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When I was younger, this city wasn't very multicultural. Walk down any street, and you'd probably be hard-pressed to find somebody who was not of caucasian descent. It's interesting to see how things have changed in recently years.
Just as I was leaving high school, the wave of Chinese started. They were interested in our university, as I recall, and after a year or two, it was hard to walk down a single street in the city without seeing at least one of the Chinese students.
Now I've noted that there seem to be an increasing number of Middle Eastern families in the city. Much like with the Chinese, at first it seemed there were only a few, and now they're everywhere. On the bus to work today, there were 5 girls and women wearing hijabs (or is the plural just hijab?), and one woman wearing a full burqa. A few weeks ago, in the mall, I saw no fewer than 3 burqa-clad women doing their shopping.
It's a sight I like to see, and not just because I think that hijab(s) are very pretty. Though on some level it may mean they face opposition from stupid people calling them terrorists, it gives us the chance to get to know them, their religion, and their culture, from a very intimate perspective. It took a while for Chinese culture to really be embraced here, but now there are countless Chinese stores and markets, a cultural centre, and the community college offers lessons in conversational Mandarin.
When I'm walking down the street and happen to be outnumbered by people whose skin is darker than my own (not hard to accomplish, since I'm very pale), I don't feel alienated, the way I imagine some people do. This is likely because I don't feel more nor less of a kinship with a caucasian stranger than I do with the man of African descent, the woman of Asian decent, the child of Middle Eastern descent. In being a loner by choice, I suppose I placed myself in a rather good position to be embracing of the multicultural movement. I feel the same towards anybody. I'm equally as likely to feel comfortable as I am uncomfortable, no matter what ethnicity someone hails from.
Speaking of multiculturalism, I recently saw a newscast that said the purpose of multiculturalism was to welcome new cultures to North American in order to westernize them. Somehow, I think they missed the point.
Just as I was leaving high school, the wave of Chinese started. They were interested in our university, as I recall, and after a year or two, it was hard to walk down a single street in the city without seeing at least one of the Chinese students.
Now I've noted that there seem to be an increasing number of Middle Eastern families in the city. Much like with the Chinese, at first it seemed there were only a few, and now they're everywhere. On the bus to work today, there were 5 girls and women wearing hijabs (or is the plural just hijab?), and one woman wearing a full burqa. A few weeks ago, in the mall, I saw no fewer than 3 burqa-clad women doing their shopping.
It's a sight I like to see, and not just because I think that hijab(s) are very pretty. Though on some level it may mean they face opposition from stupid people calling them terrorists, it gives us the chance to get to know them, their religion, and their culture, from a very intimate perspective. It took a while for Chinese culture to really be embraced here, but now there are countless Chinese stores and markets, a cultural centre, and the community college offers lessons in conversational Mandarin.
When I'm walking down the street and happen to be outnumbered by people whose skin is darker than my own (not hard to accomplish, since I'm very pale), I don't feel alienated, the way I imagine some people do. This is likely because I don't feel more nor less of a kinship with a caucasian stranger than I do with the man of African descent, the woman of Asian decent, the child of Middle Eastern descent. In being a loner by choice, I suppose I placed myself in a rather good position to be embracing of the multicultural movement. I feel the same towards anybody. I'm equally as likely to feel comfortable as I am uncomfortable, no matter what ethnicity someone hails from.
Speaking of multiculturalism, I recently saw a newscast that said the purpose of multiculturalism was to welcome new cultures to North American in order to westernize them. Somehow, I think they missed the point.
