Alien Thoughts

from Faraway Toronto

Toronto, a typical Northamerican city to many, on the surface does seem to share some common something or other with George Town. For starters, the British left both cities with some enduring legacies. Going downtown, one comes across familiar street names like Church Street, King Street, Queen Street, College Avenue and the like. And, much like George Town, some of the older buildings and churches still affect gothic and European (ang mo lau) structures. And, like George Town, modern monstrosities downtown now dwarf such classic structures such as the old city council building.  There's no CN tower in George Town, but Komtar's 60 storeys provide a good match.

But the commonality swiftly dissipates as one delves deeper into comparisons.

Toronto today epitomizes the saner version of Northamerican citydom in many respects – efficient public transport, shopping malls interspersed with a myriad of restaurants, cafes and coffee places, inner-city glitz and extensive entertainment complimented by sprawling suburbs.

Like a typical Northamerican city, it has its professional ice hockey, basketball, baseball and football teams. Its denizens celebrate their sport stars passionately, demonstrating an unstinting loyalty to their "Maple Leafs", "Raptors",  "Blue Jays" and "Argonauts". Tens of thousands of sports fans pack the stadiums weekly, paying hundreds of dollars to root for their home teams.

Toronto also has a slew of summer events, including its jazz, arts and fringe theatre festivals, concerts, et cetera, drawing a regular local clientele and tourists. Year-round musicals and plays by well-known performing artists are regular features of city life. Toronto also has a subscriber-supported 24-hour FM jazz radio station, quite unique for any part of the world. Behind these happenings, needless to say, are a plethora of voluntary groups and professional communities. The city government no doubt also chips in funds and facilities to make such events possible.
 

By comparison George Town pales in insignificance. Our inner-city has become rather dead  in recent years and entertainment and social events seem to have migrated to the cloistered confines of five-star hotels. The liveliest places tend to be where the tourist bucks circulate such as in the Batu Ferringhi area. Even going to the cinema has become a thing of the past, given the ubiquity of VCDs.  To amuse themselves outside the home, Georgetowners wander mindlessly around shopping malls, the likes to Komtar and Prangin Mall. No theatre, musical or cultural events, or, for that matter, sports, can seem to draw a crowd these days.

Then there is Chinatown in Toronto. In years past, the term ‘chinatown' would straightaway connote ‘ethnic oddity', an ethnic enclave tucked away in some corner of the city. Perhaps it was something of that sort in the past but, in my view, the times have changed. Chinatown in Toronto is becoming more than just an attraction of the city. Kensington market and its environs at Spadina Avenue form a veritable hub for the organic outgrowth of Chinese culture, cuisine and lifestyle. Needless to say, one can purchase anything from jade to durians and the area bustles with activity till the wee hours of the night. Indeed, Chinatown itself is now curiously  "multicultural" with cuisine representing Vietnamese, Laotian and more standard Cantonese and Sechuan fare.

Torontonians do get the best of many worlds and cultures. Bloor Street, on the west side of Yonge Street, with is sidewalk cafes and bohemian shops also incorporates a small Koreantown, complete with Korean financial institutions! This marvelously long street also stretches east and houses Greektown, when the same street becomes Danforth Avenue, and way out east, a friend introduced me to a restaurant, run by a Singapore couple, serving home-cooked fare. A thriving "Little India " emerges on a parallel street and at the Donlands subway stop on Danforth, one finds the Madinah Masjid.
 

Talking about the subway ("The Rocket" as it is affectionately called), this is definitely a "plus" on the Toronto side. The Rocket connects with all major downtown areas and with tramcars, which run through the heart of the city, making it super convenient to move around anywhere downtown. It also connects commuters to the major suburbs and where it doesn't go, such as in far-flung municipalities of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), the "Go" trains take you. Reading Ganesh Rasagam's excellent article in The Penang File (Issue 17, 2001) on the deterioration of public transportation in George Town confirms my gravest suspicions that in our not-so-fair city, nothing will get better until they get really, really, really bad!

But to return to Torontonians, for all their cultural diversity, they are also quintessentially Northamerican -- in their speech, behaviour, lifestyle and overall demeanour, demonstrating a closer affinity to the US than to Britain. Yet Toronto's multiculturalism is distinctively Canadian and more than evident today. Besides the British and French, migrants by the mid eighties included Italians, Germans, Dutch, Chinese, Carribeans, Portuguese, South Asian, Jews, Polish, Ukranians, Greeks and Balkan communities in that order of significance. The melding of these cultures in some sort of overarching Torontonian character while true could of course be exaggerated. To put it differently, the Torontonian is also quintessentially multicultural in his or her demeanor and lifestyle and being in Toronto affords just that opportunity to be so.

Perusing Torontonian Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of  a Lion also gives one a good sense of what the early cultural communities of Torontonian society were like and what it must have taken to fashion the ‘Canadian' character that marked subsequent generations. Depicting superbly the life of Macedonians and other communities who came in the early 20th Century as construction workers and road builders, Ondjaatje describes a scene where these migrants who spoke not a word of English would learnt it by watching movies at the local cinema repeatedly. By the umpteenth occasion, the whole audience would be able to mimic by rote the whole dialogue – which they did loudly and in unison!  Now we also know how Canadians picked up their American accent!
 

Ondaatje, himself of Sri Lankan genealogy, seems to suggest that Torontonian society is as diverse as they come. Moreover, his subtext seems to celebrate the manner the cultural communities of Toronto (and by extension Canadian society) have melded into a citizenry that is able simultaneously to maintain its diversity.  It's not an easy formula to apply and practise and for I one would not assume that Torontonian society does not also have its fair share of racial bigots and unsavory forms of ethnic discrimination, be it overt or subtle. For example, the September 11 event did spark minor ugly reactions here such as destruction of property (a Hindu temple!)  and the desecration of vehicles owned by Muslims.

In my view, George Town's historical multiculturalism has similarly melded a diversity of ethnicities and cultures and produced the unique ‘Penang' character. And our ethnic diversity remains stable despite incidents of ethnic strife in the past. What George Town fails to garner, and what Toronto appears to have, is the ‘social capital' that the vast majority of its denizens accord to it, as I have hinted at earlier on.  Social capital – the social glue that holds a society intact and keeps it flourishing – comes from the willingness of members of a society to spare their effort, time and energy (not just money) to maintain and enhance things of value to that society.

As I gaze afar this year at George Town, from my vantage point here, and as I read the many problems highlighted in The Penang File's  ‘Concerns' column, I'm reluctantly drawn to the conclusion that this social capital is still sorely lacking in George Town, worse, the trend is downhill not uphill.#
 

Johan Saravanamuttu
Toronto

Professor Johan Saravanamuttu,  who retired recently from USM, went visiting to Toronto where his wife is a visiting professor of ASEAN studies at University of Toronto, his son, a first year music student at York University, and daugther savouring Torontonian multicultural schooling in grade six. He teaches and writes in his spare time.

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