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Rainfire -> RE: North vs. South (6/16/2009 6:10:21 AM)
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[sm=dunno.gif]
I've always seen more of the East/West mentality rather than the North/South, unless you want to count the battle to get rid of Southern California as part of California. *chuckles*
I was born in California, raised in Idaho, went to school in Victoria, Australia (definitely South there!) and stayed in California for 14 years when I got back, before going to spend 12 years in Idaho. So I'm a Westerner, like Steven. Having visited the East Coast and having friends here, not to mention now living in Canada, I learned that there is a totally different mindset and view on many things. It drives me batty when people talk about how absolutely far away driving 15-20 minutes is and yet in Idaho, we drove 3 hours just to go visit friends for a few hours. "I'm just going to pop up the road to visit so and so" meant an hour's drive each way. When I visited New York in 2001, I used to automatically say hello to people and wave and smile (it's what we did in my small town). Did that ever freak people out! One lady came up to me and started screaming "what do you want? Why did you do that? What do you want?!?" in the middle of a local coffee place. I just looked at her and said "nothing, just being friendly." and she got the most confused look on her face and walked away with her mouthing gaping like a fish on the riverbank.
Now family wise, I'm a mixed bag, having family from the hills of southern Missouri but also southern New York. On both sides, we're a bunch of redneck, country-bumpkins and hillbillies. My ex never believed me until he went to my grandfather's funeral and saw for himself. He shut up after that. (City guy from California, y'know.)
But now that I'm in Ontario, Canada, the big thing I see is about Quebec. There's "us" and then there's "THEM - in Quebec". Part of that is attitude, part of it is the continuing effort of the province to leave the country and become their own country. Most of the provinces are so large that it doesn't define much, unless you're in one of the small Eastern Maritime provinces like Prince Edward Island. It's more cultural in who's French-Canadian and who's English-Canadian.
Eh, it gets interesting at times but in the end, it's great to be here. It's like anywhere else, it has it's own personality and flavour. I like it. [:)]
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