How many times had I been pushed or, and not-so-gently, bumped in a crowd waiting for a subway train, or queued up like a cow at some Tim Hortons Donut Shoppe, only to spontaneously blurt out "sorry", or "pardon me" to the offender.
"Sorry" may well be perhaps the second most ubiquitous word in the Canadian lexicon, leaving first place to "eh" . . . at at least so goes the stereotype.
Quote:
" . . . The man beside me heaved his suitcase off the airport carousel. It slammed into mine, knocking it over and crushing it into my leg. The first words out of my mouth were, "Sorry."
Is this a strictly Canadian trait, this tendency to be oh-so-polite?
Recently, we have begun holidaying with a group of American friends who have been travelling together for 23 years. Including Canadians into their company was new for them, and at first they seemed to find us a bit of a novelty. We were prepared for the good-natured kidding -- the usual Canadian stereotypes of attaching "eh" to the ends of our sentences, saying "zed" not "zee" and their insistence that we say "aboot" for "about." (No amount of my saying, "Just listen while I pronounce this: a-b-o-w-t", has succeeded in changing their belief that we all speak like Scots.)
However when someone in a rather bemused manner said "You Canadians are so polite," I didn't know whether to feel complimented or gently mocked . . . "
Read the rest of the article here:'Politeness, eh?'
Flashback to Bangkok, 1999 ~ Smile's first trip:
It's his last full night in Thailand after 3 weeks in Phuket (that long on the beach was a minor mistake, never to be repeated) and Smiles is lounging (quietly/sadly/happily) in Balcony Bar, nursing a beer and contemplating a holiday now almost ended.
After the Great Plan ~ formalised and salivated over with lustful anticipation before leaving Lotus Land ~ of being the quintessential butterfly had come crashing down around him (he really didn't like GoGo bars that much after all, and he really didn't like the Pick-a-Number sensibility), Smiles was perfectly happy to have now admitted that fact to himself, and happy to be sitting alone and Buddha-like in a rowdy, crowded bar watching the Thai guys (slyly sasheying) and their farang chasers (drunkenly lurching) by: Waiting for a jet plane.
Beside him, on the two next bar stools, were two Thai guys ... both obviously friends, one handsome-enough, the other rolly-poley fat. The Handsome One turned to Smiles after a half hour or so and asked him if he liked Thailand and " ... where you from? ... "
Such questions had been asked many times before over the previous 3 weeks ~ usually in the same circumstance, and often in the same "I like you, you cute" manner. But Smiles was feeling mellow and lacking in suspicion this night, and decided to go with this one with no preconceptions. He told the Thai guy (his nickname ~ quickly offered ~ was 'Ken') that he had been most pleased with the small part of Thailand he had seen (though he left out the Butterfly Hopes) and that, the next day being his last in country, he'd very much like to see some of the most interesting sights in Bangkok ... the Usual Suspects.
After some decent small-talk conversation (he spoke pretty good english), Ken offered that he could help him with this quest, and would be happy to guide him around his city.
The beers Smiles had already quaffed lowered his natural cynicism to the point where the two ended up, some hours later, peering drunkenly over the railing 3 floors above the swirling madhouse of a dance floor at DJ's a few sois down Silom, getting his ass gently patted one too many times, and then off on a wild tuktuk ride back to the hotel (gay) where the two bedded down for the night, and, sometime around 4 in the morning, engaging in quite mediocre sex.
Smiles had taken unspoken but disapproving note of the rather unflattering kind of underwear Ken was wearing (one of those mid-thigh spandex bicycle-short style things which were not attractive to him in the least. He was a Thai-in-briefs-only-thankyou kinda guy).
But he didn't hold forgettable sex against him (he'd already discovered sex was easy to come by in Thailand), and after a nice breakfast at the hotel the next morning the two of them went off by tuktuk, taxi, ferry, and longtail river boat all over hell's half acre in Bangkok. Smiles was inordinately happy that he had met Ken because he knew that, by himself and having only one day to do it in, he wouldn't have seen 10% of what he did that day. After a restful movie (again, wildly forgettable), and a gift to Ken of his favourite cologne and "some tip", the two of them ended up 5 flights up in a coffee shop (at 10PM at night) overlooking the deep well of space surrounding the middle concourse of the World Trade Centre Mall (now renamed!).
Ken was tired. Smiles was tired. It had been a very long day, and Ken looked straight into Smile's eyes and told him he had enjoyed himself very much . . . and even more flattering, he told him he had never in his life spent that long with one person and not been bored. Nice!
And so, Ken left Smiles (after hailing a taxi for him and giving the driver directions), but with one more thought: As they parted company Ken said, "... you know what I like best about you? You are very polite ..." Hmmmmm ...
That same evening, Smiles arrived back at the hotel about to make the most dramatic choice which had presented itself to him in many a year: He chose to head into the hotel bar for a final drink (a "Last-Night-in-Bangkok-er") of his holiday, instead of going straight to bed.
This story has been told before, but suffice to say that the hotel's bartender is now Smile's love-of-his-life and has been since that fortuitous night in 1999. The massage received that night (just a few hours before leaving for Don Muang), and the MUCH-better-than-mediocre sex which they segued so comfortably and naturally into, was memorable to say the least.
But strangely, my guy has never used the word "polite" in reference to me . . . and I was expecting it! Ken was the last Thai guy who ever gave me that particular compliment.
Thinking back some years to that "Ken" comment, I once asked Suphot ~ during one of our excellent pillow-talk sessions ~ what would be the one word he could think of with which to describe me. This was probably NOT an exercise in love-talk that he been asked to participate in before, so he gave it some long pondering ... and finally came up with, " ... you very clean ... " Hmmmmm ....
(He also had mentioned some time before that word on the Thai street was that Canadians had the reputation of being inordinately "cheap" . . . but that's another story!)
I heard from Ken fairly often via email for 3 or 4 months after our first meeting. He had apparently hooked up (in Balcony!) with a Swiss guy and ended up visiting Switzerland for a month, during which time the Swiss guy tried to talk Ken into doing some 3-somes and 4-somes. Ken told me he was quite shocked about this (him foolishly thinking "love" and all) and that he had "ended" with him half way through the visit. Obviously Swiss guys are not very "polite".
After quite a few emails from him (many of which had an unspoken-yet-obvious tinge of "I miss you" to them) I finally told Ken that I had met a Thai man on that last night in Bangkok and that I was very much interested in this man ... and him in me. Like a good Canadian, I had to politely say to Ken that he had no chance ... and that I was "sorry"!
Cheers ...
Edited by: Smiles2 at: 2/11/05 3:09 pm
. And with him, that means 3 times a day (when I'm paying the water bills!).
