This month I went on a trip to Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia. As the name suggests, BC is much more British compared to Ontario. You can tell that from the large number of tennis courts around (in Toronto Squash is more popular because it is indoors), from the light rain, or just by people’s accent. In general the landscape at BC is very green. There are many parks and gardens around. While Toronto has squirrels, I saw many rabbits in BC, and many marine birds too. One main attraction in BC is the Indian totem poles. They are nice, but there are very few poles to watch. They are not that ancient. Most of them were made in the last 100 years, and many were made by contemporary artists. Downtown Vancouver looks a bit small compared to downtown Toronto, but many people live there. Many new buildings by the ocean look exactly like the buildings by the lake in Toronto. I heard that experienced architects can look at a building and tell what software was used to design it. In this case it looks like architects downloaded the same buildings designs. In contrast, Victoria is more old-style city. It is located on the Vancouver Island, and that is why it developed lowlier than Vancouver did.
People there are a bit different. For example, In Toronto a person will never start a conversation with someone on the street unless one of them needs help. People just don’t bother other people, and are not interested in other’s worries. They have a word for others: “strangers”, which means people that looks normal but who knows. Needless to say, for people in Toronto most people in their own city fall into this category. The logic is this: even if I will be nice to this stranger, what are the chances that I’ll ever see him again? In a big city, where the subway comes every 5 minutes, even if you take the same route every day the chances are small (and they are smaller if you drive). They are not zero, but it is likely that many people you see on the streets you see for the last time in your life. And if you see someone again, what are the chances to see a third time? So why bother talking to people you don’t know. In contrast, in BC I was surprised that Canadians will initiate a conversation with travelers because they are interested in talking, to pass the time, or just because it is harder for them to have a person nearby which they know nothing about.
Here is another difference. There seems to be a rule in Victoria that everybody getting off a bus must say “thank you” to the driver for driving him and stopping. I was really wondering whether these people live in the twenty-first century, where most people never care about the bus driver driving them. They are. And this is also a very effective way to tell who is local and who is a visitor. I wanted to show you the picture on Victoria’s bus schedule:
First, notice that there are still free seats in the bus. Secondly, note what community activists are doing in Victoria. I mean, there are places where activists protest against the separation wall or block the traffic against the separation plan. In Victoria activists have other things on their agenda.
In Vancouver they took it one step into the twenty-first century. At McDonald’s, they installed a sensor where the garbage cans are and customers empty their trays. The system plays a recorded “thank you!” message every time a tray is emptied. You can imagine that this garbage can is very busy thanking. I was thinking what is the value of a “thank you!” from a machine? There is no real gratitude behind it, but people don’t notice and seem to like it. Thank you,
