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.
Lucky Americans! I never had the privilege to fight with a “lunch” monitor! Check this out too:
I was really surprised to read about this alleged intolerance. I’ve always heard that Canadians are really nice, with the lone exception that some of them eat babies.
LMAO…
The link for #1.
This is blatant racism, even though the dumb Canucks should know you can’t trust those stab happy Filipino’s with knives. 😉
Err i came from the Phil. I still prefer to eat with spoon and fork even though i work in the US. Whats the deal here? There arent too many better things to do in Canada?
As a Canadian (from Ontario), I can honestly say that this would never be an issue in any other province except Quebec. They’re probably affraid that this boy’s eating habits will cause a cultural shift and threaten the very existance of french culture in North America.
P.s.
Habs Suck! Go Sens!
Danijel, that school is amazing!
“Unauthorized area”: Ok going to the ladies room instead of the men’s room (or vice versa)? Being in the bathroom at all without permission?
“Inappropiate Literature”: Ok so you decided to bring Penthouse for your bathroom breaks. Now the principal can read it on his breaks!
Ok now those administrative actions: I’m going to assume this is/was a public school? If it is, so you don’t go to detention, because your parents argued the first amendment, what can they do suspend you to another school? Expell you? As far as I know, the only people who can do any of those is the school district board and are they really going to punish a student under those circumstances?
Canada has been very critical about the US being intolerable. We in the US at least do not force people to eat a certain way.
#9 read #7, that’s the truth.
That being said I frequently see advertising that shows people eating like starved camels. For all the talk we here about getting sex off TV etc. do we ever hear about that? I could handle seeing sex while I’m eating but seeing some people eat is nothing short of repugnant
I live in Montreal, and would like to say that all cultures are treated equally here. This incident is probably blown completely out of proportion. This should not be a case of Canada-bashing, if you’re looking for someone to hate, make it the crazy lunch monitor who did that in the first place.
Funny, I live in Montreal and didn’t ear of this story. Small story, anyways, a tempest in a teacup.
I don’t think this is showing our lack of openeness to other cultures by any ways. We had, some months ago a ruling by Supreme Court, giving the right for Sikh boys to carry their ‘religious knife’, Kripan, to school. Most people in the province of Quebec don’t give a damn about it. By the time other people’s freedom does not encroach upon our own freedom, everybody just care about their own business.
I believe the principal of this school is no even racist, just narrow minded. And this kind of people exists everywhere, in USA as well as in the rest of canada!
#7, Stop talking ignorant. If you know anything about Quebec and Montreal for that matter, you’d know that the West Island of Montreal has a very large anglophone community. So we’re most likely talking about an English-speaking school where this happened. And even if it isn’t, this has nothing to do with French culture or French people in Quebec. You sound almost as stupid as the people who reprimanded this kid for eating with a spoon instead of a knife. At this school they’re probably still forcing left-handed kids to write with their right hand (kidding). Obviously this was just a random case of extreme ignorance and shouldn’t speak for the behavior of the whole community, let alone the province (and probably not even the school itself, incompetent administrators, yes). #7, Your generilization, and even this article’s generalization is just the type of attitude that leads to situations as described here. I grew up in Montreal, and our reputation for tolerance of many cultures is well deserved. No society is perfect, but at least in Montreal we are trying much harder than lesser metropolises. And really, at the end of the day, tolerance is just tolerance, and really shouldn’t be some monumental achievement. We shouldn’t congratulate ourselves too much when we are “tolerant,” because it is something that we should be as human beings in the first place.
the kid was told he *ate like a pig*…..if that isn’t French I’ll eat my shoe(with a knife and fork).
Of course this isn’t the whole country, just an idiot with a bit of authority over a child. Very much like the idiots who do dumb things here.
Besides, Bush did it!!!!
“Practically everyone in Canada, specifically the second and third generations are immigrants, so we are sympathetic to the values and culture of immigrants,” Sutherland told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Food fight infuriates Filipinos at home and abroad
Gee, this guy must have failed English. I was born in Canada. My paternal Grandfather was born in the US and maternal grandparents were born in England. I guess that makes me 2nd generation Canadian. I am, however, not a Canadian immigrant, I am a native born Canadian. My siblings still living in Canada are also native born Canadians. They are not immigrants any more then the Amerindians whose forefathers emigrated to North America several thousand years ago.
I am, though, considered an immigrant here in the US. But, that is another story. And I don’t think the principal is representative of Canadian acceptance or tolerance of other cultures. And if you think eating with a fork and spoon might be messy, watch someone using chopsticks !!!
“at least in Montreal we are trying much harder than lesser metropolises.”
Ah yez zee lehsour metropoleses, zay ahr all peeg dogz.
The thing is the Philippines has become a dominant source for imported man power and the natives of the countries they go to are not open to their presence. Governments should beware that if they want to preserve the ethnicity and culture of their countries, they should stop importing labor and do things themselves. If they’ve read their Bibles, this is what happened to Egypt in the time of Moses. The Hebrew nation’s prolific growth in Egypt had forced the pharaos to rule by force to intimidate the Jews into submission. This same thing will be repeated through the browning of America and Canada as they allow Filipinos to make a beeline into their countries.
Have you ever seen Filipinos eat? I doubt it was the use of the spoon that bothered them so much more likely that he would stuff his face full of rice and then talk with food in there, then find some more space in his mouth for food by forcing it in and then spit out the bits that were inedable. Not that they leave much behind.
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. And when you are trying to eat and someone has three plates of food in front of them and are eating of every signle one of them at the same time with food flying out of there mouths, dribbling & talking I can see that this monitor and priciple have a point.
What if the Canadian principal (or even the lunch monitor) went to Heaven, saw different souls in different race, and eating in different table manners? Will he tell his guardian angel to start escorting him to Hell?
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By eating with fork and spoon?
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So, his parents were not able to teach him how to eat properly. Now the school did it. This is racist and intolerant?
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.