January 27, 2007 Archives
There's the issue of "accomodement raisonnable" or "reasonable arrangement" raging over here in Quebec, punctuated with surveys of inflammatory properties, and just yesterday, small-town Quebec adding their voices to the debate. I still think that talking about it is a good thing, rather than bottling up, and then exploding with all the damage that compressed rage and misunderstanding may cause.
The small town of Herouxville near Trois-Rivieres published a document for immigrants that state a few too obvious rules such as "stoning of women is forbidden in Herouxville", and sent it to politicians at the provincial and federal level. I don't know if it's a publicity stunt, or whether the people realized what they said. It seems to me that it is motivated by ignorance, putting all immigrants of certain origins in the same basket, or that it is shock method employed by marginalized people (rural Quebecers) to provoke a harder, more clear-cut stance on societal norms than "accommodements raisonnables".
After watching Pan's Labyrinth (an excellent fairytale for grown-ups), we went to this party of a friend's friend, thrown in a nondescript old building at 10 Pine Avenue W, in what seemed to be either a building for small businesses (some Chinese newspaper I've never heard of before on the ground floor), NGOs, and perhaps shady activities. It was apparently someone's flat (or loft), but noone there really knew, as they'd just be holding these get-togethers once in a while. We were charged a cover of 5$, which probably helped pay the rent for the whole month. Weren't more than 50 at a time, but a lot of people just came and went.
It turned out to be organized by some Japanese expats, and more than half the guests were/looked like they were Japanese, and the other half, declared or implied Japanophiles. The first DJ (one of the host's friends) played more of that normal dance pop, and was saying how he didn't want to venture too much into his J-music collection for the sake of the many locals present. Of course, I didn't believe that, and hinted him to play some from it anyways. Eventually, Chara (MILK) and Yuki (Joy) (in a party!) was played, along with what the DJ described as children music. And it was a first time hearing J-music, and especially with noone reacting strangely. The second DJ (another one of the host's friends) played some electro that was hard and abstract the way we like.