While I am not technically Canadian, Canandian-ness has rubbed off on me — much like Catholocism — due to my heritage and my close proximity to Canada during my formative years. This quote from Christopher Moore’s Fluke may explain some of my desire to be perceived as “nice.”
Nate had been born and raised in British Columbia, and Canadians hate, above all things, to offend. It was part of the national consciousness. “Be polite” was an unwritten, unspoken rule, but ingrained into the psyche of an entire country. (Of course, as with any rule, there were exceptions: parts of Quebec, where people maintained the “dismissive to the point of confrontation, with subsequent surrender” mind-set of the French; and hockey, in which any Canadian may, with impunity, slam, pummel, elbow, smack, punch, body-check and beat the shit out of, with sticks, any other human being, punctuated by profanities, name-calling, questioning parentage, and accusations of bestiality, usually - coincidentally - in French.)
If you aren’t reading Christopher Moore yet, you really should get on that.
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