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I got a card from Starbucks in my mailbox for a free oatmeal snack at participating stores. It was a nice surprise, because it is really cold and mushy out there, and warm oatmeal is a welcome respite. I had also received a free coffee stub from Second Cup. Coffee houses are losing business these days, so they have to find ways to get us to buy their products. But why don't they just lower their prices, and reduce the (expensive) concoctions - latte this and cappuccino that? All I ever ask for at Starbucks is a dark tall coffee (medium in normal language) - reasonably priced.
Anyway, I found a Starbucks for my oatmeal break, and showed the girl my card. Her first words were a slightly derogatory "Oatmeal..."
Now, I could have read too much into this, but as I ate my deliciously warm oatmeal with raisins and dried cranberries, I wondered why oatmeal would bring such a reaction. The girl was Asian (I think she looks like she's from the Philippines - I hate the generic "Asian" label). I thought that this is what it must be like when people with non-European background encounter something they are not used to. Oatmeal doesn't look that attractive, it is a little gooey and coarse, who would want to eat that! But, any child growing up in traditional Canada would have had oatmeal growing up (I grew up mostly in England, and it was certainly a welcomed dietary fare there.) I am sure a Caucasian Canadian server would have understood my desire to have oatmeal, and handed it over to me matter-of-fact.
This is the problem with so many kinds of people here. We lose our common likes and dislikes. Our conversations change, our focus is different.
For example, the other day, while crossing the street, a very dark (I think he's Sudanese) man walking with a white companion was telling him how he wishes the winter were over, that there were no such thing as winter. The white man was obliged to agree with him, and didn't give, I'm sure out of politeness, a rebuttal to this forceful dislike. I would have just said that winter is great, you just have to dress up for it. Walking in the cold winter air is refreshing, snow is beautiful, winter holidays are wonderful (Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day), and on and on.
There are many examples like this, and things are getting knocked off the cultural shelf just because we have to accommodate people who don't like them, or don't understand them.
