“Who here has a strong culture?” my wife asked a room of Western-European-background-classic-Canadians in Saint John, NB. (Do we have a name for white people who’ve been here a while?)

No one thought they had much of a culture! So, as one of those Caucasian-Canadian types who had, however, spent most of her life outside of Canada, my wife educated them.

“Are you kidding?! You like gravy on your French fries and drool over baked beans! You gather to view dressed up dead people days after they die. You can’t seem to not stop stopping – for pedestrians, at red lights (and you stay stopped even when no one is coming!), and at every Tim Horton’s to join a long line up. You like to talk about the weather. You buy really nice big black and sometimes blue plastic bags in order to throw them out. And you’re super nice (but hard to really get to know). You’ve got a strong culture.”

Before living overseas we used to do all those things without thinking and had no idea some people around us weren’t doing them or were at least feeling uncomfortable doing them (like the other night when I actually stopped and stayed stopped at a deserted intersection – my “old self” felt embarrassed; my “new self” was excited to be learning new skills and fitting in).

That’s the wealth of a multicultural Canada (if we are able to see it) – the more we’re exposed to one another’s cultures the more aware we become of our own. We laugh at ourselves more and become more vulnerable and knowable. We become more culturally humble.

 - Paul in Saint John, N.B.