drinks and overloaded hors d'oeuvre crackers, they speak on these topics and take these viewpoints. Suits are blue, skirts are modest. And if I were a total stranger to this milieu, I would be okay. I would view it like a newly discovered tribe in the Amazon and not feel that I should be following these strange tribal customs. But I grew up a middle-class, suburban Jew and these people are who I was supposed to become. My sister is the wife of a Conservative Rabbi and basically lives at these functions. My brother and sister-in-law, basically secular in their hearts, adhere to the rules, send their kids to the schools and dream of that Richmond Hill home they can't really afford.
Snake wore his silk traditional Chinese shirt on Friday night and a brown suit on Saturday. I don't own a suit and I wore my hair down, bouncing arond my shoulders. Oh yeah, and we were two men unattached to brides and babies. Everyone I know and care about there was incredibly nice to us, but I couldn't help feeling paranoid.
The bar mitzvah boy's uncle is a major conservative prick who, among other rudenesses, gave my sister dirty looks when she was called up to the pulpit to make one of the blessings on the Torah. In his even more conservative world, women don't do that.
At one point during the service, I found him staring at me with an indecipherable but stern look. I grew more and more uncomfortable and started creating conflict fantasies in my head -- at the luncheon he would start harassing me or Snake and saying "faggots aren't welcome," etc. I would rise and eloquently remind him that the true sin of Sodom and Gammorah was failure of hospitality to strangers, not homosexuality. Or I would knock him down and dump smoked whitefish on head; accountants and lawyers would rush to separate us.
At that moment, I realized that this anger was all about my own fear and not his supposed but unproven hostility. Unpious as I am (I'm in a synagogue less than once a year, and then only when invited to a celebration) I was looking at my own sin: making hatred for another out of my own fear. I took a deep breath and shook off the anger.
I've arranged most of my life to only be around people like myself - progressive thinking, deliberately breaking predefined life scripts. But that's as cowardly as living in a gated community in Richmond Hill. Get out and let them see your Chinese shirt! Don't assume you have nothing to learn from them or teach them. Take a chance on meeting their hostility. Your presence doesn't create the hositility, but it may help diffuse it.
