Afia wrote:Very sorry to read those words on Quebec. I am from Quebec, and I can tell that the problem comes from culture more than language, but I must admit that culture and language are linked together. Language structures the mind, linguists say. We, french people from Quebec, have to protect our language and our values because we are only 10 millions among 330 millions english speaking. And don't compare chinese people to quebeckers : we are native! I do think that our values are different, but we have to cope with these differences more than to fight them. Being abroad gives me a new point of new on the national question, ans I continue my refelxion. Hope you do the same, and visit Quebec to feel the culture. Sometimes I feel like we have nothing in commun, but I suppose I'm not right. At least, we have hockey to get together!
Our country is based on lex soil not lex sanguilinis. Who is native? Are you first nations? Only they really are. The rest of us, and I have BOTH french blood and English blood being fully caucasian and I feel that being Canadian is NOT about ancestry, but rather, about living on this land. My Japanese boyfriend was also born in Vancouver, and he is just as much Canadian as I am, or even as you are. His grandfather fought NOT for Japan, but for the 442ND Regimental Combat Team upholding the flag of the UNITED STATES ARMY! His parents were immigrants to Canada, as an AMERICAN not as a Japanese. He is a 4th generation Japanese 2nd generation American citizen. He was born with 3 nationalities! By Japanese law, lex sanguinis only goes for 4 generations, so our baby cannot have Japanese nationality unless he or she is born in Japan, being again an Issei, but we have chosen to give that up as we plan on living in the UK! He faced a few comments in the UK being asked whether or not he was a Yankee, but he was more pleased that he was at least seen as a Canadian before being seen as a Japanese. It never occurred to the English that he is actually also Yankee!
He has surprised many when he talked of his grandfather fighting on the US side, when we went to Hawaii and saw the Perl Harbor Museaum. Someone approached us and asked whether or not his grandfather flew those planes, and he responded, how his grandfather fought in the European theater under the flag of the United States Army.






