Somewhere between reading the critiques of Adorno and the changing landscape of Coconino County with How I Met Your Mother running faithfully in the background, it hit me. It was amusing, yes...but these jokes on Canada...actually sort of bothered me. It's not the first time I'm hearing them, of course. And, okay, so the 80s lasted a little while longer here (judging by when I first arrived here...can anyone say pouffy hair?) but that quip about marriages not being really recognized as such? That was kind of sucky. Like how are money really isn't money.

Which is funny, of course, because Canada and the U.S. are on par. So what's there to get worked up about, they're only jokes. Yes. Yes, they're only jokes and they shouldn't matter and usually I snicker alongside with them. Like an outsider - in a very knowing, superior way. I guess the issue here is not so much the joke but the fact that I was bothered by it - which would, of course, signify some sort of identification.

And then it struck me...I am no more the outsider. Of course, I will never wholly say I am Canadian in the way my little brother will be able to - he was born here, and I was not. I've moved around everywhere and he has not. But after experiencing a smorgasboard of cultures, your mind always drifts back to where your roots are. And true as this might be...I think I have finally been in this place long enough to feel...annoyance when someone cracks a joke at our country. Canada, being that country. Mind you, when I think of Canada, I think of Toronto - and Toronto is pretty effing great. But this whole country is completely unexplored by me. And yes, those history lessons were a PAIN: a few provinces and 3 measly territories, no great history, no great global participation, pacifist, American-kissasses, always harping on the great glory of one thing or another (the russian hockey game or the suez canal crisis or that damned battle on vimy ride - my ears BLED).

But then I really thought about it - no bloodshed on our hands. No cultural hegemony. No massacres. No apathetic uninvolvement until we got hit cuz then it was our problem. No masquerading as the supporter in a war and then trying to take over when the war was won. No furthering of global expansion goals on the account of developing nations. No exploitation of resources when countries are at their most vulnerable. No masking all this under the Puritanical, pre-destined, biblical crap. No spouting of separation between state and religion, democracy and secularism when really it's there. No fallacy and failings of an American Dream.

So okay. We might not have had major cultural movements. Our authors may be a snore because all they want to talk about sometimes are the Maritimes. Okay, so we only have one major national highway. But in a rare act of patriotism for a Western country (which is as close to patriotism for a western country I'll ever feel - besides New York, because that is not patriotism, that is love) I'll ever experience, I just want to say:

Our money is awesome and colourful. Our national anthem is great and not steeped in history. We glorify things that happened ages ago to nurse our wounded pride and keep the spirit alive. We don't get that involved and we like to think of ourselves as peacekeepers - heck, some of us even are. We don't have creative movie studios (we really don't have that many Jews...). And marriages here DO count. Love here IS real. Fall and Winter are separate seasons and we're a chartered plane ride away from the Aurora Borealis and land where the sun never sets.

And we DO NOT pronounce it "ABOOT".

So Its Not Just Me

Recently, I had an idea for a writing project and so, in research, I started to read Zadie Smith's White Teeth. For all hermits and rock dwellers out there, I'll reiterate: White Teeth is Zadie Smith's debut novel, for which the literary aniticipation was SO high (i dont even know how she got it that way but hell, she must have an amazing Ari-Gold SuperAgent for a literary agent, to get a bidding war started over HALF a manuscript) that when the book finally came out, the literary community pounced on it.

And yet...reading this, I could only maintain my quizzical brow. How to describe White Teeth in non-derogatory terms? How to say how bad it is in a helpful manner without moaning about the utter waste of time it was? How to exlain/understand why the fuck it was so loved? Okay, well that's an easy one. This was written around the Bend It Like Beckham time in England. To give it fair credit, BilB was in 2002 so I'm not insinuating that White Teeth is apeing. But the Asian London fad is hard to miss. Think Jay Sean and all.

But, honestly, for the quality of the book and the sheer number of utter stereotypes in the lives of Black and Asian Londoners relative to white Londoners is...appalling to say the least. There is not one redeeming quality to the book. Not even the wry smile it pulled from me at the butchering pigeons/halal meat shop can redeem the 480 pages of the great big NOTHING I just had to put msyelf through.

And for what? To read some mixed, divorced, over-privileged, 20 something, child's take on what culture is? I agree wholeheartedly that writing about culture - especially one that isn't your own - takes a huge amount of courage. Because you're always going to run into people who say well THIS is not the correct representation of me or my culture, this is not our people's general attitude, don't generalize, blahblahblah. And I get that, truly I do. Because, culture in itself is sort of a generalization too, isn't it? Any culture for that matter - the mere meaning of the word groupds together a mass of people. So, yes, there are going to be generalizations.

But my gosh! At least make it the right KIND of generalization! At least get it right. I'm not indignant because I'm Asian or I was a Londoner or anything. I'm indignant because the author seems to have taken NO pains whatsoever to research! To immerse herself, meet with people who are different, to truly go out there and capture the soul of a peoples. And for crying out loud, she had a 6 figure paycheck as an incentive! What was she doing sitting on her ass, screwing about with pre-Nick Laird-boyfriend??!

There are tons of people who swear by the book, tons of people (Salman Rushdie included) that would gamble their literary reputations (as the endorsements littered on the jacket of the book can only lead me to believe) on what they think is the utter bible penned by a 20 year old with amazing insight into cultural communities and immigrants of London.

Let me tell you: it is not. Here's what White Teeth is: it is a mish mash of stereotypes - horny brown man, disgruntled white man, radical youth, absolutely 1 dimensional wives...the list is endless. And the reason it is so revered is because White Teeth...is for white people.

Seriously. The ones who put this book up on a pedestal are either naive people who tend to like their cultures oversimplified, commoditized and packaged, the people who have NO insight into multi-cultural lives or have lived around immigrants and are delusional enough to think that they are "in the know".

Yeah. Okay. LOL, is what I gotta say to that. It is utterly insulting, I think, that the author thought that she would sit in her apartment (and the apartments of others) and pen characters that are empty, hollow, and complete caricatures of just about every South Asian stereotypes you might have come across. The book lacks focus - what is she talking about? Love? Friendship? War? The Immigrant status? What? And more importantly...why do I care?

I'm an immigrant, technically speaking. Born in India, never lived there, move to Bahrain, then to London, then to New York back and forth and Toronto. I couldn't say I fully understand culture but I love to steep myself in it. I couldn't define it (at least not in such flat, dry terms as Zadie Smith) but I feel it all around me. Smith, on the other hand, is trying to package a Bollywood Crossover, an cheap imitation of Nair (in terms of pull of different cultures) and Rushdie in literary style, trying to write on the lives of people she clearly has no knowledge of...and doesn't seem to want to take the effort of getting to know!

While her use of colloquial dialogue is accurate, at best, the rest of the novel completely falls short. I don't know how she expected us to eat this garbage up; honestly speaking, i'm quite surprised. Her mother is Jamaican and her father is English and you'd think that she might have some empathy and understanding for stereotypes and the way they ensconce. But no...I have read English authors with more authority and panache with a similar topic, who excute a story in a much more unassuming, less brash, not as pretentious manner than what White Teeth has done with its poor, lifeless characters.

My thoughts, after reading such a massively POINTLESS novel are as follows: how dare she waste trees for this? How could they pay her so much money to spew out crap that she has clearly taken from silly crossover movies and the new "south asian author" fad that is going on? It is like she sat home and watched television, possibly re-runs of Skins and wrote this. Unbelieveably insulting that she clearly did NO research.

Not only is it slightly incoherent, what with the pastiche of timelines but its characters are unbearable. On more than one occassion I wanted to smack Samad and the lot (maybe not Clara though) because they were SO. RIDICULOUSLY. PREDICTABLE. This should have been marketed as a satire, seriously, because that is the only way I can take it seriously. If I knew that the book was aware of the caricature it was drawing up and thus mocking books that take this pretentious tone on the subject of immigrant-fare then I would've understood, maybe even clapped.

And to think: the painting of such a ridiculous, farsical image of immigrants from the country that gave us John Berger and the Ways of Seeing. For shame.

The book is serious. It is not a satire. It is not a farce. And it has been nominated for awards and the like. THAT is the satire, that is the comic tragedy, I think!

Which means two things: people are easy to amuse; everyone is looking for an easy packaged image or representation and nobody wants to question; everyone is happy getting fed utter bullshit.

And those literary awards are published by idiotic people who consider themselves scholars but eat up Deepak Chopra and Yoga like its going out of style and love Indian culture for its "bright colours" and "beautiful rituals" and "diverse people" and all that other people-commoditizing-a-culture speak.

Culture is a lot of things. I wouldn't presume to be the expert on its definition. But I know one thing for sure: culture sure as hell isn't White Teeth. If I didn't have any backbone, I would say I wish I had capitalized on this, thought of doing this first; I wish I had though to throw in stereotypical, idiotic, careless, farsical caricatures of several characters and show how their lives are all connected like a twisted version of Love, Actually.

Major Fails. Actually.