• ⇤
• ⇽
• ≡
• ⇾
• ⇥

finding nemo

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Charlie, the Chako, and I went to see Finding Nemo with one of the Chako's friends, another Japanese girl named Kyoko. We also ate at a Chinese place on Yonge street that carries 'Calgary style' ginger beef.

While at the restaurant, it struck me as funny that here we were, these two big Canadians and two small Japanese girls. Then it dawned on me that that might not be the way it appeared to an outsider, since Charlie too has an Asian face. That started me down the path of thinking how Asian-Canadians just aren't the same. You don't get all of the language stuff, the strange obsession with gambling, etc.

Just as Canadian-Euros like myself aren't the same as the real thing, even if we have a European-born parent. Something that's been more apparent to me recently as I've been working with Ukrainians and hearing them carrying on in Russian all day and hearing their commentary on life in N. America.

I hope that Canada can become a trans-ethnic nation based on an national rather than the component ethnicities. I don't say this out of some squishy lefty sentiment. I hope it because the rest of the Americas and Australia seem heavily divided along ethnic lines, and it seems to add unecessary friction while limiting the options for integrating any improvements that the various components could bring to the whole. I doubt it, though. We seemed doomed to tribalism.