It's been hard to get onto blogger because of the censorship, and even harder to upload photos...but I'm going to keep up with posting the best I can here...

Every time I travel, I am reminded again of how young Canada is as a country, how new everything still is, and how little opportunity we have to learn enough languages! I understand that we are brought up with French right from the get go, but with such little opportunity to use it, most of English speaking Canada cannot put together more than a few sentences with their high school French.

I have been having a great time meeting and presenting to clients from all over the world: England, Finland, Poland...and then today I attended an out-of-town conference held by an organization in Belgium, also attended by a formidable group of people from all over Europe. The keynote speaker was European of origin, addressed everyone in English, then proceeded to speak clear, fluent Mandarin. Afterwards, I went to comment on how impressed I was with his speech, and learned he was fluent in 8 languages, all of which he could also read and write. He was a diplomat who had spent 8 years in China and was next moving to France, after having lived all over other parts of Europe. Several of his colleagues also spoke upwards of 3 languages. Now, feeling severely incompetent with my spoken Cantonese, minimal understanding of Mandarin and a general understanding of written French, it gave me just the kick I needed to want to brush up on my language skills. It also makes me feel that we as North Americans just don't get the exposure to the romance languages the way several Europeans do. Or other dialects of languages the way China, or say India has. I have come to understand that every Chinese province speaks a different dialect, akin to speaking another language. Meeting other internationals has made me feel underexposed and unworldly. But it also gives me something to work towards, in this 'tip-of-the-iceberg'-esque experience...

One more comment. Being in a country other than my own has really made me feel more Canadian if that's possible. When you are at home you don't really constantly proclaim your nationality...but when you are abroad, it is the identity that you live by. And often so many things you did not realize was unique to your country, province and city, suddenly become extremely apparent. As a final note, happy belated Canada day!