Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9407671:


No other hat will do 20 9, 11:26am

I was working with one of my friends at a football game (American Football), when he begun to tell me about his home in Canada. First of all, I had no idea he was from Canada (But I pretended I did), but what was worse was how little I knew about Canada. He began by telling me how horrible Steven Harper is. I do know who Steven Harper is, but I didn't know that he actually did anything. Then he said, "Yeah, Football isn't really my thing. The only sport I actually follow is Ice Hockey. Football is to slow and boring." Then I said, "Boring! Guys tackling each other and pushing each other for a ball is boring!" Then he said, "Well I didn't mean to offend you, but I sorta is. Just think about it. Ice Hockey is a very high speed sport where guys bloody each other over a puck. And there are sticks involved!" Then we began talking about U.S. versus Canadian governments. Which I knew next to nothing about. Then something came up about the Canadian Military. And I said, "Wait, Canada has a military? Ruth, did you know Canada had a military?" To which said, "Wait what! Canada has a military! I didn't think they had guns in Canada?" And he looked at me quizzically and said, "Yeah, we fought in WW2 before the U.S. !" Then I looked down and quietly said, "Canada was involved in WW2?" He face palmed so hard. But he didn't seem surprised. He was quite impressed that I knew who Steven Harper was. He said that most Americans know next to nothing about anything outside of what they are used to. What was shocking to me was shocking to me is that I am a pretty cultured American. I do follow world politics and I constantly try to expose myself to world cultures. You could play almost any song composed in the Romance or Baroque eras and there is a good chance I can name it. Instead of watching Netflix like most teenagers, I watch operas (especially German ones because I speak enough German to comprehend with or without subtitles), or the news. I can tell you in detail about a majority of the issues the U.N. deals with. But when it comes to my neighbor Canada, we American's know nothing about it. In our minds, Canada is "America except they don't have all the rights and the people are all eskimos who say "A" after every word and that survive only on Ice hockey, maple syrup, and fancy circle bacon." But luckily, he is my friend anyways, and he plans on staying in America (mostly because the state I live in has some of the lowest taxes in the U.S.). And he says he loves it here!