Yoko Morgenstern
Yoko Morgenstern is originally from Japan. She is a student of the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning's Canadian Journalism for Internationally Trained Writers program. For more on her please see www.yokomorgenstern.com.
Heads Up, Toronto!
I'm here again — in my favorite city, Toronto — after a 10-year interval. Now I'm writing a response essay to my own decade-old piece. When I wrote it, I had been in Toronto for only two months. I see my naïve enthusiasm in it, but after a decade, I still love this city.
Now both the Sky Dome and the Hummingbird Centre have changed owners, and I can't stop saying "the Beaches" instead of "the Beach." The city is now full of fancy cafés and artisan bakeries, but the prices are maybe doubled. I'm thrilled about the Distillery District, yet I still like Bloor West. But, somehow, I feel the city's grooves less than before.
"The Canadian public has become more conservative," said Mr. Harper in September, 2008. But Bill Mboutsiadis, an English teacher at U of T's School of Continuing Studies, disagrees with Harper. "I don't feel Canada has become conservative. At least, Ontario is very liberal." Bill was the man of Greek heritage in my other piece. He is such a liberal man, and he feels comfortable in Toronto, just as I do.
Scott Campbell, the president of Personalities At Work, a Toronto-based leadership development firm, doesn't agree with the Prime Minister either. However, Scott, also an author of three books, has another concern. "We Canadians have somehow become unable to talk about cultural differences."
Canadian Politeness?
Ten years ago, I wrote, "In a place where such a great variety of cultures and values mixes like in Canada, to ask about someone's background is no longer a general topic like the weather or sports."
I spent most of the decade in Europe, and now I understand my interviewees' hatred of being asked where they were from. I hated it in Europe too. You might wonder what is wrong with this question. I hated it because I knew if I answered the question, they'd continue with the same old stereotypes of Japan. I could not stand to be treated as a person who had never had bread or coffee, or who ate sushi and whale every day. I know this question contains no ill-will. But the stereotypes they had and they wanted me to fit into were just so wrong. As soon as a stranger asked me, "Where are you from?" an air-raid burst in my head, "IT-IS-NOT-YOUR-BUSINESS!" and I sometimes answered, "South Africa," or "Norway."
So, in Canada, it's very comfortable for me not to be asked where I come from. Sometimes they ask, but I know they don't expect Asian people never to have seen bread or coffee, and so I don't have to be mean to them like I was in Europe. Canadian politeness makes me feel relaxed here — but, is this because they are afraid of talking about cultural differences?
"We've been guilty of prejudice and an attitude of racial superiority towards other cultures," says Scott, a man of Scottish heritage. "As we have come to recognize that other cultures are not intrinsically inferior, that has led to a general muting of any criticism of other cultures." Scott thinks, especially in Canada, the official multiculturalism policy has led to an atmosphere of political correctness that frowns heavily on saying anything negative about another culture. "It is difficult to balance being accepting of other cultures with being able to critique specific components of them. And, I also believe that we ought to be equally critical of those negative aspects of our own culture."
Now, let me talk about Kotobagari, or word hunting, in Japan. It is a term that indicates self-censorship by media. The media has become so afraid of being blamed for misuse of words that they started to remove any words they thought politically incorrect before printing. This has a lot to do with Japanese letters and history, so I'll explain this in a simpler way.
Let's say, they didn't want to use the term "blind" any more, because they thought this word was discriminatory, and so they've created a new term. But most people who use "blind" just want to mention a person who cannot see, and nothing more than that. So, if they think the word is discriminatory, it is not the word that is discriminatory, but the mind that thinks the word is discriminatory. Indeed, a blind person said he preferred to be called blind than a strange new term, because he had never thought anything was wrong with being blind, and yet people started to avoid the word as if avoiding touching a lump.
The same thing could be said about talking of cultural differences. Avoiding talking of cultures doesn't mean discrimination doesn't exist. What is discriminatory is the mind that assumes one culture is inferior to another, and that starts to avoid talking about it, pretending as if there are no cultural differences. There are differences between cultures and it is important to talk about them. Tolerance is not about shutting the mouth, but about understanding differences. And differences are not about superiority, differences are just differences. Somehow, concealing opinions over-sensitively seems to have caused the lack of bridges between each fragment of this cultural mosaic in Toronto.
Scott says, however, his sons in early-twenties and his close friends pick on each other's cultural background so casually. First, he was shocked to overhear it. "They seem to have found a way to be honest about pointing out the differences and talking openly about them without it sounding at all prejudicial," says Scott with fascination. "They don't see differences as problems or bad things, just differences."
Why are migration stories so important?
Currently, I'm at the SCITI, Sheridan Center for Internationally Trained Individuals. I have the privilege of learning Canadian journalism with great journalists from all over the world whom otherwise I would've never had a chance to meet. In the Canadian literature class, we started off with Jacques Cartier to decode why Canadian literature is so much obsessed by migration stories.
"Migration stories have to be told again and again," said Joe Fiorito, the admirable Toronto Star columnist, when he volunteered to speak in our class. "As each successive wave of immigrants gets established and moves up, the stories of place tend to get forgotten; we tend to forget that others are coming in behind us, are going through the same old struggles. We need to be reminded that 'they' are us," added Mr. Fiorito when I asked additional questions some days later.
So, heads up, Toronto, why don't we speak out? We don't have to be afraid of talking about differences and struggles — I don't know any other place on earth where I can feel comfortable being different. I believe in Toronto, where I can breathe, and I don't want it to turn inward because of the rough economy. We can still talk — as we do here, at the Vine Project.
I remember, ten years ago, Bill Mboutsiadis complained about the way people treated him because of his last name. Recently, he said to me, "My name — my last name — is a Canadian name."
Used with permission of the author.