June Chua | Writer, Producer & Host | Webarticles | Waste Not Want Not: Canada's trash dilemma

by June Chua, Aug. 9, 2004

I have lived in central Canada (the East to you westerners) for more than a decade and yet there's a little part of me that still wears a pink cowboy hat – the one my mother bought me when we first arrived in Calgary in 1977. We were new immigrants from Malaysia, still experiencing the wonders of assimilating into a new culture.

My mother made us go to every Stampede parade. So, between the ages of seven and 13, I got up at 6 a.m. every second Friday in July and dutifully yippeed until noon. Mom would always take us to the Silver Dragon in Chinatown for dim sum afterwards.

I am a Closet Calgarian, always will be. And my hackles rise when people who don't know any better start in on where I used to live. Just the other day, as I was waiting for the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 to start, two women behind me started babbling about their friend who was living in Calgary. It went something like this:

"She's having a hard time on the dating circuit. Guys there are a little backward."

"No kidding! I mean they're all cowboys, aren't they?"

"Yeah, she says it's like they want you back in the kitchen."

"I'm not surprised. They still have that barbaric Stampede, don't they?"

It took all my energy to stay rooted and focused on the screen as they proceeded to rip my hometown to shreds. When the movie finished, I turned around to get a good look: two rail-thin, latte-drinking women in their early 40s. Looked like they had never left the confines of downtown Toronto. What a shame.

It's not the first time I've encountered this kind of ignorance. When I arrived at Carleton University in Ottawa to study journalism, some of my classmates wondered if I was there because there were no universities in Alberta. I am not making this up! Others found it curious that my parents would choose such a province to live in. They never spelled it out but it was always, "Oh, you're from Alberta? Really? I thought only cowboys lived there." Then the ha-ha.

I would always joke with them, explaining that the cattle ranch I lived on was far from civilization and that I wanted to see what the "East" was like. I was too polite to say what I really wanted to: "There are people like me living there because we like it. It has beautiful blue skies and friendly people." By the way, if there is one thing "western" about me, it's that I know how to ride a horse.

This kind of narrow-mindedness is not limited to 19-year-olds. A couple of years ago, while I was waiting in the food line at a wedding, the person ahead of me proceeded to tell a foreign guest about the backward ways of Alberta. This particular man, an Ontario-born and bred journalist, had never lived there and yet recounted tales of Alberta's Stone-Age society – stories he'd gleaned from a colleague.

It's hard to battle prejudices, especially when the only people from Alberta Canadians get to see are the likes of Ralph Klein, members of the Alliance party and someone in a cowboy hat getting interviewed for whatever TV program is on.

Let me tell you about the Alberta I know. I grew up with friends of all backgrounds. When you walk on the streets people look at you in the eye and sometimes say "Hi" with no ulterior motive except to greet you, and the Chinese food is so authentic, Vancouverites have been known to express shock.

The Stampede is fun – we'd dress up in our western gear and hats, eat those little doughnuts, play some games and go on rides. In the evening, we'd watch the chuckwagon races and bullriders and make fake bets on who would win.

The highlight would always be the evening show with dancers and singers in glittering outfits, and sometimes the Calgary Aquabelles (the synchronized swimming team) would perform in a makeshift pool on the stage. All topped off by fireworks and the singing of the anthem. What's so backwards or nasty about that?

There is a sense in this country that all the right-wing, xenophobic, Bible-thumpers come from Alberta. OK, Alberta has its share but no more than any other part of the country. For those of you who fear the far-right policies of the new Conservative party, let me remind you that Stephen Harper was born in Toronto and that Randy "I'll use the notwithstanding clause" White is from B.C.

But, this is not a Tory-bashing exercise. It's about a tired Calgarian imploring her fellow citizens to get their heads out of their provincial tunnels. It's your right to believe what you want about a place but until you've lived your life there, you have no right assuming that you know all about it.

I don't know where my little pink cowboy hat is; I think my mother gave it away. I'd like to believe it's still there, sitting on my head. You just can't see it.

LETTERS:

I enjoyed Ms. Chua's article, and I can also relate to her feelings of a downtrodden "redneck", and I was born, raised and live in Southwestern Ontario, just a short three hour drive from Toronto. My hometown is a small rural place of 4,600 people where everybody says "Hi" and the smells of that "fresh country air" waft throughout the town on a regular basis.

The prejudice that rules across Canada can even be brought to a lower common denominator of rural versus urban. But I'd like to think that even though I've been labelled as a "hick" that I'm a much more rounded person having experienced such "salt of the earth" occupations as farming and fishing, especially when they meet bleeding edge technology.

City folk will tell you they get their food from the grocery store; rural folk get their food from the gardens and fields that the farmers tend to faithfully and with reverence, usually from their neighbour they know by name.

I'll take rural, down home, small town Canada over metropolitan, fast-paced, built up areas any day. Any place from the fishing villages on both coasts and on the Great Lakes to the rural farming towns and villages that number in the thousands across the country is fine for me.

I'm a redneck, and proud to tell you about it!!

Len Wiltenburg | Blenheim, Ontario

June Chua's article "Call me a redneck" was very amusing; I too have experienced some of what she experienced as an Albertan both in Central Canada, and on the West Coast. Ms. Chua writes of what she knows, which is wonderful.

The most amusing part to my mind is that June's Alberta equals Calgary. Blame it on old provincial rivalries. Having grown up in Edmonton, and living there again now, it's painfully obvious that to many Canadians - even Calgarians - Alberta ends at the northern edge of Calgary.

Some of this comes from when Air Canada decided to transfer much of their air service to Calgary, some of it derives from the number of Canadians from other places coming to Calgary to plug into the financial and business scene, and don't really know anywhere else in Alberta.

Perhaps for some people there's simply no reason to drive north out of Calgary, just as there's no reason for those Torontonian ladies June speaks of to leave downtown Toronto.

But I know one thing: Life is richer when you do go outside your borders.

Thanks for the great article.

Brian Newton | Edmonton

I very much appreciated June Chua's column entitled "Call me a redneck."

I was born and raised in Edmonton, and I am still happy to say it is my home. I did have occasion to live in Ottawa in the summer of 1994. I was quite shocked when one of my co-workers said she liked Albertans because we hate French people! She seemed oddly disappointed when I told her that we have a number of French-speaking towns in Alberta and a thriving francophone community in the middle of Edmonton.

Another colleague just felt there wasn't any culture in Alberta; it was all in Ottawa and Montreal. I started to point out the (thriving!) symphonies and museums and galleries in Alberta, but the look on her face told me I was wasting my time.

My pet peeve as a Canadian living on the Prairies is that when collections from the "real" cultural institutions in Ottawa go on tour, they always go to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Hello! I would like to see the Group of Seven's work, too!

Thank you,

Tracy Stewart | Edmonton

I enjoyed reading June Chua's recent Viewpoint column, "Call me a redneck". As someone who is coming up on his fifth year since relocating to Calgary, I can relate to much of what she said.

I have lived in every province from Ontario west, so I know that the prejudice she talks about exists - but it exists in all provinces, it's not just found in how Torontonians view Calgarians. There's an attitude between the different provinces like that found amongst the kids on an elementary school playground. Kids pick on kids who in turn pick on kids. The jocks pick on the kids in the chess club. But chances are there are a couple of them who are in band together.

My experience has been like this: Albertans make fun of Saskatchewan as a province of farmers -- despite the fact that many Albertans (like me) are originally from that province. Saskatchewanians mock "Alberta drivers" (those who think the speed limit is 110km/h everywhere). Manitobans call Saskatchewan "The Gap" (the gap between Manitoba and Alberta). Prairie people tease their tree hugging/pot smoking cousins in B.C. Ontarians look at the Prairie provinces using many of the terms Ms. Chua used, and westerners look at Ontario as a bit arrogant and out of touch with the West.

Now, here's my disclaimer: those are just my experiences. It's not true everywhere, of everyone.

Ms. Chua says it well: "It's your right to believe what you want about a place but until you've lived your life there, you have no right assuming that you know all about it." These are valid points. I'm lucky to have lived where I have, as hard as it has been at times to pull up roots. I've learned something from each place, and each perspective. But I don't assume that I know everything about those places. I'm still learning about Cowtown, here.

I do have to say that the nicest thing about travelling between provinces, from one side of the playground to another, is that those prejudices are often quickly forgotten with the first smile and greeting of "How's it going?"

Sincerely,

James

Right on! I too am a transplanted Calgarian now living in Ontario. Your feelings are all true, your impressions accurate. Calgary is a great city with great people. Best yet, they can poke fun at themselves for the Stampede and "redneck" attitudes!

Bob Cook | Iroquois Falls, Ontario

Dear June,

Your column reminds me of my parents' big trip on the year of my father's retirement: they wanted to see all the provincial capitals. And my mother said that the best clam chowder she was able to eat during the trip was not, as she had expected, in the Atlantic provinces, but in Calgary!

I drove from Ottawa to Calgary and back for my holidays last summer, and you are quite right: Calgary is a very nice and pleasant city.

On a personal note, with a personal bias: I was particularly impressed by the Calgary Co-op, a remarkable example of consumers taking business into their own hands that should be better known, and followed, everywhere in Canada.

Marthe L?pine | Russell, Ontario

As my wife and I prepare to make the move to Ralph Klein's kingdom at the end of August, after spending a little over 2 years living in Regina and previously having spent the vast majority of our lives in southern Ontario, it was with great glee that I read June Chua's superbly written Viewpoint on the importance of her Prairie roots.

As someone who has recently held the very stereotypical views about our Western neighbours that Chua overheard in the theatre, I can report with confidence that a very cosmopolitan perspective (read progressive) still ripples through Calgary. In fact, the owner of the very old house in Elbow Park we are renting from assured me of this fact when telling me about a poetry reading that was being held that evening and that a close personal friend of hers is one of Alberta's more well known "lefty" journalists. Then there are the anti-war lectures that you can hear on the University of Calgary's campus radio station CJSW, never mind the offbeat fare heard province-wide out of Edmonton's CKUA.

After 2 years living in what is not so affectionately referred to as "The Gap" between Manitoba and Alberta, arriving in Calgary was like coming back to civilization and a welcome change after more than a decade trying to survive in the smog-smothered rat race of Toronto. Calgary might have its share of traffic, but 30 minutes from one end of town to the other is a lot better than spending that time trying to get from Queen and Bathurst to the Gardiner Expressway on any given weekday afternoon.

Oh, did I mention Calgary also has lots of places to get lattes too? Then there are those lovely mountains - a nice place to escape during stampede, though I must admit acquiring a strange taste for the sport of bull riding. Must be my Spanish genes taking over.

Phil

Dear June,

I enjoyed your article about people slagging your hometown.

As someone born and raised in Toronto, I can more than relate to people who have never even been to a place but criticize it incessantly. No place in Canada gets more of this than my hometown, and believe me the stereotypes abound.

Funny, you mentioned Toronto in your column, only to slap on a latte-drinking yuppie stereotype. I'm a Torontonian, and I'm friendly, easygoing, helpful, outdoorsy and a world traveller working on my fourth language. Hope that's not too urbane for you. Perhaps when I'm back in town, you can treat me to a latte.

Respectfully,

Kristin Cavoukian

Thank you, June, for having the courage to express what so many of us who have called Calgary home have thought but not voiced. Calgary is a wonderful, vibrant and fresh city. I too am tired of the bad press that Calgary receives from the mouths of those who have not had a personal Calgary experience.

I now live in Edmonton but will always call Calgary home.

Go Calgary, go!

Maria