Comment Allez-Vous?

Ça va bien. Et vous?

As a Canadian child, everyone learns French in elementary and junior high (and often high school as well). I believe it's in the hopes that it will encourage more of Canada to be bilingual, unfortunately...I grew up in Alberta where Francophones are reviled. I'm not kidding. It is perfectly normal for people to insult Québec (the French province) and its people. It's especially common in rural areas. This is largely due to the fact that Albertans believe they are responsible for sustaining Québec with oil revenue. While some Canadians dislike the French, the feeling was mutual. At one point Québec threatened to leave Canada and actually held a referendum. The vote was 50.58% against leaving with a 93.52% voter turnout. The 2016 US Election had a mere 55% turnout, and in 2008 (Barack's campaign year) there was only a 57.1% turnout. So yeah, Québec was deeply divided and invested.  I've often heard Albertans lament the fact they didn't leave.

I may be Albertan, but my father is from Saskatchewan (the province next door), and my mother is from...dun dun DUN...Québec. While my father grew up in the prairies, my mother had grown up in Montréal-Nord with a large Catholic family. This was before the Quiet Revolution, so health care and education were in the hands of the Catholic Church - along with everyday life. It was the duty of every good Catholic woman to have as many children as possible. The Church expected to have loyal parishioners, but instead my mother and all of her siblings decided they weren't Catholic. When she left home, she left all of Québec behind, and eventually came out west to settle down. By the time I was a child, I never heard a drop of French. When my sister and I were a bit older, she taught us a few things to appease our adolescent curiosity, but that was it.

Part of growing up was pointing out how snobby the French are. Some schools had something called, "French Immersion" which meant that every class would be taught in French. One school I attended had split the school in two, some students were taught in English and some in French. This created a very real division in socializing. French kids stuck together and conversed in French blatantly, followed by sneers and laughter. As an Anglophone, it felt very rude. So began the theme of snobby French. While the French kids stood united in their secret language, everyone else commented on their attitudes. Bienvenue au petit Canada. While that behaviour was fairly tame, when I was in grade 4 during a parent-teacher night, my French teacher reprimanded me for being a failure in French class. She actually scolded my mother. Luckily my mother laughed it off, but I was incredibly embarrassed and hurt.

So why is an Albertan like me learning French? I'm part French, so that helps, but more importantly being bilingual opens a lot of doors. Especially if you ever want to be involved in politics or government. If I can manage to learn French as a second language, it'll be equivalent to a rebirth. Plus, better to try now and not later so I'm the object of public humiliation for weeks after...*ahem*

At the moment, I'm going to be taking French lessons until May. So far I've already learned more than my combined time in school. Who knows, maybe this could work out for me...

Here's the link for the gallery upload this week!
Maligne Canyon
Next update will be February 17!