Prologue (in English)

It all started when I suddenly thought of my great-grand-mother and wondered why she, as a Quebecker, would always be called Mary instead of Marie. Was she English? American? Was she brought up in the United States? I asked my mother, who asked the eldest members of our family but nobody knew. Then I said to myself: "Do I really need to find one drop of English blood in my veins to justify my keen interest in the English part of my cultural heritage, as a Canadian from Quebec?"

I hope not, but my doubts about that only highlight how difficult it may be for the Quebecois to come to terms with this heritage and enjoy it without any guilt, not to mention that a crime of lese-majesty such as this can get you insults from some fanatic Quebecois nationalists who still resent anyone with an English name or daring to speak the language of Shakespeare for things that happened generations ago...

I've started to ponder what it means to be North American, Canadian, French Canadian or Quebecois when I left Canada to immigrate in France, four years ago. Today, I live in Paris but spend a lot of time - actually, up to a couple of weeks a month - in London as well, which leads me to write a blog to share observations I made about the strange people that we, Quebecois, take after so much but differ from just as much: the French and the English. In that context, I like to use the Eurostar as a physical and symbolic hyphen between both founding cultures.

But first of all, I should make sure you know that I am not an anthropologist. I am not making any claims about the accuracy of my observations, and politics is not my cup of tea, really, even though speaking French in North America in the 21st century can be regarded as a political statement as such. However and hopefully, through this blog I'll meet other people who celebrate la différence whilst enjoying the homo quebecus' underestimated and politically incorrect - because so often disregarded - Englishness.

Welcome to my blog!