Resisting the pull of cynicism since 1969.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

A "silly immigrant" moment

When I first moved to Canada in the late '90s, there was a lot I knew about this country, having lived quite close to the border for most of my life, but there was even more I didn't know. To sort of poke fun at myself and my steep learning curve, I used to write down little anecdotes about crazy or amusing consequences of my ignorance of everything from car block heaters to postal outlets to Gravol. I called these the "silly immigrant" stories. If I were still keeping track of those now, I'd add this one to the list:

At the end of the Trudeau miniseries (which I'm embarrassed to say I didn't get around to watching until this week) there's a scene that takes place at a dinner at the Governor General's residence. I found the scene quite confusing--for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why the Governor General would be having a dinner without being present herself. I mean, she clearly wasn't there. Everyone around the table was a man, after all.

By the time I finally thought through what my assumptions were and consciously realized how faulty they were, the scene was over, and I had to rewind and watch it again.

It's always the little things, you know?

1 comment:

buckets said...

Wow. That's interesting. It sure shows how much things have changed.