Tag Archives: Canadian culture

Buy a Poppy, Wear a Poppy – Remember

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wear a poppy over your heart!

You will see many people wearing a plastic Poppy (red flower) on their lapel (collar) these days (Nov 1st – 11th), in Canada, the UK and maybe some parts of the U.S.A.

November 11th is Remembrance Day (Veteran’s Day in the US) and it is time to remember the fallen soldiers who died in battle in various wars in our history.  The tradition started after the end of World War 1.

If you are not sure what wearing the poppy symbolizes, I can help.

1 – it is a symbol to remember the fallen soldiers who have fought for your/our country/freedom
2 – you wear it on your left lapel/collar, over your heart, but not on your right side
3 – it is not a symbol supporting war
4 – it is not a peace symbol
5 – it is not a fashion piece (although some people wear beautiful hand-made knitted ones!)
6 – money raised goes to help veterans (returned soldiers) live a little more comfortably
7 – You do not have to be born in Canada, UK or USA to wear one.  You can wear one to honour your own country’s losses in previous war.  It is about remembering fallen soldiers.
8 – It is a personal decision, but not a political or religious one.

For me, I wear a poppy every year, without fail.  My grandfather, Harold Phillips, fought in WW II, and survived.  His brother was not so lucky.  I wear a poppy to honour them and their comrades.  For me it’s close to my history and heart.  More information can be found here on the Poppy and the history:

https://www.legion.ca/remembrance/the-poppy

A famous poem taught in school even today was written by a Canadian Medic in WWI named John McCrae.  The poem is about poppies growing in Flanders Fields.  It is called ‘In Flanders Fields’.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

Happy Halloween!

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Halloween Jack-O-Lantern

Halloween is almost upon us!

I would like to take this opportunity to remind all the ESL readers of this blog that even though we focus on speaking English better the blogs’ focus is also on learning and understanding culture.  Why?  Because as I have said many times as an ESL teacher, business English trainer and Communication Coach – English language cannot be used solely as a tool of grammar and spelling.  To truly ‘speak English better’ you must understand the history and culture of English-speaking lands, especially if you are living in one now, permanently or temporarily.

I love Halloween.  As kids we got to make our own costumes (with the help of Mom and Dad of course) and go out ‘trick or treating’ to get a bag full of candy!  What more could a North American kid want?  (All that sugar is soooo bad for you though….but we didn’t care!)

Now as adults we might dress up in costume and go to bars or house parties to drink instead, or we might stay at home and give out candy to little trick-or-treaters who visit our homes.  It’s still fun!  And we MUST watch scary horror movies as well!

In the olden days, the costumes were ‘evil’ creatures, like devils, goblins, vampires, ghosts, and any of the other Silver Screen Matinee classic monsters.  In the olden-olden days, when Halloween was first being ‘developed’ as a practice, the idea was to dress yourself up as an evil spirit in order to fool the real evil spirits around, so that they would leave you alone.  In fact, did you know that one of the reasons why we have the custom of covering our mouths while we yawn is not just out of politeness, but to avoid ‘spirits’ entering our bodies?  Yes, we humans were very superstitious many years ago!

Anyway, if you would like to learn more about the history of Halloween, including the name, the colours, the costumes, the religious influences and the jack-O-lantern (carved pumpkin) please do a little more reading at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween or start asking folks around you about their experience with Halloween.

Enjoy this rather odd but fun celebration, and do not get sick on too much candy! (or ‘sweets’ as my British friends would say!)

Happy Halloween!!!

Canadian employers want ‘ethnic’ applicants to do more than study

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Hello Readers,

I’ve been preaching for years the value of interpersonal skills and understanding cultural expectations when immigrants and foreign workers are looking for a job in Canada.  I’ve met people who think that they will get a job solely based on their impressive education and overseas work experience, as it would be in their home country.  They looked at me strange when I helped them put a “Skills and Interests” section on their CV to highlight that they do more than just study, work and sleep.

Back in the day when I used to do career coaching for immigrants I had a 95% success rate of my clients getting a job within 3 months of working with me.  I know what the Canadian employers and HR are looking for, and it is more than hard skills.  See the related article below please
(From the Vancouver Sun):

A revealing study into how Canadian company recruiters deal with applicants with non-English names is full of surprising results. One of them, which has gone virtually unnoticed (even, apparently, by the researchers), is that employers look much more kindly on applications from people with Chinese or South Asian names — if they show they’ve taken part in extra-curricular activities.

Presumably, the data is suggesting that Canadian employers are wary of the stereotypical ethnic Chinese, East-Asian or South Asian student who tries to live up to his or her parents’ expectations by doing little else but work with tutors to try to score high marks on school exams — with no life outside academic success. Employers have traditionally seemed to fear such job applicants have little or no social/life skills. The topic cries out for further exploration.

The statistical revelation about “extra-curricular” activities is buried in an impressive 50-page research report by University of Toronto researchers Philip Oreopoulos and Diane Dechief. It’s titled “Why do some employers prefer to interview Matthew but not Samir?” I wrote a column last week about this inventive research project, funded by Metropolis B.C. The study is based on the researchers sending out thousands of virtually identical resumes to Canadian employers, changing only the names of the applicants from English-sounding to foreign-sounding.
The reference I saw in the report to the crucial issue of extra-curricular activities was one throw-away sentence on page 45.

That’s where the authors wrote that they found company recruiters were more inclined to call back “ethnically-named applicants” if they had added extracurricular activities to their resume. “This occurs only for those with Canadian education and experience.”

I’m wondering why the University of Toronto scholars didn’t follow up this important piece of data. Maybe they will in the future. To their credit, the researchers did add a lengthy exploration of what Canadian employers seem to expect, or fear, regarding various applicants and their English- or French-language proficiency.

(http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/10/24/canadian-employers-want-ethnic-applicants-to-have-done-more-than-study/?utm_source=Exacttarget&utm_medium=Communications&utm_term=HRDaily&utm_content=Email&utm_campaign=hrdaily102511 )

Body Language: What The Leaders Are Really Saying

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This is a brief article and some audio from an interview I recently did with Katie at NewsTalk 1010 in Toronto, regarding the body language and public speaking skill of Dalton McGuinty, Tim Hudak and Andrea Horwath. Enjoy the debate tonight!
Click on either of the links below:

http://www.newstalk1010.com/News/localnews/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10293325 

Jack Layton – A Confident Communicator Gone Too Soon

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jack-layton1
As we all know by now in Canada and many parts of the world, our fearless leader of the Opposition, Jack Layton, has succumbed to a second battle with cancer. He was only 61.

Jack was a great communicator because he was able to handle himself in difficult discussions (as the 2011 Leadership Debate certainly highlighted) as well as add a soft touch, a human connection to those he spoke with. He could connect with anyone and make them feel important whether it was face-to-face, over the phone or through email. Those close to him commented often on this ability to shift from professional lecturer/debater to small-town folksy chit-chatter. As a matter of fun-fact, before the 2011 election he was voted the guy Canadians would most want to have a beer with, compared to the other 3 federal leaders he was running against, in an online survey. More noteworthy was his ability to be memorable to those he met, for example the security guards at the Ottawa parliament buildings. That was a key concept of effective communication that Jack understood and employed – the ability to be remembered. That is one of the ingredients to having what people call ‘charm’ and ‘charisma’.

Good bye Jack.  You will be missed.

For more information, please visit his page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Layton

Demographics of Toronto (Wikipedia)

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This is some interesting info on the demographics of Toronto.  Not sure if it’s been updated since 2006, but nevertheless – interesting.

The demographics of Toronto make Toronto one of the most multicultural cities in the world. Data released by Statistics Canada as part of the 2006 census indicates that Toronto is more ethnically diverse than Miami, Los Angeles, and New York City. 49.9% of Toronto’s population is foreign-born.[1]

A majority of Torontonians claim their origins from as either in whole or part from England, Scotland and Ireland.

There is a significant population of Afghans, Arabs, Barbadians, Bengalis, Chinese, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Filipinos, French, Germans, Greeks, Grenadians, Guyanese, Hungarians, Indians, Iranians, Italians, Jamaicans, Jews, Koreans, Mexicans, Pakistanis, Poles, Portuguese, Romanians, Russians, Salvadorans, Somalis, Sri Lankans, Tamils, Tibetans, Trinidadians, Ukrainians, Vietnamese, and Vincentians throughout the city.

Neighbourhoods such as Chinatown, Corso Italia, Little India, Greektown, Koreatown, Little Jamaica, Little Portugal and Roncesvalles are examples of these large ethno-cultural populations.[2].

Christianity is the largest faith group in Toronto’s census metropolitan area, with Roman Catholics comprising 33.4% of the population. The Anglican Church and United Church of Canada account for 6.9% each. Other religious groups include Islam (5.5%), Hinduism (4.1%), Judaism (3.5%), Buddhism (2.1%), and Sikhism (1.9%). 16.6% of the population claim they have no religious affiliation.[3]
 
While English is the predominant language spoken by Torontonians, Statistics Canada reports that other language groups are significant, including Chinese, Portuguese, Tamil, Arabic, Persian, Pashto, Urdu, Spanish, Punjabi, Somali, and Italian. Canada’s other official language, French, is spoken by 1.4% of the population.

For more info please see the original Wikipedia listing here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto

 

Immigrants’ health declines the longer in Canada, especially Chinese: study

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TORONTO – The longer immigrants reside in Canada, the greater their risk of developing cardiovascular disease — and that effect is most pronounced among people of Chinese origin, a study suggests.

Doctors have long known that the longer people stay after immigrating to western countries like Canada, the less healthy they become, said principal investigator Maria Chiu, a doctoral fellow at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

“What we did not know was whether the degree to which this change happened was different for ethnic groups that lived in Canada.”

Using population and health data, Chiu and her co-authors looked at the prevalence of risk factors for heart disease and stroke among immigrants who had lived in Ontario for 15 years or longer, compared to those who had resided in the province for less than 15 years.

They found that longer-term residents exhibited increased risk factors for cardiovascular disease — among them Type 2 diabetes, obesity, smoking and high blood pressure — compared with more recent ethnically matched immigrants.

“And it didn’t matter whether you were white, Chinese, South Asian or black, this trend was seen across all the major ethnic groups living in Canada,” Chiu said Monday. “We also noticed that the degree to which cardiovascular health declined was different across different ethnic groups.”

Canadians of Chinese descent showed the worst decline in heart health over time, she said, followed by whites, blacks and South Asians.

To continue reading this Yahoo! article, please follow this link:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/immigrants-health-declines-longer-canada-especially-chinese-study-041346342.html

What’s a Canuck and What’s a Bruin?

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Hi folks.

This blog post is a little late – I should have written it a while ago, but I was busy watching the Stanley Cup playoffs.  Yes I’m referring to our love of hockey, and right now in the NHL there are only 2 teams left – one Canadian and one American.

So if you are currently living or working in one of these countries, or are watching the playoffs because you enjoy hockey, you may be wondering about the strange names of the teams.  We have the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins.  But what do those names mean?

Well first off – the word Canuck is an old word, and is slang.  The exact origins are not clear, but most of the research I’ve done leads me to believe it was first used to refer to early French-Canadians.  However these days Canuck refers to any and all Canadians.

Is it bad, like “Yankee”?

No – 99% of the time we do not take offense to being called a Canuck.  It is a soft term, and not only do we have a very good hockey team named the Canucks, but in our early history we had a character, almost like a super hero, named “Johnny Canuck” who would fight off the invaders of Canada and the Nazis during WW11 in comic books.  As a matter of fact, the current Vancouver Canucks goalie, crowd-favourite Roberto Luongo, has a picture of Johnny Canuck on his goalie mask!  I guess it’s for good luck – we’ll see soon if it works!

What does Bruin mean?  A simple answer is it refers to a bear.  It comes from Reynard’s fables.  How it got to Boston, I’m not sure, but anyway it is a bear.  And right now Boston is playing like bears!

Right now the series is tied 3-3, and the teams are travelling back to Vancouver for the final game 7 on Wednesday to see who will win the Stanley Cup for 2011.  I of course am rooting for (cheering for) Vancouver.  “Go Canucks Go!”

PS – if you are interested in hockey, you can find hockey vocabulary on this blog by searching it.  The more words and phrases you know, the more you will enjoy the game.