We have mass demonstrations about illegal immigration. Up in Canada, where things generally seem more civilized, they are awash in the vile soup of controversy I shall call, SpoonGate.
Food fight infuriates Filipinos at home and abroad
Montreal school officials are being decried as racist and intolerant after allegedly punishing a Filipino-Canadian boy for eating his lunch with a fork and spoon rather than a knife and fork.
The story first made headlines in Canada last month, but in recent days it has garnered renewed attention globally, even sparking pro-knife-and-spoon protests in the Philippines.
The boy, seven-year-old Luc Cagadoc, was allegedly reprimanded and made to eat at a table by himself after a lunch monitor at his elementary school on Montreal’s West Island noticed his table etiquette.
His mother, Maria Theresa Gallardo, claims her son had been reprimanded on numerous prior occasions for his culinary habits, which she said are typical to their country.
“It is not acceptable that just because the principal has never seen somebody eat with a spoon and fork at the same time, the eating technique should be called unintelligent,” the commission stated.
“Cagadoc is no longer just any child with immigrant parents. He is any Canadian’s child, who could significantly contribute to the development of Canada,” the commission said.
I have worked with many different races in my time. It defintely isn’t a class thing or educated against uneducated. Some countries just don’t have table manners.
Comment by Benson — 5/6/2006 @ 9:06 pm
Coming from a citizen of a country where they show a 300 pound man eat slabs of food out of the body of a 300 pound woman on Jerry Springer is just laughable. Americans stuff so much food in their mouths-the proof is in your fat asses!
Americans lecturing the world on table manners…it’s like an Indian telling me I got smelly armpits! It don’t mean sh*t! Hahaha!
#17, OMG!! You can’t be serious. Aside from your post being total flame-bait, it is also racist (“the browning of America and Canada,” WTF!), congratulations for being so ignorant. “Governments should beware that if they want to preserve the ethnicity and culture of their countries…” So what do you advocate? Shut down the borders and/or only let people with “white/light” skin in? Sorry, but change is an unstoppable force, as much as you’d probably wish it wasn’t. Cultures and so-called ethnicities will continue to evolve no matter what you choose to believe. Oh yeah, and a lot has happened in human history since the bible was written, oh, some 2000 odd years ago. You should read up on it sometime.
They shoud be trying to assimilate kids. Shouldn’t schools be trying to maintain a Canadian culture?
17. “This same thing will be repeated through the browning of America and Canada as they allow Filipinos to make a beeline into their countries.”
The thing is, North America was “whitened” buy yous Europeans. It was “darkened” a bit when you invited them Africans to be your slaves. Us Filipinos are just “browning” it back to the original color of Native Americans.
#17 – Is it just Filipinos that causes the browning of your race?
#18 – Oh, so every Filipinos are all equal just because youve seen some dude with no table manners, grow up. Is it a culture. We ate our foods with our hands, thats our culture, we ate with spoon and fork, thats our culture, whats wrong with that? Some of us talk while eating, same goes with other nationalities, we are in the 21st century and still your racist mind exists.
“Americans lecturing the world on table manners…it’s like an Indian telling me I got smelly armpits! It don’t mean sh*t! Hahaha!”
Comment by French-but not Canandian — 5/7/2006 @ 6:50 am
I am British, lived in the middle east on and off for 20 years, far east for 4 years. Worked most of my working life alongside Filipinos on container ships. Now working in the oil fields with Indians & Filipinos.
I wasn’t lecturing on table manners, I was pointing out that in my opinion the Filiponos don’t have any and this was the reason the kid was brought up, not the spoon, the fact he eats like a pig.
I was definately told of, clipped round the ear by teacher or parent when I was a kid for not using the correct manners at the table. Someone has just brought the fact of the spoon in for some reason as the source of the problem but I don’t belive that was the original problem.
@Benson – come on… I have some British friends and some of them smells funny, so that means ALL BRITISH are SMELLY!
Oh, great. Now the Philippine vice-president is riding this.
Again Benson, saying that Filipinos have no table manners because you’ve “worked” with some of them is generalising your judgment making you a racist.
All races have different kinds of people – people who have manners and people who don’t. In fact, I’ve worked with a very smelly Brit. If I’m gonna follow your line of thinking then I guess I’ll generalise that all Brits don’t shower.
Haha, Jantox, same experience with Brits as me.
>> Mike Novick Shouldn’t schools be trying to maintain a Canadian culture?
But WHICH Canadian culture? Probably you mean WHITE Canadian culture which is why this thing keep coming back to racism.
I visit Western Canada and hang out with Canadians for weeks on end. Some are whites and, yes, they usually hold their silverware a little different than most white Americans do.
But I also hang out alot with other Candadians — born and raised — who don’t use silverware at all. They use chopsticks.
Is one Canadian culture valid and one not?
But, ultimately, this is just another STUPID TEACHER story.
Luc Cagadoc did not need “reprimanding.”
If the administrators really feel like they need to enforce white Canadian culture, they could have done so without making him feel like crap.
#23 The Philippines is the third largest human resource exporter to the Americas after the Mexicans and Italians. If that does not brown America, the offsprings will. I am not resisting this change. Simply stating it as a fact of life.
# 25 Slavery was not invented by white guys. Egyptians did it way back in Bible times.
I do not mind that America will turn brown or Asian-looking some day. Only pointing out that if at the fringes of labour related news items, are stories of this resistance happening. America will become brown one way or another and that’s the way it’s gonna be.
Racism, however, was not part of slave economies when they were an “advancement” over hunter-gatherer economies. It was only when White Guys tried to maintain slavery as a backwards [albeit profitable] economic system competing with mercantile capitalism — that racism was introduced into the politics of it all. To justify it.
Too bad the politics are still left over.
@Benson – come on… I have some British friends and some of them smells funny, so that means ALL BRITISH are SMELLY!
Comment by jantox — 5/7/2006 @ 11:54 pm
Give them a bar of soap.
I like to think I am not racist but that is for you to decide. I am working in an office of mostly Asians. That is arabs, Pakistanis, Indians and of course Flipflops! Sorry no offence.
What I mean is that I doubt the reall reason for the ticking off was for using a spoon. I think it would be more likely that the prefect, monitor or what ever raised the point that he was eating like a pig at the same time using his spoon. I don’t say that all Filipinos eat like pigs, but the ones I have known have. There is a slight diference in the levels of education but still the educated ones can still put you off your food if you were to eat with them.
#35
People are not abased by their manner of eating. Whether you eat with a spoon or with your fingers does not improve your humanity. Eating is simply mastication and intake of raw materials necessary for the production of energy. But alas, it is what proceeds from the mouths of a person that affects his personality. Stephen Hawking might eat less elegantly than all of you, but that does not change the quality of his conversation. The sad thing is that you simpletons are overly concerned about matters for simpletons, what is the value of education if it does not elevate your mind?
Benson,
Just because you are British does not mean your manners are compatible to other countries in the world. When you are in Japan
if they do not hear you slurp your soup, the soup is probably not good.
When you are stating your belief do not generalize it. That is a sign of
someone who does not understand the world and it’s people. Britain
is not a dominant country anymore. Wake-up!