Beaucoup de comments.
Posted by kanderson on May 8, 2008
So, we spent Sunday in Montreal. We’ve been here for a few days already, but this was the first time “interacted” with the frenchies… 
About the first thing I noticed is that multiculteralism is a complete failure. Every restaurant, everyclerk, every person everywhere here basically speaks twice, “Bonjour, comment ca va? Hello, how are you?” Which is a stupid way of asking “French or English”. It effectively guarantees the loss of French over a fairly short period of time. Basically, because now, in order to be hired for a job, you need to speak both French and English. And since English is the lowest common denominator, French is a useless language here, and it will quickly be dropped. This is particularly obvious with the younger generation, where they can fluently speak French, but prefer to speak English amongst themselves. Combined with the innundation of English culture (the background music in the stores is English, the movies are mostly English, generally even the names of the stores) the need for French is simply dead. At the moment, there are enough people still speaking it that it might have some value in communicating with the older generation, but I suspect French will literally die with them, much as it has in the remainder of Canada. (Nicole’s parents spoke French, Nicole speaks both, Gina can kinda speak French, but certainly not enough that her children will be able to, and Melanie sees it as useless and frustrating, even though she can easily communicate in it.) I’m not completely sure how to feel about this.
On one hand, Canadian Culture hasn’t really existed very long, maybe a couple of hundred years, so it’s quite different from most European or Asian cultures. But on the other hand, and perhaps my main concern, is that ALL other cultures are being completely eradicated by globalization. As one “culture” is simply forced on others. One of the struggles of this trip is that everything seems to be a carbon copy of the previous and the next place. That’s the case here. Nothing makes this “French”, except maybe the nifty looking churches, but even there, that’s not so much French as old period. The Parlament buildings in Ottawa are about the same. Same neo-gothic look, Same copper roof, Same same.
This is a big world, and I’d like to think that going to Montreal can be different than going to Winnipeg. But I’m not sure that’s true, and in this case, I feel like I’m seeing it mid-change.
Today has been a really long work day. I started at 9am, and it’s 1140 here now. I have lots more to blog about, but I’m tired and frustrated, and going to bed.
Over and out.