Toronto the Good

Let me tell you how great Toronto is. The more I travel around the world, the better Toronto looks. The other day in Buenos Aires I was really shocked when the cab driver leaned over and locked Sylvia’s door. The same thing happened to me the week before in Lima where I was looking through my pictures in the front seat of the cab and the cabbie told me to put the camera away because we were going through a bad part of town. My landlady in Costa Rica always yells at me because I refuse to put the bar in place after I lock the glass patio doors. She insists I will lose this computer one day, even though the patio is literally ten feet off the ground and any thief would need a ladder to climb up to it.

I really can’t think of any place in Toronto I would be afraid to travel, night or day. I know Jane and Finch has a bad reputation but teaching at York I was in that area all the time without a problem. I can’t imagine any tourist book saying not to go to a particular area of Toronto because it was dangerous but here it happens all the time. Whenever I want to go to a particular museum or point of interest someone in South America is always telling me it is in a dangerous part of town or you have to pass through a dangerous part of town to get there. There is a cemetery in Lima, apparently, very similar to Recoleta and when I asked what the best time to visit was I was told that it was in an ‘ugly’ part of town. Which parts of Toronto are ugly? I know, I know, it is all ugly but is there one area uglier than most?

In Asia, I can’t remember being told all the time not to go to a particular area because it was dangerous. This was because I did not speak the languages very well or there aren’t any areas where you take your life in your hands or maybe I just forget, but certainly in South American I hear the phrase ‘peligroso’ or dangerous all of the time, no matter what country I am in.

Another great thing about Toronto is we are all treated equally. In Thailand, for example, there is a published price for ‘foreigners’ and a published price for natives. The discrimination is clear. No attempt at hiding it. In South and Central America try to negotiate for a cab ride or a new car. When you do it as a foreigner you get one price. Just try to get an indigenous friend to ask for the same service and you will see what a price difference there is. There seems to be an acceptance that if you are a foreigner you just owe them! On the other hand, being a foreigner is a double edged sword, especially in Asia with its’ colonial mentality. If you are old, white, and have grey hair, and continue to speak only English, you are treated like a god. If you are old, white and a woman, you are not quite a god, but certainly treated better than the native population. If you are white, you get points but if you are in any dark in any of the countries I have visited, you are treated ‘differently’ read second class. That is why Thai woman cover up in 90 degree heat. They do not want to get dark. That is the stigma of the underclass. The same is true in South America where it is also known to be hot.

Talking about women, I know Toronto women have a long way to go in terms of equity or even equality, but compared to the rest of the world, women are singing. In the countries I have visited women are just expected to serve their brothers, husbands and fathers yet do not even have the same burial rights. If you do not have boys, you will not even have anyone to pray for you in places like Vietnam. In Toronto, in my opinion, women can be accepted as womanly and yet still be respected in courts, business circles and places like education. South American woman and Asian women cannot make the same claim from my observation. We must be at least fifty years ahead in this regard.

Man, what am I thinking. I was just about to post without even mentioning the infrastructure where everything works, where you are infuriated if the plumber or electrician can't come the same day, where the roads are a pleasure to drive on, where the schools actually work and don't need security procedures that would put the airports to shame. Wow, unbelievable.And I won't even bother to talk about cleanliness or quality of food or merhandise or service.

Wow, Toronto the good doesn’t sound so bad from afar!