Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: That's Inappropriate!

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  • Kyle Matthews,

    So you have to carry something in order to prove you dont have to carry it?

    Exactly. Poor guy was probably just following procedure Dyan.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    I think that traditionally USAians just carried driver’s licenses during jaunts into Canada/Mexico (no longer true) – which is one reason so few of them ever have passports

    Unlike the rest of the world the US has no international transit facilities, so if you stop over while traveling from Mexico to Canada that means entering the US even if you're just getting back on the same flight

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic,

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Jacqui Dunn,

    some PAS esoteric wording that everyone but me would know, like y'know, "roflnui" or something

    Google is your friend..

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Jacqui Dunn, in reply to Sacha,

    Google is your friend..

    Yay! :))

    Deepest, darkest Avondale… • Since Jul 2010 • 585 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • dyan campbell,

    He demanded a passport - something a Canadian didn't need travelling through the USA or Mexico.

    Wouldn't your passport be the way you prove you are Canadian?

    As a Canadian traveling between Mexico and Canada I didn't need a passport to travel anywhere in North America. A Canadian would no more be carrying their passport in those circumstances than they would be carrying their tax documentation. Nowadays that would be different, I'm sure.

    auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 595 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart,

    Nowadays that would be different, I’m sure.

    As an international student living not too awfully far from the Canadian border, I've been advised to carry all my immigration documentation if I venture within a hundred miles of the border, literally - which doesn't involve going very far from where I live at all, maybe an hour's drive - because roving Immigration agents patrol up to a hundred miles into American territory, and if you take a Saturday morning drive into Vermont to see the leaves sans documents, you could spend a long and uncomfortable weekend in detention before everyone arrives back at work on Monday and the university can confirm your legal status.

    They just go out of their way to make you feel welcome here, don't you agree?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Lucy Stewart,

    they know everyone hates their freedom :)

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    back when I had a green card I was legally required to carry it on me at all times - even when swimming at a nude beach - be careful when you handle those things you never know where they've been

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • dyan campbell,

    As an international student living not too awfully far from the Canadian border, I’ve been advised to carry all my immigration documentation if I venture within a hundred miles of the border, literally

    How times change… the era I was describing (1985) was many years before security was observed domestically (as North Americans traveling within North America were classified) so you no more needed documentation – not even any form of ID – than if you were going to the store for a quart of milk. Even on an international flight, you just turned up with your bags a few minutes before departure, and ran like hell for the gate.

    But no, the guy who asked for my passport was not following protocol at all. Protocol dictated that as a Canadian, he nod and smile pleasantly as he waved me through, while examining the passports of non North Americans on the flight, presumably. The ones staying in LA probably. I made that trip all the time, my sister Shirl had a house down there at the time. He was just being pissy by saying “with a face like that” meaning I could pass for South American, sneaking into North America. Or something. It pissed me off anyway, as it was said on the basis of me not being blonde and blue eyed, and as he was up for making the challenge, then I was up for a response, which was a bigger challenge. Which always worked well, based on what I was wearing. Especially if it included an expensive watch.

    As for a teacher or any school having any opinion on any form of dress any student is wearing – well, I’m appalled, but I grew up in a place where you had absolute freedom on that score. I can remember in elementary school the fight being won for girls to wear jeans as boys already did, and my sister telling me in their day little girls weren’t allowed to wear pants to school at all, and had to wear weird fabric tubes that matched their winter coats, and had little belts, like on pants or skirts, at the top. They were called “leggings” but as my sister was 11 years my senior – in childhood that seems like a lot – it was no more of my time than my Dad’s childhood outfits and haircuts, so much like Christopher Robin’s.

    In the 60s and 70s it was all feminism and Ms Magazine, everyone was wearing kaftans and dropping acid. Canada’s Prime Minister, for instance. How people dressed was purely their own business, and any 14 year old kid – male or female – would have found any pronouncement on their anatomy, its visibility, and what effect that bare flesh has and upon whom – quite perverty and outrageous. Maybe peoples parents minded, but in a school setting or anywhere in public? It’s outrageous. I would have found it so in the 1970s and I find it so now.

    Maybe that weird attitude towards women here is why once, at a party here, a guy actually reached out and grabbed one of my breasts and said “OOOrrr, that Paul, he’s a lucky man” and then had the gall to be offended when I dislodged his hand with a windmill movement, intended to startle, if not injure. My Mum’s generation – in Canada – would have been perfectly justified in slapping him as hard as possible across the face. I had a hunch if I’d tried that the boofhead would have punched me back, harder, and he was probably 75kg or more to my 50kg. But for a moment I did wish I was big enough to deck him.

    The problem is not with women or girls displaying flesh. If girls want to display flesh, they can. We can help keep them safer, just by teaching them not to accept treatment or comments that are designed to intimidate or denigrate them. We need to teach them phrases like “How dare you speak to me that way?” and “Fuck off, you disgusting old Humbert” or “Fuck off or I’ll scream”. That’s what needs to be said, depending on who is making what comment. Then girls – and boys – can dress however they like. And as Rod Stewart once sang, ’My Dad said we looked ridiculous, but boy we broke some hearts.”

    The most offended I ever was, even more offended than when some drunk boof head grabbed my breast, was when some old German dude in Canada asked me if I was a boy or a girl.

    I was about 16 and if dressed in baggy hand-me-down shearling jacket from my brother and with my hair worn short and curly under a suede cap or a beret (especially the Newsboy cap) I was often taken for a boy. Which I didn’t mind at all, it was sort of the point but being actually asked what my sex was, a propos of nothing at all, really, really offended me. I said “It depends. Which would you be less likely to ask out on a date?”

    auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 595 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart, in reply to dyan campbell,

    How times change… the era I was describing (1985) was many years before security was observed domestically (as North Americans traveling within North America were classified)

    Dude, that was before I was born. Before I was conceived, even. Clearly doesn’t count ;)

    Maybe that weird attitude towards women here is why once, at a party here, a guy actually reached out and grabbed one of my breasts and said “OOOrrr, that Paul, he’s a lucky man” and then had the gall to be offended when I dislodged his hand with a windmill movement, intended to startle, if not injure

    Or maybe that guy was just an asshole? Because this is seriously not acceptable behaviour in any circles I have ever been in, ever.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • dyan campbell,

    Or maybe that guy was just an asshole? Because this is seriously not acceptable behaviour in any circles I have ever been in, ever.

    Well clearly he was an asshole, but in a culture where flesh has always been visible, by early middle age (as he was in) a guy would have learned to keep his thoughts to himself, much less his hands. He would have been slapped by women, punched by men trying to be gallant so many times by his 30s that he would have long since grown out of that kind of behaviour.

    My sister in law tells of traveling in Italy in the 1970s - in the day of very brief halter tops - and some guy grabbed her breast at a train station. Sandy may have looked little, busty and incredibly cute, but she was a karate buff, and she casually broke the guy's nose, and sauntered off to catch her train, leaving him clutching his bloody nose and wailing. Canadians are not nearly as docile as anyone thinks, if you grab their breasts.

    auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 595 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    Or maybe that guy was just an asshole?

    Yeah, I... don't think we can blame his behaviour, as we usually do, on Not Being Canadian. ;)

    They just go out of their way to make you feel welcome here, don’t you agree?

    They're now even crackers with the supposedly welcome-to-stay folks, I note, because when we went to get the wee fella his US passport at the Auckland consulate last month, the chap behind the desk told us that we should carry not only our passports, but also our Social Security cards with us at all times while travelling, because they were requiring actual proof of your Social Security Number for various things. (I never even had a Social Security Number until I was in my 20s, but our son had to apply for one with his passport.) It's all quite wacky.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • dyan campbell,

    Yeah, I… don’t think we can blame his behaviour, as we usually do, on Not Being Canadian. ;)

    No, we don't blame it on him Not Being Canadian, we blame it on his not being accustomed to Canadian culture. Canada has just as many assholes, perverts and racists as New Zealand. The difference is that in Canada they are afraid and shifty instead of proud and boorish.

    He would have been slapped by women, punched by men trying to be gallant so many times by his 30s that he would have long since grown out of that kind of behaviour.

    auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 595 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle, in reply to dyan campbell,

    I'm teasing you, dyan.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Danielle,

    damn southerners :)

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    Southerners RULE! (ok Sach'?)
    O, along with grandmothers of course tsk tsk how could I forget abject forelock tug-
    o bugger havent got any- but grovel anyway....okaaaay?

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Islander,

    southerners

    different country

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Megan Wegan, in reply to Sacha,

    Sitting, as I am, in a small town in the South Island, where the weather is beautiful, and I've just eaten quite a lot of bbqed food...I'd just like to say...HEY.

    Welly • Since Jul 2008 • 1275 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    accustomed to Canadian culture

    Mounties spanking lumberjacks, saying 'Don't do it again, Pierre,'
    Pictures of rotten teeth as health warnings on maple syrup packaging.
    I love a good stereotype, please don't anyone spoil it for me.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Megan Wegan,

    like I say, different country. I'm sure Danielle knew what I was saying

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Islander, in reply to Sacha,

    Really?
    My understanding was that ALL Southerners were idiosyncratic?
    Didnt matter which hemisphere...

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Islander, in reply to Islander,

    Now - there's a flaw : if I try the 'Reply' button, if seems to get me back to my last post.

    As I am sure you're aware ,Sacha, Danielle has deep (Colac Bay) Southern ANZroots - as well as those other ones-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

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