The Fugitive Goes Whale-Watching

I visited Tadoussac on Sunday with a bunch of other people from language school. Tadoussac is a little town in Quebec where the Saguenay meets the St. Lawrence. It's about 800 km from the ocean, but the ocean's tide comes all the way over to Tadoussac, bringing with it salt water and whales. The picture here is of two humpback whales.

In other news, last Friday we had our "Soirée Québecoise" at the school. We were all supposed to dress up in traditional Québecois clothing and we did a bunch of traditional dances and had some competitions. I didn't put a lot of effort into my costume, so on Friday afternoon I went to find a shirt to wear. I had the addresses and hours for two second-hand clothing stores on the same road. I arrived at the first one before it was supposed to close, but there was a big "Fermé" (Closed) sign on the door. But the sign with the store's hours said it should still be open. I decided to try the door just in case someone had just forgotten to change the "Fermé" sign that day. It was unlocked, but as soon as I opened it I heard a long beeping noise. Now I know a lot of stores have a beeping thing to tell the employees when someone enters the store, but this wasn't just a short beep, and I couldn't see any signs of life in the store. I didn't go in the store; I just closed the door. Soon, I could hear faint siren-like alarm sounds through the closed door. So I left and went to the other clothing store.

My fingerprints got left on the door handle, but I don't have a criminal record, so the police won't know who I am. But I didn't take anything or even enter the store, so even if they could track me down, I should be okay.

My host claims that most people in Chicoutimi do lock their doors, and they definitely don't intentionally set an alarm while leaving the door unlocked. So I guess an employee must have forgotten to lock the door.

I've posted more photos (including photos of the Soirée Québecoise) on my photo site in the Quebec 2006 album.

Christianity in Chicoutimi (or The Strangest Grape Juice I've Ever Tasted)

Here in Quebec, on several occcasions I've heard people say, "Because the Catholic Church was so restrictive in the old days, people weren't allowed to _______________." For example, when we were learning Quebecois dances, we were told that a certain dance that we learned was banned by the Church because it involved changing partners. The church was also pretty strict about how women dressed. (I think their dresses had to go right down to their feet.) The church couldn't control the government, but they did have a lot of power over everybody's daily life in Quebec.

Eventually things changed and now Quebec is one of the most secular parts of North America. A lot of people have some nominal attachment to the Catholic Church, but there don't seem to be a whole lot of committed Christians here. I get the impression that the super-restrictive Christianity of the past eventually pushed people away.

But Christianity doesn't have to be that way. From what I've seen, filling Christianity with extra restrictions that are only very loosely based on the Bible seems to help people obey the "do not" rules in the Bible, but not the "do" rules, especially, "Love your neighbour as yourself," and, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength," which happen to be the two most important commands in the Bible.

But enough preaching. I've been to mass at the Catholic cathedral here twice. It was far from full, but there was reasonably good turnout. I couldn't understand it very well, but what few things I could understand seemed consistent with Christianity the way I see it, and they don't seem to be trying to control people's lives the way they used to.

This past Sunday I went to a Protestant church with some of the other students. There are only two or three Protestant churches in Chicoutimi. Somebody said this one seems to be a Brethren church. It was different from what I'm used to. The chairs were arranged facing the centre instead of the front. Most of the women (but not all of them) wore some sort of covering on their heads, but aside from that, people were dressed pretty normally. During the service, people would sit quietly for a short time, then someone would get up and say something, pray, or get the church singing a song. (A couple of the songs were familiar, but in French.) And eventually, somebody preached a sermon, and they served communion. This was probably the first time I've ever had communion with wine. (Seems like most Protestant churches use grape juice, just like Jesus would have if he'd been an early-21st century Protestant.) I understood the church service better than at the Catholic church, but it was still tough. I think I picked up on something about Jesus having victory over death, and the sermon had something to do with Proverbs 15:1, which says (in English), "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." So it seemed to be a pretty good church, and the people seemed friendly (although I unfortunately spent more time talking with my classmates than with the other people).

Meanwhile, at the university, I'm not the only Christian in this program. There are some others in my class and in other classes. A few of them are here because they want to be missionaries in French-speaking parts of Africa. I've gone to church with a few of them each week, and last week several of us got together to pray. On Sunday a bunch of us went to the church that I already told you about. They seem to be eager to make a difference in the lives of the people in this program. As for making a difference in the city in general, sometimes I wonder how much difference we can make in Chicoutimi when we don't speak French very well and we're only here for five weeks. But God's strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9), so who knows?

The other side of the coin

I've seen the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail several times, and of course one of my favourite scenes is the one with the French soldier talking with the knights (or "k-nig-its", as he liked to call them) with his rediculous French accent. Now I've seen the other side of the coin.

Here's how it happened. Yesterday, in our weekly class on Québecois culture, we watched the movie Asterix in Britain, a French animated movie from 1986. (Asterix is apparently quite popular in Quebec even though these cartoons don't come from Quebec.) The movie was in French, and the British characters in the movie were hilarious. The movie didn't have any subtitles, so the British characters all spoke French, but with silly-sounding British accents. (Which makes me wonder how silly my accent sounds to everyone in Quebec.) The main British guy loved to start his sentences with, "Je dit..." which is French for "I say..." Maybe it's not quite as funny as Monty Python, but it's the most entertaining French movie I've seen yet. (And of course I understood the French-speaking British people with the bad accents far better than any of the French people in the movie.) Another funny thing in the movie: It showed the British Parliament and Big Ben made completely out of wood. Even though the clocks were replaced with sundials, it still had that hourly chime. Another scene in the movie showed a sundial making a ticking sound.

French music

I have an hour free right now. I could be doing homework or studying, but I decided to write today's second blog entry instead.

I got my very first French CD a while back. It's by a band called MesAïeux. It's kind of a neo-traditional band. Their song Dégénerations seems to be fairly popular here, at least with the students in this program. You can watch the video at http://mesaieux.qc.ca/intro.php?lang=anglais. When you go to that page, click on Multimedias, then click on Videos, and then click on the second video screen that you see. For some weird reason, the video is split into three parts, so you'll need to click on the ">>" button when the video stops abruptly.

In case you're wondering what the song is about, it's about some of the ways society has changed over the generations. Here's a rough translation of one verse (with some help from world.altavista.com and a dictionary):

Your great-great-grandmother, she had fourteen children
Your great-grandmother had almost as many
And worse your grandmother had three and that was enough
Worse your mother did not want any; you were an accident
And worse you, my little girl, you change partners all the time
When you make mistakes, you have an abortion
But there are mornings, you wake up crying
When you dream at night of being surrounded by children

So yeah, it has interesting lyrics. Hope you enjoy it.

(Note: It turns out I made a mistake in Translation. See the August 9, 2006 posting entitled "Bad Translation" for a correction.)

Cathedral pics

And now the moment you've all been waiting for (or at least the moment Grace has been waiting for), a picture of the cathedral:
As usual, I've posted more pictures (including some of the inside of the cathedral) at my photo site in the "Quebec 2006" album.

And so begins my third week here. A while ago my hosts told me that for most people things really start to click in the third week. They start thinking and dreaming in French, and understanding French becomes easier. As for me, my French keeps improving, but it's still really hard to understand people who don't dumb down their French, and I really have to concentrate to understand dumbed-down French consistently. I haven't had any French dreams, but then I've only had one English dream that I can remember. But I've improved a lot, and it's less than half over.

Back from the capital

I'm back from a trip to Quebec City. We were only there for one night, but it was good. Last night I saw some street performers in Old Québec and visited an Irish pub where they had some live celtic music. I heard a few familiar songs like "Irish Eyes are Smiling" and "Farewell to Nova Scotia." Most of the songs were in English, but a few were in French. And they played this one really fast instrumental song. The fiddler's hand was a blur! He was an amazing player.

Today I got to visit the Québec Citadel, the Plains of Abraham, and the Parliament, and I fell in a wading pool. One big difference between Québec and Edmonton is that when you visit a historic site in Québec, you think, "Wow, there was a big battle here!" but when you visit a historic site in Edmonton you think, "Wow, people traded fur here!"

Here's a picture of the Citadel's regimental goat and the goatkeeper:

As always, I've posted more pics in the "Québec 2006" album at my photo site (use the link on the right side of the page).

Ironic event of the week: Someone else in the same program as me told me that Chicoutimi doesn't have enough organic food stores. The funny part: I'm pretty sure I've seen her smoking.

A few pics

This is me with my housemate Joey. He's a medical resident in Montréal, where it's pretty easy to get by with just English, but he wants to speak French well too.


Here we see a couple of buildings by the Saguenay River in Chicoutimi.


And this is a grizzly bear at the Zoo Sauvage in St-Felicien.

Check out these and more photos by clicking on "My photos" on the right-hand side of the main page, and then click on the "Quebec 2006" album. All the wildlife photos (so far) were taken at the zoo.