Canada Is A Tofu Restaurant
And I think Tofu is gross. We didn't used to be. But the only palatable tofu has flavour added to it.
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Canada has always been a country struggling to define itself. For decades, we’ve prided ourselves on being not American, on our politeness, multiculturalism, and peacekeeping efforts. However, things become murky beyond the stereotypes when we dig deeper into what it means to be Canadian. We lack a clear, cohesive national identity. Everyone here is a hyphenated Canadian:
Italian-Canadian, Chinese-Canadian, Indigenous-Canadian, etc.
I’ve occasionally referred to myself as Irish-Canadian. My family arrived in 1904. I’ve been to Ireland once, and my experience included being poisoned with world-class laxatives by an Irish cousin.
I’m as Irish as Irish Charms, and they are just sugar bombs that play on Irish cliches.
Rarely do you hear someone just call themselves Canadian, as if that alone isn’t enough. It begs the question: what, if anything, ties us all together?
We seem to deny unified cultural norms and the idea that all cultural norms are equal.