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I have lived in Canada for five years or so now and it looks like I’ll probably live here for the rest of my life. In my experience, Canadians aren’t bad people, they aren’t the most interesting people either, but I can live with that.
Living in a town in the interior of British Columbia, racism hasn’t really been an issue in my life. However, sometimes the ever placid Canadians let their guard down.
A couple of years ago I took my car to the mechanic for some work; it was going to be a few hours so a courtesy car took me home until the work was done. The lad who drove me was in his twenties and we passed the time with small talk. He asked me how long I’d been living in town and I answered him, and then returned the question. He told me that his family had moved up from Vancouver a year ago and then proceeded to tell me about how the “fucking chinks” had moved into his neighbourhood and ruined his family’s life. He was so visibly angry when he said this that I was shocked into silence. Aside from his idiotic views, I was angrier at the fact that he spoke as if I would naturally be in agreement with him – which I wasn’t. However, the lad looked like a psycho and, to my shame, I didn’t say anything.
Last winter I was shoveling snow on the “sidewalk” outside my house – a very Canadian winter activity – when a lady aged about seventy happened by. We exchanged pleasantries, as people do on my street, and she noted my accent and asked where I was from. I told her, and then added that I had recently become a Canadian citizen. She responded by saying that they should be letting more people like me in (presumably meaning a white person) as the country was going to the dogs with all the Asians and Blacks being let in. Again, this was said as if it was obvious that I would agree with her, and once again I was so shocked that I said nothing. Later, when I thought about what she’d said, I was glad that I’d held my tongue; she knew where I lived and seemed so certain in her beliefs that if I’d challenged them she might well have come back and put my windows through.
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