Canada Eh!

Today's song is: Waking Up the Neighbors by Riot Child

I arrived in Canada on the 19th and today is the 28th and I have been quite remiss in posting to this blog. I have been busy with business and programming but have a break for the next couple of days.

I had been staying with my business partner but I am now with my sister. I also had a great visit up to my sisters house in the woods and saw my daughter Jaime who seems to be doing great.

I also connected with 2 recently divorced friends and their buddy Gerry who all live together in a big house which Gerry is trying to keep out of his divorce by renting out rooms to his divorced buddies who are both trying to downside to become footloose and fancy free, somewhat like me. We had a great time in Gerry's backyard, having a few beers and reminiscing about the turns our lives have taken. At one point we became quite loud and had to quiet down so we did not wake the neighbours  .. hence, today's song.

My initial impressions of Canada over this past week are:

• Canada is a beautiful clean country
• Canadians are predominantly overweight
• Canadians are old
• Canada is multicultural

The first point is obvious. There is very little pollution and Canadians do not litter. The air is fresh and the sky is blue. In Ottawa there has been lots of rain so grass is green and trees have yet to start changing colour and losing leaves.

The second point stems form the fact that Asians have slim builds where Canadians have bigger bones and indulge in a diet which is high in carbs and the result is chubby Canucks, despite the prolific availability of fitness activities. A diet of meat and potatoes (or burgers and fries) is not the same as rice, a bit of meat (predominantly white meat) and veggies.

The third point is a wow factor. Everywhere I look I see grey. I will check the net now for stats.

Above you can see the aging of Canada over the years.

Above you can see the age groupings by growth in those groupings.

• The country's median age edged closer to 40.
• A greater percentage of the population fell within the over-65 category.
• The under-15 category shrank.

I could not find similar graphs for Thailand but according to Wikipedia ...

Thailand Age structure

0–14 years: 21.2% (male 7,104,776/female 6,781,453)

15–64 years: 70.3% (male 22,763,274/female 23,304,793)

65 years and over: 8.5% (male 2,516,721/female 3,022,281) (2008 est.)

0–14 years: 19.9% (male 6,779,723/female 6,466,625)

15–64 years: 70.9% (male 23,410,091/female 23,913,499)

65 years and over: 9.2% (male 2,778,012/female 3,372,203) (2011 est.)

You can see the over 64 group is less than 10% whereas in Canada, that is the largest group.

The last observation of Canada being multicultural is a duh moment. Canada prides itself on being multicultural and it is evident everywhere you go. The media, and every aspect of Canadian society mirrors this policy. In Thailand, Thai-ness is very important, hence the term farang, which roughly translates as 'foreigner'. Two very different countries.

Tonight my sister and I will head out for dinner at a local brew pub for a beer and pizza.

TTYL