One early May morning while waiting for a public bus at Derry Road chilled by a gentle breeze of 8 degrees Celsius, the thought hit me like a Sigma Rho paddle. Why my second country is “cool” so cool than Philippines My Philippines, the country of my birth. Men, macho men may not compare past with present girl friends or present wife with past wives but naughty me, wannabe analytic me always compare places and people where lucky me had been or became part of them like being : a Fil-Canadian or a Pinoy-Canuck only by force and effect of citizenship laws.
The cool morning winds made me compare Canada with the Philippines and their peoples: natives, immigrants and whatever. The sum total of daily weather for a year is CLIMATE and I dare say climate defined its people, evolved its culture and influenced the character of generations. For their climate Philippines is lucky but Canada is luckier, may be even the luckiest to have such climate. So also are the thankful and grateful Canadians.
Philippines’ climate is highly predictable, dependably constant two seasons: wet and dry and wet and dry all year round. Punctuated by destructive typhoons and drought which set back the economic struggle of the previous year. Pinoys are people of only two seasons: rainy and sunny 365 days, 366 days during leap years.
Canadians, este Canada is different. Its four seasons of Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer DEFINE its people, make them different, better and content than many others in other parts of the globe. If the equator is closest to the sun to suffer its searing heat, Canadian summers can be so hot that heat stroke warnings are issued by the government.
Canadian winters can be so cold it’s like being in the North Pole or the South Pole. Minus 20 to minus 50 degrees is not unheard of in the western and northern part of Canada during severe winters. I have heard of Indian Summers, but not of Indian Winters. This climate of extreme hot and freezing weather toughens a people who are born, live and grow old and die more than it will do for people whose home climate is likened to biblical paradise like most parts of the Philippines. Living in Paradise is not environmentally toughening as living in Canada. The garments of the Katutubo of Mountain Province, the slopes of Mt. Pinatubo or the Sierra Madre of Nueva Ecija compared with the garments of the First Nations will spell out the difference.
Most important Canada has Spring and Autumn, two distinct interregnum and transition seasons to hot summer and freezing winter. Which can be surmised factors to have added quality to the character of every Canadian. It is something harder for a people to be on their toes to be happy and content four times a year just as it is probably easier to do and be that only twice a year. Indolence and contentment as against industry and achievement might be conjectured as climatic effects on a people’s culture.
WILL THERE BE WW III, A NUCLEAR WAR ?
That was the topic I left unfinished in my previous Ngaw-Ngaw. Here’s the second installment. There will be no WWIII, If I believe what I just read. Dennis Rodman, the former Chicago Bull said his friend Kim Jung un does not like and will not bomb people. North Korea only have bombs to defend itself and urged other nations to respect signed treaties. Therefore if recent utterances of verbal combatants Trump and Kim Jung isn’t bull but truthful, there will be no WWIII.
But the dynamics continues, the bigger issues and leader’s egos make the situation still dangerous for mankind. Last time I wrote and conjectured on TWO contributory factors: (1) the changed that happened to political correctness and (2) the small scale war going on in some countries as tinder boxes which could explode into WWIII. Here’s more to continue:
THREE – the changed process and content of INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: Well, the opposing view is not yet, but SUBTLE CHANGES could be happening in broad daylight within the context of narrow definition. If the process is diplomacy and the content is permanent national interest as simplified definition of international relations, recent events then should suggest something of interest to opinion writers or bloggers.
Lately from newsbreaks from around the world, can we infer from actuations of world leaders that their country’s ambassadors may have been lowered to the stature of liaison officers and their embassies mere outposts not unlike the desert outposts of the French Foreign Legion? This example is minuscule but America for generations will not forget the recent blow to its greatness. What happened to American public servants in its Benghasi outpost will be indelible to international relations history for a long long time. Have the Americans forgotten the hostage taking in their Teheran outpost during the watch of President James Carter?
FOUR — the unheard high pitch noise of war: Can it be said that the high pitch noise of war can only be heard by the dogs of war? The Group of Eight (G8) and the Group of Twenty (G20) are still there waiting in the wings ready to perform their noble (or is it ignored?) role as UN’s double to make the world stay in even keel. But on matters of world peace and security, the new US President Donald J. Trump may have introduced if not imposed an initiative for world peace or its conflagration. President Trump was talking ONE ON ONE to country’s leaders with clout and influence . It remains to be seen if he will talk to the newly elected leaders of the Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte and France President Emanuel Macron who could be more peaceniks than war freaks. Still anything disastrous can happen.****
