Weekend

I went to the Algonquin park this weekend. It is a really large park and I realized that the US has a lot more protected areas than Canada. We only protect like 7% of the country compared to like 25% in the US. Canada is such a bitch sometimes. This park was awesome though with lots of trees, rocks and lakes. True Canadian wildlife at its best. I even saw two moose. I went there with the Chinese student association of the University of Toronto. It was a bit odd because I was the only non-Chinese in the group of like 160 people. It is a bit odd how cut off from Canadian reality a lot of these students are. At the same time they are not quite your typical Chinese in the way that they are living in Canada. I think it was my first time really getting out of the city since I came back to Canada a month ago. The outdoors in this country is really similar everywhere you go and a lot of it reminded me of my youth. at the same time it is odd to rediscover your country with a group of foreigners. I think they have a different view of things. It is mostly focused on taking a lot of pictures. But that might have something to do with the nature of the trip. One day, a bus over a hundred people, 20 minute break everywhere we go, shoot a picture, go go go.

I had a good moment of epiphany sitting next to a lake with hundred of Chinese kids taking picture of each other. It was getting cold outside, this being October and all. I was looking at the sun and realized that it was cold because we are a tiny rock in the universe, and if the sun doesn't heat us enough we get cold. I felt small and I think that is good for me. It puts things in perspective. I am worthless, work hard, be strong, enjoy what you have. Is this a Chinese view of the world? Probably not.

Today I had a strange encounter on my way to school. I cut off a pedestrian on my bike by cutting a red light. I didn't think too much about it. Then this car drives next to me and he's like "hey why don't you respect the law, you almost hit that pedestrian" and I was like " no man, I just cut him off". Then he was like "bullshit!" and he drove off. I kind of respect that guy, and I guess he was right. I kept on biking and I was thinking about these cool answers I could have given him like "why are you driving your SUV? Cuse you are selfish and so am I, start biking and I'll respect the law" or "because I have a strange sense of entitlement about not being from Toronto. By burning the reds I am establishing my identity as an outsider". Anyway, I guess I will be more careful from now on. People in Toronto really respect the rules. As they say in China 入乡随俗 (enter the village, follow the rules) when in Rome do as the Romans do. Toronto is no Rome though... 
 

Biking

I was biking today and I saw the most intense thing. This guy passed me going crack cocaine fast. Crack cocaine fast is a demonic dangerous speed as opposed to just normal bike messenger or racer fast, the crack cocaine fast biker will tend to have a bad bike and horrible biking technique, his speed also seems to be unsustainable over a long period of time. So this guy passes me by and after like 5 seconds he slipped on the tramway rail and fell right on his side. His head sort of hit this car that was parked next to us. I immediately stopped to ask if everything was alright. He got up really fast and looking at me was like "Yeah, that was really intense. WOOH! That's a lot of adrenaline! YEAH!". He then jumped right back on to his bike and started going super fast again. I think after a while he realized he was hurt because I saw him get off his bike. Maybe he just arrived where he was going. It was really intense.

For a while Toronto was making me feel inadequate. I think it had to do with Rob Ford. He is this mayoral candidate that is leading the electoral race. I saw a video of him online where he was saying that bikes shouldn't be on the roads because roads are built to accommodate trucks, buses and cars. I was pretty insulted and I was seeing him everywhere. I thought that Toronto drivers were really rude to bikes and hated bikers because they wanted to vote for him. I think now I am feeling a bit better about it. I am getting used to the traffic here and I seem to get in a bit less trouble with the cars. I still jaybike a bit to much though. Them Torontonians don't even walk on the red, noneless bike.

I have been interacting with the city on my bike. Slowly discovering. It is nice and my superior speed and versatility make me feel superior to cars and pedestrians. I hope I won't have to walk this winter.

This Week's music

This week I am into the Polaris prize nominees, but only 3 of them really:

Last week's music

Last week I resumed my love affair with Youtube which had been put on hold due to China blocking the dam site. I got into old school hip hop mixed with new school beats from the Ninja tunes label. This was a good Youtube playlist:

Toronto is ROC

I've only lived in the Rest of Canada for 3 months in my life. I don't really consider New Brunswick to be Rest of Canada because I lived in a francophone community which was just not very Anglo Saxon in its outlook. My three months in the ROC were spent hitchhiking across Canada, living in lower East side Vancouver and working on a flower farm in the Yukon; not exactly the typical ROC experience I would say. Toronto is ROC, it is the center of the ROC experience and I would say it is pleasant enough. I would say that it is a good place because the WASP element is mixed in with the entire planet. So when I was walking in downtown Toronto and saw the bagpipe wearing skirt sporting Scotish guy, my attention was immediately diverted to the reggae Jamaican guy with dreads riding his bike and screaming sme non-sense "Babylon" or something. That is good. Toronto takes the British politeness, love of order, Victorian era prudishness, and Protestant work ethics, and uses it to build this multicultural hodgepodge of everything that is very interesting if you enjoy people and culture.

Now the critical theory, French nationalist in me screams " but it is all overpowered by Anglo culture and moors"! But I am left wondering. What is quite amazing in this city is how everyone seems to live together quite fine. I have only been here for a while, like a week really, but I think I get the point that nobody is going to look at you funny if you wear a turban and a dress, man kiss a man, or scream at people down the road in Chinese. Everything goes in a great mix of indifference and economic logic that is very refreshing when coming back from China. Even the whities are joining in and they have a bunch of urban tribes that can be visited as I travel across the city; from urban hip, to suburb clics and  banker money people. The WASPs gain from all this great food, cultural excitement and (I am sure) a self glorified sense of satisfaction at having arrived there first and therefore having in large part built the basis for this great experiment.

Obviously this is all fodder for the separatist because French in this metropolis becomes just another minority group. Well I say "to hell with that" because a federation should be able to house many different political and cultural systems under a state and Canada has obviously been pretty good at that. So for today and until I get pissed off, I lay glory upon you Toronto.   

Toroto Night

I met up with my friend Jon. He is a fluffy intellectual. Fluffy because of the curly afro he sports on his head. Intellectual because he is like woody Allen, but less funny, he is still pretty funny though.

We were at a bar and I commented on a man's beard, he had just bummed a smoke. He was a Geopolitics PhD at York. He seemed to be really into religion and academic theory. Critical theory more precisely. He lives in the ivory tower. We then proceeded to get drunk. After a while we left for another bar. The guy told me repeatedly I was a Marxist.Jon left, he was probably bored out of his mind that me and this guy had just been taking academics for the past 4 hours. Me and the beard try to get into another bar. I somehow got refused at the bar. I might have been a bit confrontational. I think maybe I refused to show my ID or at least made sarcastic remarks to the bouncer, its ironic because I had just befriended another bouncer at the other bar. This upset the bearded academic, "Can you get in the system? Can you?" he yelled at me. It was a bit odd and we parted. I got his phone number and promises we would play badminton. I am sceptic as to whether the number is real or not, don't really feel like trying it right now.

My head hurts. Maybe I will read Das Kapital today.

Leaving Shanghai

I am leaving Shanghai in a few days. Tomorrow actually, to go to Zhengzhou in Hebei province (I think) and then the third of September to  go to Toronto. I have been reflecting on my experience here for the past few months, working at the Expo for the Canada Pavilion. I guess what really stands out is the people I have been working with who are quite amazing. People are such a mixed bag, a fusion of everything we have been through in our life, and to work with such an interesting group in such a tight knit situation for the past few months has been amazing. I have had a pretty amazing life I think, It has been my luck in life (or blessing if you believe in those things). So it is amazing to find people who have had and continue to lead so interesting lives, people who think in a similar way, have the same ideas, and were willing to share them with me.

It was also an experience to see around 1-2 million people in such a short amount of time. They estimate that around 70 million people will be coming to Expo over six months. According to my rough estimate that is around 1/20th of China's population, twice that of Canada. It is all walks of life, all places, all ideas and the such, a great mixed bag. To have such a contact with a population in a country such as China is amazing. Especially in a time when China is becoming the richest most powerful place on earth. How do Chinese people think of the world in a time like this? Mostly they are pretty ignorant about the outside world, most people are still too poor to care, and those who do seem to have a  nationalistic fervour about them that is scary at times. Yet people with less stress, more education (money), and by extension more power in society seem to be quite friendly and open, which is a positive sign. I guess all we can do is wait and see, but as people turned out to come and see the world, they seemed to be envious of Canada and our way of life, which fits in with our own prejudices, but anyway.

On towards the rest of my life, but not without a bit of nostalgia.