Searching for Dragons is a project about finding solitude and a vision or glimpse of what the present means and what the future holds fo North Americans (as a microcosm of humanity).
The transition from the laid-back Canadian North to the fast-paced megalopolis of Toronto provided the most pronounced smack of culture shock that I have ever experienced.
What were the things that blew my hair back at first?
1) Numbers: The sheer volume and diversity of people in the airports of Vancouver and Toronto. Before my eyes, the herds of our kind roaming the concourses, escalators, conveyor belts, and watering holes of the human landscape. It was a both a fantastic and a frightening spectical.
2) Smells: All the crazy artificial and man-made smells - that were not necessarily bad, but not good either - assulted my olfactory senses through my nostrils. All the colognes and perfumes, the carpets and paints, and the variety of foods provided a stark contrast to the scents that you find in a small city like Whitehorse. That's not to mention scents like the summer sun warming the foliage of a mountain side in Kluane National Park or the damp mustiness of spring the moss and muskeg on the tundra floor.
3) Air Quality: Flying into Toronto in the late evening, there was the usual haze that hangs over almost any city in the dog-days of summer. What suprised me was that as the plane entered Toronto's air space, my sinuses almost immediately clogged up and I got a clump of phlegm in my throat (which I still have as I write this outside Montreal). As you may know, the body produces mucus to trap various kinds of airborn toxins before they enter the corps of the body. Long story short: the air in Toronto is not so good.
4) Motor Vehicles: Did you know that Tornoto has a shit load of cars and trucks in it?! Crazy. Enough said.
5) Gas: Gas in the south is pretty cheap compared to up north - as much as 20 or 30 cents cheaper. And, though I might have come at a particularly volitile time, the first gas station that I pulled into at 11pm, had a pretty big line up of cars - scrambling for a low cost fill-up. Never saw a gas price war or line up at the pumps in the north.
6) Things to do about town: Open up a paper in Toronto and there is a LOT going on. It really was amazing to just look at all the plays, bands, art shows, restaurants available to residents of the city.
7) The Eyes: I don't know if it's fear or shiness, but people don't meet your eyes in the big city, or at least, very few. If you catch someones eye, they almost immediately look away, or give a bit of a menacing look to make you shift your gaze. Can't look someone in they eye? Why? Somethin' to hide?
8) Stuff: there is so much STUFF in the city. Store shelves chalked full of whatever you could ever want or need - and a lot of things that you would think people couldn't ever possibly want or need, but they still do.
As I write this list, it strikes me how UNimpressive the items are; but, each was something that at some point gave me pause or made me gawk. Though, I've saved the most shocking thing for last: it only took me about two days to adjust to the differences. I hope that's a good thing.
The transition from the laid-back Canadian North to the fast-paced megalopolis of Toronto provided the most pronounced smack of culture shock that I have ever experienced.
What were the things that blew my hair back at first?
1) Numbers: The sheer volume and diversity of people in the airports of Vancouver and Toronto. Before my eyes, the herds of our kind roaming the concourses, escalators, conveyor belts, and watering holes of the human landscape. It was a both a fantastic and a frightening spectical.
2) Smells: All the crazy artificial and man-made smells - that were not necessarily bad, but not good either - assulted my olfactory senses through my nostrils. All the colognes and perfumes, the carpets and paints, and the variety of foods provided a stark contrast to the scents that you find in a small city like Whitehorse. That's not to mention scents like the summer sun warming the foliage of a mountain side in Kluane National Park or the damp mustiness of spring the moss and muskeg on the tundra floor.
3) Air Quality: Flying into Toronto in the late evening, there was the usual haze that hangs over almost any city in the dog-days of summer. What suprised me was that as the plane entered Toronto's air space, my sinuses almost immediately clogged up and I got a clump of phlegm in my throat (which I still have as I write this outside Montreal). As you may know, the body produces mucus to trap various kinds of airborn toxins before they enter the corps of the body. Long story short: the air in Toronto is not so good.
4) Motor Vehicles: Did you know that Tornoto has a shit load of cars and trucks in it?! Crazy. Enough said.
5) Gas: Gas in the south is pretty cheap compared to up north - as much as 20 or 30 cents cheaper. And, though I might have come at a particularly volitile time, the first gas station that I pulled into at 11pm, had a pretty big line up of cars - scrambling for a low cost fill-up. Never saw a gas price war or line up at the pumps in the north.
6) Things to do about town: Open up a paper in Toronto and there is a LOT going on. It really was amazing to just look at all the plays, bands, art shows, restaurants available to residents of the city.
7) The Eyes: I don't know if it's fear or shiness, but people don't meet your eyes in the big city, or at least, very few. If you catch someones eye, they almost immediately look away, or give a bit of a menacing look to make you shift your gaze. Can't look someone in they eye? Why? Somethin' to hide?
8) Stuff: there is so much STUFF in the city. Store shelves chalked full of whatever you could ever want or need - and a lot of things that you would think people couldn't ever possibly want or need, but they still do.
As I write this list, it strikes me how UNimpressive the items are; but, each was something that at some point gave me pause or made me gawk. Though, I've saved the most shocking thing for last: it only took me about two days to adjust to the differences. I hope that's a good thing.
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