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LETTER from LONDON |
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 "Why, yes, my passport may look American, but I swear I'm Canadian! Why else would I be wearing this stupid RCMP outfit! What is this aboot anyway?" |
"I came from Tronna
aboot 20 years ago"
By MICHAEL JOHNSON
of TheColumnists.com
It has happened so frequently in the past few years that I’m starting to like it. I’m constantly being mistaken on the streets of London for a Canadian, although inside I’m as American as the next guy.
When a chatty cab driver asked me the other night what part of Canada I was from, I heard myself saying, “I come from Tronna and I’ve lived here aboot 20 years but I realise I still talk funny.” Feeling on a roll, I added, “You know, you’ve got a super town here, eh?”
The driver was charmed and went on ad nauseum about what a nice bunch of people “you Canadians” are. I gracefully accepted his compliment but stopped just short of saying “we” are better than those Americans. I was so relieved that he fell for my cover that I gave him a full 5 percent tip (Canadians are rather tight.).
Pretending to be from Canada is a good way for Americans in London to blend into the woodwork in times of tension.
As I looked into this situation I realised that Britain’s soft spot for Canada is nothing particularly new. The British have always preferred them to us. The Queen and the Commonwealth create some kind of family bond that Americans never will understand. It probably has something to do with history.
Among the British people, it’s clearly a meaningful relationship, and a much closer one than the fictitious London-Washington corridor we hear so much about.
The just-released movie “Sylvia,” a biography of the late American poet Sylvia Plath, has a scene in which Sylvia expects to be rejected by her London neighbour. Sylvia is brilliantly portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow.
“You must think I’m a stupid American bitch,” says Sylvia.
The neighbour is taken aback and replies: “Not at all my dear. I assumed you were Canadian.”
At first I thought the Brits preferred Canadians because they don’t shout, interrupt or wave their arms about when they talk. But now I know it’s more about being harmless, unthreatening. Since 9/11, Americans have become scary. I think the British are so afraid when they meet us that they secretly hope we will turn out to be Canadians.
What great good fortune for Americans to have a cozy refuge, a neighbouring country with people like us yet different in a gray, benign, way--similar to an inoffensive cousin out on the farm. “Cletus looks about the same as the rest of the family but there’s something a little reserved about him.”
Canada is lucky, too, but in another way. It can stake out independent positions in foreign affairs that would have Americans shouting “Weasel!” if it were France talking. But when Foreign Minister Bill Graham comes to Washington and says, “We’re not aboot to invade Iraq with you,” no one seems to care.
At a joint press conference with the Minister in September, Colin Powell used his familiar diplomatic language to conceal what had been a bitter split: “There was clearly a disappointment earlier in the year with respect to positions that were taken on Iraq…. I believe we worked ourselves and our two countries through this difficult period.”
(I thought that was worth repeating because very few people outside of Canada will have been aware that it happened or that Powell said something about it.)
Canada has been so good to me that I’m going all the way, like a bird that adopts protective colouring in a hostile environment. I wear slip-on rubber-soled sensible shoes and a plaid shirt, and I have a maple leaf dangling from my briefcase. I even spell neighbour with a “u.”
Not one British person has taken me to task lately for invading Iraq or shooting lawyers on the street or electrocuting Texas felons or causing world-wide obesity or not knowing which way is up.
It’s not that I’m afraid to tackle the pros and cons of the Iraq occupation or the other sources of unease about America. I have a ready-made answer: Yes, America seems to have more big faults than other countries but only because there are 292 million of us, and most of us have guns, some of them quite big. Ergo, we produce more horrors than little countries like France and the United Kingdom.
This is not the answer most people want to hear, however. Like the cab driver, they prefer to chat with someone totally uninvolved.
So if the cabbie liked
me so much, why did he throw my tip at me as I walked away from
his stupid old 1950s taxi? I don’t know but I wasn’t
aboot to let it lie there in the street--15p is 15p.
©2003 by Michael Johnson. The illustration is from IMSI's
Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael,
CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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