Talking About Canada at our English School

in Liketu5 months ago (edited)


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Last Saturday evening the English language school where I teach part time was holding a "Canada" evening for interested students. Teachers and former teachers were invited to join the audience to support the event.

The event was hosted by the boss and senior teacher, and the talk was given by a family from Canada who are visiting Hiroshima for a few days.

I've never been to Canada but when we were asked what we knew about the country, the first thing that popped into most people's heads was "maple syrup," but for me, as a Brit, the first thing I thought of was, General James Wolfe's heroic death at the Heights of Abraham.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wolfe

The presentation was enlivened by the Canadian family's nine year old son who added extra insights of his own to his father's talk, and did so in fluent Japanese as well as in English for the benefit of the Japanese audience.

There was a multiple-choice quiz after the talk and I scored 12/20 and second prize - a Canada fridge magnet! (That's what I'm getting in the third photo, above.)

One question that I got right simply by deduction was this:

Which children's story is connected to Canada?

A. Snow White
B. Jack and the Beanstalk
C. Rupunzel
D. Winnie-the-Pooh

I took "Canada" to mean the independent nation, and since A, B, and C, are all much older European fairy tales, I chose "D," Winnie the Pooh, even though I did not know what the connection could be seeing as the story is English, and Disneyland, that appropriated the story, is American.

It turns out that Winnie-the-Pooh was named after a bear called Winnie that Christopher Robin (the son of the author) saw at London Zoo. The bear had been brought to England by a Canadian soldier during the First World War. He named the bear Winnie after his home town of Winnipeg. There is a photo of the soldier and his bear on this Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh

After the event, the teachers and the Canadian family celebrated the success of the event at a nearby restaurant (photo).

The boss has already mentioned that she wants me to do a similar presentation about Great Britain. I suggested that separate presentations on each of the four nations of the U.K. might work better.

Cheers!

David Hurley
#InspiredFocus


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the first thing that popped into most people's heads was "maple syrup,"

I love Maple syrup and I tap many Maple trees on our property. This goes back before the Brits arrived to the New World. We Acadians shared and learned a lot from each other 100+ years before the French Indian War when the British Empire and its colonies expanded their assimilation. !LOLZ

Maple syrup from Canada is well known in Japan. On Saturday we learnt that it is tapped from maple trees by drilling into them. Do you "drill" your trees, and if so, what kind of drill do you use? Maple syrup is really too sweet for my taste, but I was interested to learn about various uses of it in cooking, such as maple salmon.
!BBH
!ALIVE

I use a hand drill with 1/2" bit.

hand_drill.png

The hole is at a slight angle and a spout is tapped into the hole.

maple_spout.png

And the sap bucket is hung from the spout.

sap_bucket.png

Once you collect your sap you boil off most of the water. It takes 40 litres of sap to one litre of syrup. As per sweetness, that depends on the boiling temperature and what you choose to make.

My girlfriend left me because of my obsession with storytelling.
I wonder how the next chapter in my life will go.

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