Today is a Provincial Holiday called British Columbia Day. I sat and asked my brother what this means, then I looked online. According to my brother, wise as he is, today is a heritage day, where we celebrate the diversity that is B.C. Awesome, eh? But that leaves open a lot of interpretation. What is the heritage of B.C? Why did we start celebrating something so vague?

According to online resources, it started not in B.C, but in Alberta (the next province over). They declared the first Monday in August as Heritage day. While Albertan heritage is a bit easier to define than BC’s, this act gave Alberta more holidays than the rest of English Canada by one. So The Federal Government marked that day to be each province’s Heritage day, (In Ontario they have many different names for it depending on the city you’re in).

So thank you Alberta for giving us British Columbia Heritage day. Now I pose the question: What is B.C. Heritage? It can be hard for a lot of people to understand that B.C. is bigger than Vancouver: I’ll let that sink in a bit. Vancouver is not BC. Most of B.C. is Mountainous, has a lot of snow in the winter, is “rural” at best (Even the cities are not very large), people are welcoming, and helpful. Vancouver on the other hand is very urban, get almost no snow ever, is muddy beaches, ocean front, and forested. The city is warm, strangers are less likely to talk to each other, and has a much, much higher crime rate.

Since Vancouver has the highest population density of B.C. some people might say that it is Vancouver’s culture that should be celebrated. And I present this view to you in that case: If We celebrate Vancouver’s culture and heritage only on B.C. Day, because of population density, then by the same logic we should start celebrating Chinese culture, or India culture, or Philippine Culture. Vancouver has recently (and not so recently) had a huge number of immigrants from the other side of the world, and at this point, they outnumber the races we traditionally view as Canadian (First Nations, Caucasian, and African) in the area.

So, do we integrate the new Canadians, into Canadian culture with good old Canadian warm welcomes or do we integrate ourselves into their culture because they outnumber us….? I believe today is a day for every single family to stop what they are doing in B.C. and celebrate however they want. This way we all are celebrating our own heritage, no matter what it may be. That has been the Canadian way for my whole life. We accept that our neighbours are different, and let them live however they want as long as they are not hurting anyone. And if you are lucky enough to celebrate, or spend the day with a family from a different culture, you might learn a bit more about them. (Hey it’s like traveling around the world without going far!)

BC is where I grew up, and without the ethnic diversity I had around me while growing up, I probably would not be the same man I am today. Today is a day to embrace that, not to segregate that. Vancouver is nice, with their big city attitude, but I still prefer my small towns, but as I have traveled a bit I can sit and understand how a lot of new Canadians feel. My family has had difficulty integrating back as well, and if you had no point of reference it would make it much more difficult. So Just remember as you relax today that B.C. doesn’t have 1 heritage, it has 1 heritage for almost every culture in the world, and that makes us stronger, not weaker.

Happy B.C. Day everyone! Go have fun and respect each other!

Nanay is the Philippine word for “mother”, and as such that is what I always called my mother-in-law. Her real name was Imelda Tagalacia, but I will always remember her as Nanay, and there wil never be another Nanay in my mind. Today would have been her birthday, and I’m ashamed to say I’m not sure of how old she would have been. She will always be the same ageless age that I saw her at last time.

Nanay and I always got along, and we would wake up and have coffee together in the mornings while I visited the Philippines. She was the only adult in the town of Mambog who was not afraid to hold a conversation with me (sober). We would talk about culture differences, day-to-day activities, life experiences, and hopes. We would sit on the 2^nd floor front veranda where we had set up chairs and greet the morning with hot cups of instant coffee (That’s what they drink there).

I sometimes felt that I was the only one she didn’t feel the need to yell at. She yelled at her husband, her children, and other people. I think because she was not a tall woman, people tended to ignore her when she spoke, so she tended to repeat herself, in such a manner that the entire block would hear her. She had a stage performer’s ability to make her voice carry. Her children (Including my wife) didn’t ignore her for long, and it only took 2 times for directions to be carried out.

When my youngest was born, Nanay was on the first plane over to Beijing. She spent 3 months helping out with Sammy and JD. She switched to real coffee (Folger’s every morning). And took care of Irish and the kids. She was so excited when it snowed. She had never seen snow before in her life, so Irish loaned her a jacket, and she took JD out to play in the snow. She was like a big kids herself. She had no problems going to the store by herself and getting things even through the language barrier. She, I hope, had a great time. Unfortunately Immigration wouldn’t let her extend her visa, as she wasn’t MY blood relative, and I was the one working. So at the 3 month period, she headed back to the Philippines.

When she passed, it was quite a shock to all of us. Irish had it the worst of all her sisters, being the oldest. We had to borrow money from my family to pay for the funeral, because her insurance papers where so mixed up that nobody wanted to pay out anything. This was the first time I ever saw someone I knew closely get put in the ground. My wife still, years later, dreams about her mother. Nanay did not have the chance to see what great adults her 2 youngest daughters would turn out to be. She would not get to see her grandchildren go to school. And she would never have morning coffee with me again.

Happy Birthday Nanay, We miss you.

Happy Birthday

When I first returned to Canada I had to do a couple of days work as a day labourer at a steel factory. While there the main boss asked me my opinion of children these days, and of course I told him that kids now are so much better behaved than we were. He called me a liar. I think it is human nature for people to automatically assume their childhood was better than the current generation’s childhood. It is hard to look at childhood objectively as an adult, we tend to remember the good times, not the bad, and yet when we look at the kids today we see the whole picture.

I’d like to set something that is hard for some adults to grasp. Being a kid hasn’t changed. Children still go through the same types of difficulty that we did, and our grandparents did. No matter how many Pink-shirts we wear, there is always going to be kids who bully other kids. There will always be kids that find peace in solitude, or in social gatherings. There will always be kids that are good at sports, and kids that are not. Children still look up to their elders for guidance (We did too, just a lot of kids were not getting guidance when we were young.) They still try to learn about their world. They still believe they know more than their parents.

30 years ago if one of your parents had to travel for work, you saw him once every few weeks or months. He had no parenting influence over you at all. Nowadays, if 1 parent is away, you can still see them daily via skype, or other networking media. They can still help you with homework, and sometimes do. You can still share life with each other. Now there are still parents who refuse to learn such new fandangled technology, but that is like our parents learning to program a VCR’s time. (If you don’t remember VCRs then maybe this article is for people older than you). Kids used to play Super Mario brothers and Street Fighter and Grand Turismo Auto Racing, now they play Super Mario 10, and Mortal Kombat 10 and GTA. We used to sit on the phone talking to our friends (or sitting in silence with them on the line), now they text message each other all the time (on the phone).

What has changed is the world in which the kids are being raised. Parents are becoming more social warriors, and less parents. Most parents work, and with the Canadian economy the way it is, it’s not surprising. But what this means is that in a lot of households, no-one is there to guide the kids afterschool. So instead parents (sometimes) get involved where they can, by advocating anti-bullying days, instead of teaching your kids what is right and wrong and to respect others feelings. They become one-day-heroes, trying to make up for the lost time with a school trip or too. (Our parents did likewise). We as parents do our best to make up for the lost time. And it has become easier to do so in the modern world.

Kids today are being raised in a friendlier, safer, more connected world, and it has had a positive effect on them in comparison to our childhood. They are better educated, have more moral support and have more positive influences than we did. As a result they make fewer mistakes relating to drugs and sex. The awareness of other cultures, orientation, gender and lifestyles has led to less racism, homophobia, sexism, and misinformed bullying. I, as a parent and a teacher am proud of the world we are building for our children, and am looking forward to making it even better as we go.