Too much emphasis on Native culture and not enough on British culture

[duener]

An English friend of mine, moved from the UK to Vancouver and he started referring to it as Canada-shire.

If you've only spent a short time in Britain you would notice the superficial differences, driving on the left (Vancouver changed in 1922), kebabs rather than kebobs, older buildings, CCTV everywhere, fresh sandwiches, produce wrapped in plastic, etc.

It was living in Britain for a while that made me really understand the root of culture in Canada/Vancouver a lot better. Of course there's the obvious stuff: government, laws, language, education system, flags, name places, engineering practices, technology, media, etc.

But below the surface, when you think about it, there's stuff like: the weird attitude towards liquor (Vancouver on Saturday night is much more similar to Bristol than Barcelona), urban planning (notice things like the ALR and the power the government in Canada are way more similar to the UK than the USA), the politeness (saying "sorry" all the time), political stability, multi-culturalism.

Look around the world and the most multi-racial, stable, economically advanced cities are former British colonies: NYC, Toronto, Sydney, etc.

The problem with Vancouver celebrating its Britishness, is that a good chunk of the world could do the same. The only unique element is the aboriginal stuff. Out of curiosity, how many people here actually have aboriginal art in their house? I bet not many. Also how many non-chinese people here know more chinese words than "gung hay fat choi"? It's kind of amazing that giving such a large asian population there isn't more of an influence (I guess the food is the big one).

Interestingly, in the UK, only the Scots and Welsh act nationalistic, wave flags and sing songs. The English bear the burden of having conquered them and much of the world. I think it's the same problem in BC.