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I usually don’t think about being Canadian any more than I think about my eyes being green. It’s just something that is. I love to travel though, and sometimes when I am abroad I see, hear, or feel things which remind me that I am culturally different from those around me. For example, years ago when I was living in Southeast Asia, I was surprised to learn that job advertisements routinely ask for “Pretty young woman, 18-25, between 5’4” and 5’8”, with clerical abilities and pleasant demeanour.” (I used to wonder if any advertiser would have been bold enough to include a minimum requisite bust size, but I never saw one despite much searching.)
I was further surprised to learn that you could refuse to hire someone for any number of reasons (or none at all) - including having a disease, and that you could be required to give a blood sample to prove you didn’t have one. I was happy to know that in Canada , officially at least, there is no discrimination in job application processes.
On my most recent trip, however, to Japan and Singapore, I saw several things that I would like to see adopted here: things that are so logical, cheap, and useful that it was embarrassing for me to admit that we didn’t do it that way back home.
I was in a post office in a small city called Matsuyama in Japan where there were three customers and four employees that I could see. The speed with which I was welcomed and served was almost exhilarating. It was as though each movement of this postal worker was choreographed so as not to add the slightest needless movement.
Even more impressively, there was no sigh at having to go fetch the ‘International Air’ stamps from the cupboard at the back - a task that might have required a ten-second walk. But while it might have been a ten-second walk, it wasn’t. Rather, it was a three-second run. I could not think of any reason for the keenness of this person to serve me so quickly, other than his sense of pride in a job done – not only well – but as well as possible. It reminded me of that trick mothers use to get their kids to stay quiet, by asking them to see how long they can stay quiet, and then making a game of seeing how much longer they can stay quiet each subsequent time. What an absolutely novel idea: do your job as well as you can, and then each day try to do it better! If nothing else, you might feel proud of yourself. And, once you take pride in yourself, you might do the same for the world around you.
When I would walk down any street in Japan or Singapore , I would almost never see a single cigarette in the gutter. I am not advocating smoking by any means, but I am advocating for cleaner streets. Whether or not you choose to smoke is up to you, but I find it odd that, while we have banned smoking indoors for the most part and moved smokers onto sidewalks, we have not thought it useful to place ashtrays on said sidewalks. Incidentally, not only did I notice prevalent ashtrays and garbage cans, but I also noticed that people used them religiously and happily - not because of what they got for doing it, but just because they should. Hmm, I thought. I wonder if this concept could ever work in Canada ? Could we, as individuals, be motivated to act not for some reward, but just because we want to do the right thing?
 There are lots of places where tipping isn’t the norm, but I have never seen a sign expressly forbidding it. In Singapore , there are signs at many privately owned restaurants, which say “No tipping, please.” What a delightful thought: to be served food or drink without the subtle threat of poor service, spit-on food, or at least a dirty look, for not tipping at least as much the server thinks should be offered in gratitude for their doing their job. Before you prepare your hate mail for me, I worked in restaurants for many years and always appreciated the tips, and I am not an anti-tipper. I am, however, anti-those-who-forget-that-the-tip-is-actually-optional. I would much rather see the service charge included in my bill than have to risk offending those in the enviable position of satisfiers of hunger and thirst. The lack of tipping did not at all result in lesser service. I even experienced happy, quick, and polite service at fast food restaurants by neatly dressed people who seemed to offer me a genuine smile and didn’t make me feel like I was bothering them. So again, I thought, ‘Hmmm, low wage workers, in largely dead end jobs, doing more than the bare minimum.’ Impressive, maybe, but that really seems not to be the Canadian way.
After living in Toronto and Montreal , I have been residing in Ottawa for about four and a half years now. Something’s different here. I often notice exceptional slowness in both fast food and conventional restaurants, and a relatively high number of panhandlers on the streets. I understand that many people explain that panhandling results from a range of social issues including poverty, mental illness, unemployment and the like. I am tempted to agree that these factors might explain some of the phenomenon, but I think the bulk of the problem stems from one’s attitude towards work. I think I could capture this attitude as, “Unless I can earn as much as I think I deserve to earn, I choose not to work.”
 Which I suppose, here, is a choice everyone makes, given that Canada is a welfare state. It’s a place where those who do not or cannot work get taken care of. The best reason I can come up with to explain the ‘more panhandling and lower quality service from low wage workers’ is perhaps a sense of entitlement from old-stock Canadians. This attitude is absent from the vigorous work ethic emerging from immigrant groups who take on many jobs in Canada ’s larger cities. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself, when was the last time a new Canadian asked you for money? I’m not saying it never happens, I am saying that it seems quite rare.
Never in Japan and rarely in Singapore did anyone ask me for money. In Singapore , when they did, they always had a physical disability which plausibly kept them from working. So in that context, in so far as Singapore is not a generous welfare state, I understand that it may be your last resort. It’s always interesting for me to be in non-welfare states to see how hard people will work for ridiculously little money even by local standards. It was common in Singapore to see senior citizens working at fast food restaurants, or as busboys in classy restaurants. I can only assume that they must have realized they needed money and went out and found the best job they could. Jobs which they did effectively. How much so? Well my bag of take-out food was not just scrunched and tossed my way, but rather folded neatly twice across the opening and then a third time on the diagonal, just for good measure.
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