Cottage Culture and Calm Canadians: a half-hearted hypothesis

I've developed a new theory of Canadian composure.  I think it might fly.

Canadians are noted worldwide for being a polite and relatively mellow people (with exceptions, of course; RIP, Rob Ford). I've heard a not-very-convincing theory that the northerly cold temperatures slow reaction times, reducing social friction, but if that were true, I should by now be a much mellower person, and my family will attest that I am not. A recent holiday weekend suggested to me an alternative hypothesis: Canadians are calm because of The Cottage.

There is a vast array of non-urban domestic structures that fit under the umbrella term of 'cottage' in Canada. They run the gamut from yurts to two-room cabins to suburban houses, to architectural marvels, to swollen mansions. There's a magazine Cottage Life,  with associated television and shopping sites:  http://cottagelife.com/. In some parts of the country people use the term 'camp'. I noticed this when I interviewed people in Thunder Bay last year (about health, not vacations, but it cropped up).

A couple of weeks ago, here in Toronto, my family received a very welcome invitation to join some new friends at their cottage for the end of March Break. We had planned on staying home during this week-long school holiday and letting the kids do a whole lot of nothing much, but the eldest, on the Monday, asked 'So, where are we going?" It is true that in previous years we have had some fun trips: New York City, the West Coast, a Niagara Falls water-park. Luckily the cottage invitation arrived the very next day.

There was a small chorus of juvenile grousing when we learned that internet access would be minimal (accompanied by an equal amount of adult rejoicing). Middle child stamped his foot over missing Newcastle play their derby rivals, Sunderland. We discovered that the dog was not welcome due to someone's allergy. Husband developed a dental emergency, got an appointment followed by a referral to a specialist, and then saw the same oral surgeon pictured on the front page of the newspaper under the headline 'arrested for fraud'.

All the difficulties ironed themselves out. Lovely tenant agreed to look after the pets. The accused surgeon was still allowed to see patients (but we'll be keeping a close eye on our credit card statement. Not really).  We packed clothes and linens, shopped for the ingredients for our night of dinner prep, picked up a couple of bottles of wine, and headed east to the Grey Highlands. The 'cottage' proved to be one of those on the grand side of the spectrum, a former country retreat nestled amid low rolling hills (very low, despite the hopeful 'Highlands'), three ponds, and some fields. Bucolic and blissful. The fourteen of us present had ample space to be together or to spread out. Children ranged in age from three to eighteen. Collectively, we played soccer, walked in the woods, played hide-and-seek, went running, did yoga, flew kites, played chess, cooked, read, wrote, slept. There was a steam-room.

My theory about why Canadians have a reputation for calmness turns on the fact that so many of them get out of the cities and into the countryside on a regular basis. It's just a thing that they do. (They sometimes call it, in all innocence, 'cottaging'.) I've commented in a previous blog that when people refer to 'the cottage', as in 'We're going to the cottage this weekend,' they may not be referring to a specific cottage. It's like saying 'We're going to the beach." It doesn't have to be your own cottage. It could be one that you rent or that belongs to your great-aunt or that happened to be empty when you drove past last year, so you deployed squatter's rights. (Not really.) It's part of the national or at least provincial psyche to get out of the city, away from home, and into  the great outdoors. To unwind, as we did that weekend. I was going to look up some research demonstrating the physical and mental health benefits accruing to those who spend time relaxing, and especially time outdoors huntin' and fishin' and hikin' and boatin' (boatin'?) but I can't be bothered right now. The data are there, and we all know it. Canadians certainly do.

See you outside.

Slow down: a Mennonite's horse and buggy on the highway near The Cottage

Brussels with my sprouts

I've stayed in Belgium only once, in beautiful beautiful Bruges (whose appeal is enhanced if you ignore the pornographic chocolates in shop windows). I've passed through Brussels, though, several times, by air and by rail. Long ago when I was pregnant with my youngest child, and the elder ones were two and four years old, I transferred planes there on the way home from Florence to Durham, not a well-trodden route, but one that fit with our dates and destinations. Husband had gone back ahead of me for work, so, knowing I would be on my own, I had asked the airlines to provide me with assistance. I imagined being met by one of those golf-cart mobiles but instead they sent me a pleasant and very young man, a teen-ager, an American from Minnesota. On foot. He explained that a relative of his, a parent or grandparent, was Belgian and that he wanted to get to know his roots by working in the city for the summer. Fine by me, and I wished him much success, but he certainly did not know his way around the Brussels airport. The place is huge. We got lost several times and very nearly missed the connecting flight and I already knew there wasn't another until the following afternoon. I began to imagine spending a night in a cheap motel with two small children, French fries with mayonnaise, and morning sickness. Oh, and no luggage, because the airlines had announced in Florence that high temperatures had made the tarmac of the runway sticky, so all the bags had been removed from our airplane in order for it to take off safely. (How very reassuring it was to hear that announcement. Not. And me unable to order a glass of wine.)

The kids and I managed to make our connecting flight because the cavernous Brussels airport was practically empty. With the midwestern teen toting our carry-on bags, and the toddler perched on my hip, we moved along at a clip, recovering speedily from our wrong turns. I wondered whether the sparseness of passengers had to do with our travelling on a weekend. Perhaps, I thought, the place is busier on weekdays, when the European Union is open.

Today, the day of the horrific terror attacks, is a weekday. From the reports so far, it sounds as though, sadly, the airport was indeed much fuller. And now it, and the Maelbeek metro station, all of Brussels, all Belgium, all Europe, all of us anywhere who want peace and happiness, are missing our connection.

And now for a little anthropology: culture-bound syndromes, stress, and work

Medical anthropology has a concept called the 'culture-bound syndrome' to describe a health disorder that is particular to one society or part of a society. Sometimes these ailments are called 'folk illnesses', which sounds a little patronizing (but then again, so does ‘folk art’, and people pay lots of money for that). Anyway, I remember in grad school reading about one such syndrome, called latah, found in southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia. Latah's symptoms include a tendency to exhibit anti-social behaviour such as swearing or stripping off clothing in response to being startled. To add insult to injury, latah's victims suffer from 'hyper-startle', meaning that it doesn't take much to set them off. Similar but not identical syndromes have been reported in a few other, completely disparate populations, including the Ainu of northern Japan and French-Canadians in the US (the 'jumping Frenchmen of Maine', I believe they were called). My interest arose because I was part of a project that was studying Tourette syndrome, and I wondered about similarities, but there is no link.

It's been some time since I took an interest in latah per se, because I went off and studied vitamin A deficiency instead (in Indonesia, as it happens) but the concept of the culture-bound syndrome still intrigues me. Most recently I've been thinking about stress and the ways in which it, and its management, are bound and shaped by national cultures. 

At the three universities for which I worked in England, it seemed to me that people often got 'signed off' (excused) for 'stress'. It happened at all levels: academic staff, admin, students. It occurred outwith academia: my friends or acquaintances not in the university also talked about being signed off work for stress, for a week or a month or longer. There was no real shame in it, though I learned that it didn't do to inquire about the cause or nature of a colleague's or student's stress unless explicitly invited to discuss it. A GP's note sufficed; if the doctor diagnosed stress, that was it, no work and no question about it, by law as well as by custom. 

I've been employed in Canada now for over four years and as far as I know, only one of my colleagues or friends has missed work for 'stress'. (And in that case, the situation was so unusual that it made the national news.) I know of illnesses and injuries and births and bereavements all necessitating time away from the office, all discussed at reasonable length and with sympathy or joy, as appropriate. It's possible of course that stress-related leaves have occurred with me none the wiser, but even that is quite a difference from the British situation. I don't have a good explanation, or really any explanation. People in Canada talk about feeling stressed and about the negative consequences of stress-- of course-- but I've yet to run across its deployment as a reason to miss work.  Maybe there is less institutional regulation in Canada compared to the UK. For instance, parents here are not (yet) fined or censured for taking their kids out of school for the odd holiday, as happens in England; perhaps employees who feel the need for a day off can take one without requiring medical endorsement. 

Decades ago, when I had dropped out of graduate school for a couple of years, I worked as an assistant kindergarten teacher in a private school in El Cerrito, near Berkeley. The Sierra School had a wonderful system. If you needed a day off -- and sometimes, as a teacher of small children, you really do-- there was no need to lie about being ill or to get a doctor's note. You could claim a 'mental health day', with no pay docked or other consequence levied, several times a year (twice, or even thrice). When, some years ago,  I described this set-up to a few of my colleagues in the UK, they were amazed, to the point of thinking I was joking. 

I don't know about current stress management in the UK. Perhaps things have changed and people no longer get signed off for stress. Maybe some other culture-bound syndrome reigns.  It's been, shockingly, five-and-a-half years since we left England. In a few months we'll have lived as long in Toronto as we did in Sussex. Eldest child has just turned eighteen-- 18! He points out that he spent six years in Durham, six in Brighton, and soon it will be six in Toronto. He seems to think this means it's time to move on for the next six.

Now that stresses me out. I may need to take a mental health day.

'Sometimes the chicken': food poisoning hits home

I've done the odd bit of traveling. Nothing seriously off the beaten track, compared to many adventurous people I know, just enough to lay claim to a little cred when it comes to matters such as eating safely in unfamiliar environments. Living in Indonesia ages ago, back in the 90s, I learned the basics: when purchasing street food, bring  along your own crockery (for fried rice or noodles) or check that fresh paper is used for wrapping (martabak-- stuffed pancakes, or satay). Drink tea rather than water in other people's homes. Don't trust food just because the restaurant looks fancy; in fact, you're better off with the wandering outdoor snack merchants because you can see what they're doing. Generally, don't order salad and say no to ice. The same applies to in-flight meals: if you wouldn't eat it on the ground, don't do so at altitude. Peel your own produce.

A favorite food: dried salted fish. Pangandaran, West Java.

Pretty simple, really. In my 18 months there, I never got sick, not from food anyway;  perhaps the odd touch of malaria.

Toronto has two annual restaurant festivals called 'Winterlicious' and 'Summerlicious'. Other than the stupid names, they're great. You can go to some of the city's best dining establishments for a reasonable prix fixe meal. Husband and I decided to participate in January, and selected-- oh the irony-- a restaurant specializing in Indonesian/ Malay cuisine, on a charming block of Baldwin Street, not far from home. We walked there on a Thursday night and were a little disheartened to see that it was a rather plain establishment, mostly empty, with a soft-rock station playing over loudspeakers. Our expectations diminished but we gave it the old college try. Husband ordered a seafood curry. I chose a dish called 'Nasi Lemak'  which translates directly to 'fatty rice', but is actually rice cooked in coconut milk with an array of side dishes.

I warily sampled husband's seafood curry. I am always a little reluctant to order seafood in Toronto, which is further away from the sea than anyplace I've ever lived. I know, I know, freezers, flights, etc. Still. Get me to an ocean and I'll eat fish. It was fine. I liked my own meal well enough but couldn't finish it, so I passed it to hubby, as is my wont, and he managed to down my remainders. We declined dessert and wandered home.

Yes, devastation struck late the next night-- me-- and the following day, less intensely-- husband. The timing was poor: we had our children's piano recital on the Saturday morning, and cousins arriving from Buffalo Saturday afternoon to join us at the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) to see the final day of the Turner exhibition. Poor cousins. Poor us. Husband had to appreciate Turner's magnificent use of colour while jogging hastily toward the exit.  Wrung out, I hobbled through the rooms slowly, resting when I found a free bench.

We knew where the fault lay. Since Thursday night, husband and I had eaten our meals either separately or with our children, and on Friday evening, with a guest. None of them  (fortunately) were affected. Nous accusons. Once recovered, I phoned the restaurant and left a message reporting what had happened, and warning them to be cautious serving their Nasi Lemak. The manager phoned me back the next day. He was a little defensive and dubious, asking why we blamed their cooking. I described the timeline and the other incriminating circumstances. To his credit, he capitulated and accepted the charge.

"But I just don't understand," he mused. "The Nasi Lemak is such a clean dish. We get the sauce in a jar, and the pickled vegetables too... that dish, we never have trouble with it. Sometimes the chicken... yes, sometimes the chicken. But not the Nasi Lemak!" He urged us to come there again and said they would do something for us.

That's just what I'm afraid of. But it was sweet of him to offer.