WhoWeAre

Kokono #1 - Music Made From Found Objects in the Congo

Giovanna Nicolo — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 20:41:15 +0000

Cliquer ici pour voir la vidéo.

The origins of trance music….from the war ravaged streets of the Congo.

Tinariwen, Where Ancient and Modern Musical Styles Collide

Giovanna Nicolo — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 20:35:41 +0000

Cliquer ici pour voir la vidéo.

Musical Discoveries From Around the World

admin — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 13:45:16 +0000

Cliquer ici pour voir la vidéo.

Céline Dion – The reason I moved to Canada.

Konrad Schleck — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 03:31:33 +0000

I discovered Céline Dion on the Titanic soundtrack. I was thirteen and experimenting with my sexuality, but when I saw and heard Céline, I knew I wasn’t gay. I wanted to be with women. More specifically, I wanted to be with her.

I asked my mom if we could adopt an Afghan Hound, a breed I found to look like my faraway sweetheart. I remember a dog breeder telling me they had relatively low obedience intelligence, to which I politely corrected her, “You mean they retain their independence.”

When Céline’s husband and manager, René Angélil, suffered from cancer I couldn’t help but wish that he wouldn’t survive. Of course, I wouldn’t want any hardship for my lover (as I had began to call her), but a grieving woman is an easy woman.

Fast-forward seven years. I’m on the Queen Mary cruise on my way across the Atlantic. I’m finally going to Canada.

The first thing I did when I had cleared customs was go to Nickels, the restaurant franchise created by Céline Dion. I had three orders of the Gâteau Céline, the best three-course meal I could imagine. The cake was as delicious as I’d imagine she would be.

When I had paid the bill, I was off to get a bottle of Belong, the perfume by…you guessed it. The name couldn’t have been much better. I already felt I belonged in Canada, and more importantly, Céline Dion would soon belong to me.

Off I went to Charlemagne, the birthplace of my beloved. After a bit of quizzing the locals, I found the house she had grown up in. I peered through the windows of the empty, unmarked house. There was no sign of her. Then a gust of wind took a few leaves and spun them into the air. Was it her ghost?

Surely, this Graceland of Canada, would have been disappointing, had it not been for an old lady in a parka. She told me that every year, Céline comes to hand out baskets of food to poor people. “Are you poor?” I inquired. She shook her head, as if she was offended. Then she pointed to a man across the street.

It was all I needed.

“Did you get a Céline basket?” I asked the man.

“Sure, haven’t touched it yet.”

Jackpot. He took me to his house and I bought the basket from him. Let’s just say he’ll never have to worry about money again.

Since then, I’ve been to numerous concerts, sent hundreds of fan letters, and spent thousands of dollars on merchandise. I have yet to appear on her radar, but my passion is unwavering. So if I had to talk about love, it’d be the true kind.

Feng Xi

Halima — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:18:20 +0000

Le 4 octobre 2006, Xi a quitté la Chine pour les couleurs flamboyantes de l’été indien en compagnie de 22 autres chinois partis en voyage d’échange à l’Université du Québec en Abitibi-Temiscamingue. Elle a laissé derrière elle une maman et un papa qui, malgré la difficulté de la séparation, l’ont encouragé à immigrer au Canada. Après ses études, Xi pensait retourner vivre en Chine et travailler à Beijing. Sa maman lui conseille de penser à rester plus longtemps au Canada. « Tu pourrais développer ton art et voyager ailleurs dans le monde ».

Quand elle est arrivée au Canada, Xi parlait seulement quelques mots de français et elle se préparait à fêter ses 20 ans. « Je voulais avoir un anniversaire très spécial, mes 20 ans au Canada, mais le jour de ma fête a fini par être plutôt normal ». Après les couleurs de l’automne, Xi découvre le blanc de l’hiver et les vastes étendus de l’Abitibi. « C’est un peu trop vide pour moi ici » précise Xi. « Je passais de longs moments à écouter de la musique classique. J’écoutais Bach en attendant le bus à moins 30 degrés. Tout était au ralenti comme dans un film. Je pensais souvent à ma famille, mes amis et aussi à la beauté de la culture chinoise traditionnelle. Ça me manquait beaucoup ».

Départ précipité pour Montréal

Xi déménage à Montréal le même jour que son entrevue pour du travail. Elle se trouve une chambre avec cinq autres colocataires chez une gentille dame et son fils qui ont fini par vendre la maison pour aller habiter à Joliette. Xi atterrit chez un vieux couple d’immigrés portugais qui lui proposaient parfois de manger à table avec eux. Elle leur fait des dumplings. Elle leur pose des questions sur le Québec. Ils s’entendent bien. La femme occupe une grande partie de sa journée à nourrir une dizaine de chats pendant que l’homme se lève à l’aube pour aller nourrir les pigeons du Parc Lafontaine. Vous pouvez le voir en compagnie de ses oiseaux dans le magnifique poème visuel Matins routiniers, (An Early Morning Routine) avec une narration en mandarin qu’elle a réalisé pour Who we are. Xi est une passionnée d’images et de sons. Elle fait de la photo, de la vidéo, de l’animation et de la danse. C’est une artiste pluridisciplinaire qui cherche à perfectionner son art au Canada.

Grande comment?

Tous les petits pas que Xi met les uns devant les autres la mènent forcément quelque part. Elle obtient le contrat pour lequel elle est venue à Montréal, chez EyeSteelFilm, une maison de production de films documentaires où elle travaille à la postproduction de longs métrages tournés en Chine (Last Train Home, 2009). C’est là dans ce contexte que j’ai fait sa connaissance et un jour, au bureau, Xi a préparé des dumplings pour tout le monde dans de la petite cuisine qui s’est remplie de vapeur. C’est sa façon de bien s’occuper des gens autour d’elle.

L’été dernier, après un voyage en Europe de villes en villes, de canapés en canapés, de musées en musées, de rencontres en rencontres, Xi est revenue avec sur le visage cet air qu’ont les gens qui reviennent d’un voyage initiatique qui a contribué à changer leur vision du monde. Elle est revenue enrichie et elle m’a dit : « Quand je suis devenue résidente permanente au Canada, j’ai tout à coup pensé à ma nouvelle liberté. Et je me suis demandé s’il y avait une limite à cette liberté? Elle est grande comment? « Je vis encore dans un carré créé par mon autre vie chinoise. Quelle est la différence de liberté entre ces deux mondes? Jusqu’où est-ce que je peux aller?»

Pour Xi, le défi est de fusionner son passé à son présent et de continuer à créer.

Ma demande de citoyenneté – mise à jour Je suis toujours en train de remplir le formulaire de demande et de réunir tous les documents qu’il faut joindre à la demande. Je posterai un scan de la check-list une fois que ce sera terminé. Je dois être honnête, ce n’est pas le dossier prioritaire sur ma liste de chose à faire mais je continue.

Canadian slang.

Konrad Schleck — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 19:56:26 +0000

In 1998, American rapper Big L released a track called Ebonics. In three verses, he told us how to talk in his hood. His hood happened to be Harlem, but if you want to represent Canada, you’ve got to learn a few slang terms of your own. Below is the first verse from Big L’s Ebonics and my personal Canadian remake (until further notice, I will keep my day job).

Big L – Ebonics (first verse):

Check it, my weed smoke is my lye
A ki of coke is a pie
When I’m lifted, I’m high
With new clothes on, I’m fly
Cars is whips and sneakers is kicks
Money is chips, movies is flicks
Also, cribs is homes, jacks is pay phones
Cocaine is nose candy, cigarettes is bones
A radio is a box, a razor blade is a ox
Fat diamonds is rocks and jakes is cop
And if you got rubbed, you got stuck
You got shot, you got bucked
And if you got double-crossed, you got fucked
Your bankroll is your poke, a choke hold is a yoke
A kite is a note, a con is a okey doke
And if you got punched that mean you got snuffed
To clean is to buff, a bull scare is a strong bluff
I know you like the way I’m freakin’ it
I talk with slang and I’ma never stop speakin’ it

Canadian Remix:

Check it, a beaver is a pussy

A loonie is a dollar

a toonie is two

Puck bunny is a groupie

We say washroom, not loo

Deadmonton is Edmonton, that’s where you get chills

A car is wheels

A sofa is a chesterfield

We don’t eat burgers, we eat poutine

And we use runners, not sneakers to keep us lean

Get the coffee at Timmies

Double-double means two creams and two sugars

Old women with young boys are cougars,

Hongcouver is Vancouver

And if you eat a lot, you’re a hoover

Hydro is the power

Not what you use to take a shower

And we don’t drink soda, we drink pop

Call Toronto for T-Dot

And sweatshirts for bunnyhugs

You wanna change your grocer, if he calls you a hoser

Francos are peppers, and Anglos are square heads

And you can get your fittys at the deps

Homo milk means homogenized

A Bluenoser is from Nova Scotia, like the bank that monetized

I know you like the way I’m freakin’ it
I talk with slang and I’ma never stop speakin’ it

Imperialist Canada invades Hans Island.

Konrad Schleck — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:36:42 +0000

Hans Island is made up of two square kilometers of rock situated at 80° 49′ N and 66° 26′ W, smack-dab in the middle of Kennedy Channel, mid-way between Ellesmere Island and Greenland. It has a population of zero; not counting the occasional seagull that stops by.

Both Canada and Denmark have claimed the insignificant island, which has led to a decade long farce, involving both countries making symbolic gestures in the name of ownership.

In 1984, Kenn Harper, a noted Arctic historian, wrote an article about Canadian-based Dome Petroleum’s occupation of Hans Island for a local newspaper in Greenland. A Danish publication instantly picked up the story and soon after, Denmark’s Minister for Greenland flew to Hans Island where he raised a Danish flag and left a bottle of Denmark’s finest schnapps. Since then, both countries have taken turn in more or less idiotic chest thumping activities. As it should have, it has inspired a steady flow of satire, including a website that, amongst other things, points out the similarity between Nazi Germany invading Denmark during WWII and Canada’s current occupation of the island. On the site, it reads:

The Canadian government has not denied the allegations that they plan to use Hans Island as a storage site for nuclear waste.

While this is actually true, Hans Island Liberation Front, another website, has to lie to get their point across, claiming that two inhabitants (both named Hans), live on the island and fight passionately for its independence.

All jokes aside, the Hans Island controversy is a joke.

Dreaming of Trudeau

Alan Bourassa — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 13:27:15 +0000

As much as I regard the likes of Glen Beck and Sarah Palin with the haughty condescension of an anthropologist studying the most bloodthirsty of cannibals, I cannot help but feel that the Palins and Becks of the world dwell in a region where there are political treasures to be won. They, in short, seem to have something that I — that we, as Canadians — could use: the talent to harness fantasy to political ends.
Earlier this summer I was reading a Gazette article about Micheal Ignatieff’s hapless LiberalExpress bus tour stopping in Justin Trudeau’s riding of Papineau in Montreal. The most astute observation in the article was that the cameras at the event seemed to show little interest in Ignatieff and seemed magnetically drawn to the young Mr. Trudeau. A few weeks later, in a conversation over beers, my friend Manish lamented the tenure of Stephen Harper and noted his cleverness in quietly and implacably making the small changes in policy that were gradually stripping away everything that was progressive and egalitarian in Canadian culture. “What has to happen?” he asked. And I offered the only answer that seemed true to me: “Justin Trudeau,” I said, “has to happen.” We are waiting for an event, and, in this case, the event has a proper name.
I want to believe that in politics the best argument wins, that sooner or later the truth will triumph over lies (yes, I’m the one who still holds on to this notion), as much as I want to follow Aristotle in the assertion that things that are right and true are easier to argue for than things that are not, this belief strikes me more and more as a kind of droopy, sad-sack philosophy that belongs to another era, to, in fact, an era that never really existed. Politics today is the politics of fantasy. Period. People are moved by images of truth, not by the ugly, poor and grinding truth itself. We are moved to great acts by great emotions, not great thoughts. We vibrate to the music of stirring narrative, and, as with all music, the issue of whether it is true or not is simply irrelevant. Our reason is, and always has been, ancillary to our dreams.
And rather than lament this odd twist in the human soul, let us embrace it, and with it the intriguing young Justin Trudeau. Time and distance have erased the gradual disenchantment we underwent with the elder Trudeau. We remember now his elegance, his turns of phrase (”Just watch me,” “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation”), his decisiveness. We remember a cosmopolitan perspective, an active and probing intellect, a talent for large thoughts and large metaphors. What remains of Pierre Trudeau is the image of a man whose sweeping style and personality made what is, in spite of its geography, a small country feel much larger. There was magic in Trudeau, a magic all too rare in Canadian politics. So much of this magic went to waste, but only because it did not have an historical moment great enough to conjure on.
How much of the previous paragraph is true? Some? All? None? What does it matter? If we are to be the people who bring home political treasures we will have to wrestle truths from fantasies.
What are the struggles, the very real and serious struggles for the future of Canada? To protect the environment? To maintain and rebuilt the institutions of equality and justice? To protect our economy from the predations of sociopathic money men? To harmonize a more and more diverse population? To ensure opportunity for the have-not provinces? To be a functioning national community in a more and more dysfunctional world? Yes, these and other challenges will confront us as a people, and in a world of enflamed passions, of racial mistrust, simmering resentments and violent despair, a managerial calm will not do. We face what is difficult and what is frightening, we prepare ourselves for the work of generations, not with the pale blandishments of reason, but with the passions of fantasy, with the image of a world so much better that we ache for it.
This passion is always embodied in a person, a leader. And the only man that history has prepared for this role in Canada is Justin Trudeau. We can hope that he has inherited a part of his father’s intellect, some of his talent for the theatrical, and a large dose of the arrogance that we loved in Trudeau however much we may have condemned it, as — polite Canadians — we were inevitably going to. What Justin Trudeau can bring to the political fray is the sense that a moribund liberal party has found, finally, its event. That after the attempts to create a new energy from the hearts of energyless men, after the maddening inability of the Liberal party to generate an image of the future that strikes us all as simply and convincingly good, there will be a figure, a voice, a face, that will attach the picture of our imagined beautiful future to a picture of our imagined beautiful past.
And this is the greatest power of political fantasy. The past is what it is, riddled, as always, with compromise, inertia, the pettiness of the everyday exercise of power. It may be incorrect, the burnished image we always offer up of this past. It may be factually inaccurate to see in Pierre Eliot Trudeau a leader of vision, a man of scope and reach. This, some might argue, is political fantasy at its worst. But the strange thing about such fantasy is that its worst is intimately bound up with its best. Perhaps fantasy cannot change the brute factual reality of the past, but it most certainly can change what will be the equally brute and inescapable reality of the future. If the image we possess of Pierre Trudeau is that of a man whose potential went largely unrealized, who had in reserve wisdom and decisiveness that, for a host of reasons, went unused, then why not see in his son the return to the scene of the very wisdom and energy we need today more than ever? If the son echoes the father, if — greatest of dreams — he strives to surpass the father, we should encourage and applaud such ambition. If he one day appears large to us, large with political purpose, large with hope, large in his expectations of us, then this power will become our truth, however much it may be couched in terms that are beautiful, poetic, dramatic, even fantastic.
Justin Trudeau’s moment is not yet here. He is still young, still flexing his political and intellectual muscle. I hope he will not fall victim to the modesty with which our culture seems sometimes cursed. He will assume leadership with a strong wind at his back, with an inheritance of political capital, with — most importantly — an aura of fragile but effective historical magic. He may not thank fate for having dropped him into this role, but we may still have reason to thank him if he assumes it will strength and purpose.

Interview with Mistress Envy, Sex trade worker

Giovanna Nicolo — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:29:58 +0000

A candid interview about a prostitute’s view on her path and of the overwhelming phenomenon of sex-trafficking in Canada.

GN: So you entered the sex trade at a very young age – you were 14 years old - what made you go down that path?

Mistress Envy: Um this girl I know she was dating this guy that was kind of like the ‘ring leader’ like he had these guys come into his apartment and there’d be some girls sitting around partying, doing coke and stuff, and there was this girl. So she showed me around to see how things operated – these girls they all had money and whatever they wanted – like shopping, weed, whatever. And I’m looking at it going hmmm, I can do the same thing too – I don’t need to depend on my family and get little handles here and there, that’s not cutting it , like my bed alone was 1200 – when I was a kid I couldn’t ask for 1200, my family would be like ‘what the fuck’? It’s easy money you know, like I don’t have to work 9-5, whatever.

GN: What do you mean by “I can do the same thing too.”

Mistress Envy: Give sex for money.

GN: Were you upset with your family for any reason – was that what lead you to do this?

Mistress Envy: I was upset for them not giving me what I needed basically. Like, I lived with my aunt and she had three other boys so she had to split her money between all of us so…I didn’t have EVERYTHING that I wanted, I had what I needed.

GN: So where were your real parents?

Mistress Envy: My mom married some guy and they moved to Detroit and my dad, I only met twice. He lives somewhere in Ontario.

GN: So your mom and her new husband didn’t want to have anything to do with you?

Mistress Envy: Yes, that’s right.

GN: So what was it like dealing with your first client?

Mistress Envy: It was kind of like a rush, like something new, like I’m the star of the moment, and this guy chose me – there’s all these other pretty girls there and he chose me. It felt like “I win”.

GN: Did you need to do drugs to give you the audacity to have sex with a complete stranger?

Mistress Envy: No I never got into drugs. Just a little here and there. But you shouldn’t get into dope in this business cuz all your money goes to getting more. My addiction is shoes.

GN: And I can tell by your authentic chanel bag! So this guy picked you in a room? Was it some sort of party?

Mistress Envy: It was a prostitution ring – it was all underground. All of us girls were like 13 or 14.

GN: Are there a lot of such underground prostitution rings around?

Mistres Envy: I know of this one place but yes, I’ve heard of a lot others around. People were saying like ‘oh be careful’ and in the back of my head I’m like be careful of what? If anything happens here, everyone’s gonna take care of me. If a fight breaks out, everyone is gonna take care of me. If there’d be any trouble there’s 10 girls that I know that will take care of me completely.

GN: So they became your new family – seeing as your real parents abandoned you.

Mistress Envy: Yes –they become like your own team.

GN: Generally, what kind of men make up your clientel?

Mistress Envy: Back then it was old dirty Arabs and all their friends. But when I got older I did a massage parlor. So then it was drunk people downtown like kids and stuff and then I went independent – it was more businessmen. I advertised in the states so it was American men – the exchange rate was better.

GN: Is that what you are doing here in Montreal?

Mistress Envy: I advertised here but I haven’t had any calls yet – I danced though. But I want to get back to the businessmen cuz if your dancing 11 hours a day at Wanda’s, I make a hundred dollars each day.

GN: Have you ever been mistreated?

Mistress Envy: One time I was robbed. I saw this guy through an agency I was with. They sent me 10 guys and I would have made 2500. So I’m like no problem, one at a time. And so they knock at the door, I open the door and they point a gun at me. They tell me to give them my money. And I still had to pay the escort agency I was with the fees that they had to pay cuz they didn’t believe me. So I got fired for being robbed. They don’t give a shit about you in this industry.

GN: So there is no protection for you against this kind of abuse?

GN: No. If you have a pimp, they’re supposed to take care of you but no one cares about you more than you. Like, they are not gonna go in the room if some guy is beating you. They’re just sitting in the car.

Mistress Envy: No one wants problems, the pimp is not gonna get out of the car and beat the guy. So it’s up to us to have our own protection. That’s why I don’t think that pepper spray is illegal cuz we should be able to use that for our own protection. What am I supposed to do? Your not supposed to have a knife, you’re not supposed to have pepper spray, what am I supposed to do? Most men can over-power me.

GN: I hear a lot of stories about the drugs, the wealthy businessmen and the escorts…tell me a bit about that.

Mistress Envy: A lot of rich businessmen do coke but I never touch that stuff – I mean I’ll do a line if I’m in a club or something but I have t control myself because I love it. If I let myself, I would be on it all the time.

But a lot of these businessmen are married – but they have the money and the power. Especially the doctors and pharmacists – they’re the worst cuz they have access to drugs.

GN: So there are these old school feminists that say that sex trade workers are degraded and exploited.They say that women do it out of desperation and not of their own free will. Others say it’s empowering – what are your thoughts on this?

Mistress Envy: Well firstly, I can’t say that we are all mistreated – everyone has their own story. Personally I don’t do drugs so it’s not about scrounging the money for the next hit. The girls who do drugs, they are the ones who get mistreated – they will accept little money and do whatever for the drugs. No one is making me do this so it’s my own free will.

GN: Do you feel a certain amount of power attached to it, do you feel power over some men?

Mistress Envy: Yes, cuz they want me and I have what they want. Some are really dumb, they’ll do anything I say especially if they are hooked on drugs- I honestly like the coke-heads best, they are better clients, they just keep throwing money around.

GN: What are the things that you love about the business?

Mistress Envy: Freedom, I can do what I want when I want. It’s not like a desk job where you have to do things over and over again – it would drive me crazy to do that.

GN: Do you think that you could do this for a long time?

Mistress Envy: No, not forever. I don’t think mentally I could do it cuz it takes a lot out of you. And the stress – some days you could make a lot of money and the next your broke. Cuz you couldn’t care about your bills or you had a shopping spree. It’s stressful but always a thrill. Especially when the guy comes and he has a Maserati and 5 grand in his pocket and he’s all coked up and doesn’t care about anything – that’s fun, you know? But it’s not always like that.

I give myself two years and then I’ll go back to school. At least I’ll have money in the bank and be stable and not have to worry about loans. I would have to finish high school since I dropped out.

From the age of 16 – 20, I dated a drug dealer so I didn’t have to do a thing. Lived in a beautiful house and everything was perfect so I didn’t think I needed school anymore cuz I had the world. Reality hit when I left him because of drugs – heroin and coke. SO I was like hmmm, what to do now? Escort!

GN: Does your family know that you do this?

Mistress Envy: My Grandma knows. I’m close to her since my mom and dad were never in my life…I had a mental breakdown and I felt like I had to tell her…I would ask her to hold like 10 grand and she would ask where the money came from. Her reaction was “at least she’s not hooked on drugs – at least she’s doing something.” My mom thinks I own an escort agency.

GN: So your mom accepted it?

Mistress Envy: She just gave me this sour look.

GN: What does your mom do?

Mistress Envy: Her and her husband own a heating company in the states. It’s bullshit work.

GN: They probably make some money though – Does she help you out?

Mistress Envy: My mom’s cheap. She doesn’t help me or my sister.

GN: Ok so I’m wondering, how do you see the average girl next door whose looking for love and marriage and eternal commitment and happiness? Do you that they have a naïve view of men?

Mistress Envy: Yeah, cuz this job, it basically made me hate men. Cuz a guy could be in the car with his wife and a car full of kids and he’ll still look at me like he wants to have sex with me, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. And these girls want to be with that? These family men cheat and treat them like shit and have lots of mistresses – like – what is that?

GN: What kind of man are we talking about here – lower middle class? Middle class? Wealthy?

Mistress Envy: All men. All. From 17 to 100, they are all dirty men. I don’t care what they preach.

GN: So you think most men cheat?

Mistress Envy: Yeah – cuz you know, everybody wants something a bit different or extra and if your not open in the bedroom, they will go looking somewhere else. And there’s so many ways to find it now, like the internet and sex clubs – they will find it. And some girls just have sex with strangers for fun and not even ask money – so they will find it. The girls who want the perfect life, they are the ones who are conservative in bed and don’t think outside the box (in bed). They are the ones who should be worried . I don’t want to be like that “oh my husband is cheating on me!”

GN: I was wondering if you knew about any immigrant sex trade workers who perhaps don’t speak French or English

Mistress Envy: I don’t know any personally but I do know what’s going on – there are ads on craigslist that offer 10 girls at once and alot don’t speak English. I’m like “You poor thing! Your just literally being raped” If they can’t speak the language they can’t sat “Stop” or “Help”. I feel so bad for them because they really are being exploited. You can actually buy an Asian girl for 10 000 dollars – what you do with

her is whatever you want, it’s crazy. People buy like 10 of them and put them in a room and the guys just go and f*ck them all day. And at dirt cheap prices. That’s why I left Toronto – there’s like a billion Asian girls at like 50 an hour (I’m 250 an hour) – I can’t compete with that. So I figured there’d be less Asian girls in Montreal – yeah right! Was I wrong. Sometimes I want to help these girls and call the police but I don’t want the Chinese mob or the Hell’s angels on my back.

GN: So they don’t do it for the same reasons?

No, they are illegals. I heard that once they get bought, they can buy themselves out for the same price (10 grand) but with interest. So make them work for years and years – wow, what a life. It’s kind f like memoirs of a geisha.

GN: So a pimp literally owns these girls?

Mistress Envy: Yes. And you have to buy your freedom. Yeah and there are some guys that won’t even give them that option. And they are made to do WHATEVER under the sun – it’s very unsafe. If you look on craigslist you’ll see a ton of listings for Asians. 99% of them don’t speak English or French. And it’s not a question of Asian preference – when they see how dirt cheap the price is, they just go. Why pay 200$ for a white girl when you can get an Asian for 50$ – and two of them for 50$! These girls are not helped when they are being abused. It’s really sad.

Word Play - Kids Are Amazing

Chris Aung-Thwin — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 20:03:51 +0000

As a youth soccer instructor in Montreal I am fortunate enough to witness everyday moments of perseverance, humanity, and acceptance from a very diverse, yet very homogenous group: Canadian children.

The soccer courses are offered from a community centre in the Plateau district – basically in the heart of Montreal. While we devote a great deal of time to drills aimed at improving basic soccer skills and athleticism, we also try to instill a sense of fair play, sportsmanship and cooperation.

But to be honest, cooperation seems to come pretty naturally to these kids, which is amazing (at least to an adult) because they come from such fundamentally different backgrounds. The children I’ve taught have spoken combinations of English, French, Hindi, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Greek, Spanish, Punjabi, Urdu, German – to only name a few. They’ve been Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Agnostic. Black, white and every shade in between. Some families have been here for generations, others are recent immigrants.

The kids (and their parents) interact in French, English, hand gestures and smiles. It’s a great community environment where everybody gets along. Everyone, especially the kids, are interested to learn about other cultural backgrounds and have such an easy time picking up new languages. Relationships and community are forged. It’s a strong mosaic that’s representative of who we are.

There’s never a language debate.

I’ve never seen racism on our field.

Provincial politicians like Pauline Marois and Pierre Curzi are putting politics where they don’t belong. They’ve both stated recently that the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens need more Francophones on their roster. Professional sports build a sense of community in cities and entertain hard working citizens. By thrusting politics into play, they’re not only creating societal divisions they’re adulterating an institution that can make people feel young again.

Sports – like my students intrinsically know – are fun. They’re happy with their teammates (as long as their teammates don’t push, grab or constantly emit a high pitch scream) because the game is fun.

Life too is fun – or can be – if you let it.

Kids are excited to learn, play, exercise. They’re great at meeting new people and finding similarities to build on – not differences to divide.

We build walls, they climb over them.

It’s time for our elected officials to learn something from our kids. No more us versus them. Less politics. More play.

I love French culture. It’s one of the reasons why Montreal is one of the happiest cities in the world. But it’s not the only reason. We have a vibrant and diverse culture here. I’m a proud Quebecer and a proud Montrealer. I’m proud of my roots which go deep in this country - and also stretch across the globe. My skin is not pure white and my father was not born on this soil - but I am Canadian.

Je suis Quebecois.

Perhaps us adults can spend less time playing politics and spend more time on the same team. Shared goals and cooperation. Ultimately, that’s what will unite us.

That, and our kids.