[BRIEF NOTE] Winter's Onset

It hadn't begun to snow when I got on the Queen Street West streetcar, heading east, at 6:30. It had certainly begun by a quarter to nine, when I accompanied a coworker down to a trash compactor with some surplus magazines and newspapers by a loading dock, receiving doors wide open to reveal the white fluffy snow descending constantly and quietly on the streets and houses above.

It looks nice.

[BRIEF NOTE] The Decline of the Country Culture

One thing that my travelling companions and I noticed in Stouffville on Saturday was that the country fair is not now if it ever was representative of any kind of Ontarian rural culture. The GO train's northern terminus can be found in Stouffville, which seems to have been firmly assimilated into a basically Torontonian/suburban mindset. In several sociology classes that I took at UPEI under Dr. Satadal Dasgupta, the phenomenon of "cultural urbanization" was explored at greater length. Suffice it to say that throughout Canada--and I suspect the First and Second Worlds, and (I further predict) in the Third World within a generation or two after its initial massive rural-to-urban migration--the assimilation of rural areas to urban cultural norms is universal.

I, for one, heartily approve of this. My parents very consciously broke with rural culture on Prince Edward Island, moving from the vicinity of Souris in the rural far east of Prince Edward Island to the local equivalent of suburbia, taking care to limit their contact with agriculture to the maintenance of rather nice flower and vegetable gardens along with the lawn, finding work in the higher-end segment service sector of the Island economy. They broke with rural life, and substantially with rural culture, because they found it unrewarding and stultifying. At most, they read a David Weale book--some title that's an overly-glowing recounting of "them times," before the Island began to modernize--once in a while.

Yes, traditional rural cultures fit the Weberian definition of gemeineschaft quite nicely. That's probably why people try to break them down so often.

[BRIEF NOTE] Immigrant Integration Through Sport

Radio Free Europe has an interesting series of articles about the aussiedler, ethnically German immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Veyzel Oecsan notes at Migration Information that since the Second World War, the immigration of ethnic Germans from central and eastern Europe to the Federal Republic of Germany has been a major element in German demography.

Large numbers of ethnic Germans lived in Eastern Europe and the territories of the former Soviet Union until World War II. Subsequent expulsions, discrimination, and deteriorating economic conditions led huge numbers to emigrate. Between 1950 and 1987, about 1.4 million ethnic Germans and their dependents came to Germany under special provisions. The flow increased dramatically as the Iron Curtain fell into tatters starting in the late 1980s, removing more barriers from their path. This immigration peaked in 1990, when nearly 400,000 Aussiedler immigrated to their ancestral homeland.

The total number of Aussiedler who have "returned" since 1987 is about three million. Over the years, this flow has shifted from Aussiedler born in Eastern European states such as Poland and Romania to those born in former territories of the Soviet Union, such as Kazakhstan. Since 1993, more than 90 percent of the total Aussiedler immigration has come from the territories of the former Soviet Union.

So far, Radio Free Europe's series on the most recent influx of aussiedler, often including only a minority of ethnic Germans (relatives by blood and marriage can also come) and with few fluent speakers of German in their number, has two segments online (1, 2). The second segment is particularly interesting to me, inasmuch as it details how sport is a key route for the young aussiedler as they integrate.

Wotilow is a professional boxer from the Altay, just north of the Kazakh border. He has the characteristic broken nose and is built like a rock. In the training room, the awards won by his "kids" stand in rows on a shelf and a billboard is covered with certificates, awards, and newspaper clippings. Wotilow is proud of his "kids." He says they turned a handicap into an asset: "Maybe the Russians are more motivated to win.... A German child has a computer. He has toys. But the Russians just arrived -- they don't have any of that.... So [the Russian] will try to pull himself out of this [situation]. He'll try to find himself a warm place in the sun, and [knows] that no one will give it to him -- he has to go and get it himself.... And the Germans, they don't have that motivation. They already have it all."

Natalya Kalinowski, with delicate features and long black hair, is Wotilow's pride. Just two years after making the difficult move from Kazakhstan, the 17-year-old has become the junior world flyweight champion in kickboxing. And her sister Yelena is now Berlin champion.

Natalya says that sports helped boost their self-confidence during a difficult transition after their arrival. As they did not know any German, the girls were put in classes with younger kids. They say contact with German classmates is still difficult: "They're all about 15-years-old in our class, and our relations are bad. When they see that we're successful in sports, and at school, that we do better than them, their attitude towards us is [unfriendly]...I don't know why but we just can't make it work. We have more contacts with the Turks, with the 'auslaender' ["foreigners" in German]. We have better relations with them."

I'm reminded, here, of the way in which Irish, Jews, and most recently African-Americans in the United States have sought to achieve upwards mobility through participation in sports. The parallel is evocative.

[POLL] Language learning

English is my native language; my knowledge French, I acquired through late French immersion on Prince Edward Island. I think I'm bilingual, or at least that I'm functionally bilingual. The presence of frighteningly multilingual people like eternityfan and senhor on my livejournal friends list, though, and in my life generally speaking, have made me realize that two languages aren't enough. I need at least another one.

So, a poll.

[Poll #398665]

This is a purely indicative poll. I won't act on the results immediately. Still, feedback is appreciated.
E-mail me if you can't vote in this poll, for whatever reason.