Post Tagged with "North America"

Picture Postcards: Canadians celebrating Canada day

Thanks to Xiaozhuli for sharing this photo of Canadians celebrating Canada Day in Ottowa.

Next week we have a new photo theme – graffiti and street art. If you have a photo to share please add it to our photo group on Flickr. We’ll post our favourites here on Picture Postcards.

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Bicycle culture (and subculture) in the USA

Abroad, a lot of people conceptualize America as a “car-culture”. And they are, in large part, correct. It’s estimated that as many as 1 of every 6 jobs in the US is either directly or indirectly related to the auto industry. America’s rise to global economic stardom can be tied to the auto industry as well, along with the fossil fuel, agricultural, and arms industries. It’s hard to say for certain which came first, Americans’ propensity towards ultra-individualism, or the car, but they definitely are a marriage made in heaven.

Something that doesn’t get a lot of press internationally is the growing number of people in the USA who don’t own cars at all. Especially in larger cities, where public transportation is available, the combination of higher gas prices, parking fees, maintenance fees, inevitable parking tickets, road rage, and environmental impact are making it more and more attractive to explore non-auto options for transportation. As of 2009 35 million people in the USA took public transportation of some kind every weekday, not including people who walk or bicycle. Bicycle commuters in the USA are becoming a larger and larger demographic. In fact, in Portland Oregon, over 5% of commuter trips are taken on a bicycle. In the city of Chicago, where I reside, the number is much lower (1.15%) but that’s a 129% increase between 2000 and 2009, and all indications are that the number keeps going up.

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Canada’s Cultural Mosaic

Canada is, without a doubt, a country of immigrants. The first groups of people, in the 1800’s, were citizens of France and England hoping to create a better life in the New World. Not much has changed, other than now we have citizens who originated from all over Europe, Asia, the Americas, Australia, and Africa. They, though, did not just originate there; they brought a piece of their home to their new country.

Immigrants moving to Canada often keep their religion- attending neighbourhood churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples. When religious customs may interfere with typical Canadian rules or traditions, we vote for religious freedoms.

Canada is officially a bilingual country. English and French are both taught in school and on most signs and on all of our packaging. But, the language diversity does not stop there. One can go to any park on a sunny day, or ride a bus, or walk through a crowded food court and hear families speaking multiple languages. My favourite was listening to two teenage girls switch back and forth between English and their first language- sometimes mid-sentence, sometimes just for a word. Or listening to the radio in the North- where I might hear three different aboriginal languages mixed in with the word “Whitehorse”. I always expect to hear different languages, and I never assume my English will be perfectly understood.

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A blog for new immigrants to the USA

The blog America for beginners aims to ‘bring American culture closer to new immigrants’. It’s written by Anna Kudryashova, a Russian in Boston who is also a linguist specialising in cultural diversity. And although it’s a new blog, there’s already a fair bit to read here.

Maybe because of her background in cultural studies, Anna tends to approach the cultural differences she finds in the USA in an analytical way, and as you might expect there is a focus on comparison with Russian culture. But I found it interesting reading despite not being Russian.

Holding doors for felllow commuters is such a nice habit!

These ‘difference of the week’ sketches are a fun way of showing cultural differences.

Read more:
More blogs from the USA on Blogs of the World
Dance and cultural identity in Lower Silesia, Poland
Test your cultural expertise with our weekly quiz

Canadian Pride One Year Later: The Olympic Anniversary

Back in the day of school, the teachers would ask us, “What makes Canada, Canada?  What is the Canadian identity?” As teenagers we would stutter, look around and each other, and tentatively suggest “uhmm.. Hockey?”. It always seemed that we were stuck somewhere between being the offspring of Britain and France and the annoyed cousin of the United States. We had our British Queen, the French second language and endless access to the joys of Hollywood; but what were WE exactly?  Looking back after years of travel, studying, and Canadian literature, I now know we have a huge amount of culture. It took the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 to actually show off our pride in it though.

The Olympic Cauldron

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Red peppers and feta cheese

Do you think today’s food of the world post reflects Canada’s multiculturalism? Thanks to Xiaozhuli for the photo, which she says was taken on a Saturday morning at Toronto’s busy St Lawrence Market.

Every week we feature food photos from PocketCultures readers around the world. To submit yours go to our Food of the World Flickr page and add your photos to the group.

Read more:
Maple toffee, a Canadian winter tradition
Chicago’s street food has origins in many different countries
Penang’s cultural melting pot