Are We Quebecers Really So Rude?

[hawthorne]

I spent a week in Montreal in 1998, and due to my stupidity I have data.

I was there for a conference. I stayed at the (French speaking) UCaM. The important bits: it was three days before the Americans I knew arrived; and I didn’t know there was an English speaking and a French speaking bit of Montreal.

I’m Australian, and even though Australians hear the Pomgolian in my speech, others don’t. I have almost no French - I understand a little, but I can hardly talk at all. The first few days in Montreal, I opened conversations in shops the same way I have in Vietnam, India, Holland, France, Germany, Tonga, the Phillipines etc: in carefully pronounced, Australian-accented English, slightly apologetic I-only-really-speak-this-language-embarassing-but-there-you-go smile on face.

In Montreal, everyone was charming (except the beggars - well fed self-righteous beggars in a first world country get my goat). Even when I just wanted to watch the World Cup soccer in what turned out to be a gay bar. I had a great time. Nobody mentioned the language thing and nobody told me that there was an English-speaking part of town (where, as it turned out, the streets were clean and the food was shite).

Then everyone else I knew at the conference arrived, and I went around the traps with my mate from Detroit (and others). He speaks fairly good French (it’s his third-best language), but it’s with a US accent. We got sneered at. Daggers were looked on the street. We got told to fuck off by passers-by. I think we got spat at at the music festival. (I mean, holy fuck, I just wanted to see whether the Alan Parsons Project really still existed…) Totally different feeling. The first Montreal I liked. The second was rather ugly.

Really quite interesting.

[Giles]

I’ve visited Montreal twice (the second time with my wife and oldest son), and Quebec City once (with my wife). I learned French at high school, and tried to use French as much as possible, though I know my accent isn’t very good, and I have great difficulty following a conversation in French. We found everyone friendly. One thing about the French-speakers is that they like to follow certain rules of politeness: you say “Bon jour” when entering a shop and “Bonne journee” when leaving, where English speaking salespeople would normally just say nothing (e.g., when it’s obvious that you are just looking around and don’t need help). English-speakers who don’t obey these norms of politeness might find that the French-speakers get a little chilly in response.

My best story is the taxi-driver that we got a Quebec City airport: he had great trouble understanding my French at first, but it turned out that he was originally from the US, so we got on just fine in our first language, English.

[kushiel]

I feel a bit of resentment for Quebec for the same reason that I feel a bit of resentment towards Ontario and the Maritimes - the East acts like the Prairies are a backwards hick place that doesn’t deserve any regard, that we’re just simple-minded farmers. It is the same thing I feel living in Prince Albert as opposed to Regina, because people in Regina think we are all backwoods uncivilized hicks. Most people here are, but there are some of us striving for a more metropolitan life.

[What_Exit]

Could the Quebec Rudeness be either the perceived French are rude or maybe the New York City is rude stereotypes in actions?

I know lots of people consider New Yorkers rude. New Yorkers aren’t rude per se they tend to be Brisk, especially if you are use to a more leisurely mode of talking and doing things like the proto-typical Southerner. I find NYC refreshing for the fact that transactions are fast, questions are to the point and the Bagels are the best.
I find the fact that people in West Virginia like to strike up conversation with a total stranger to be wonderful. When the 2 meet, the following often happens. NY guy, “What is up with this bumpkin”. West Virginian, “God I can’t believe how rude Yorkers are, but at least they have the best Bagels.”

I am planning to visit Canada as a tourist next year or the following.
I need to be ready in case Jeb Bush is our next POTUS.

Jim

[Hello_Again]

I grew up in NYC. So I think I’m about as rude as is average there – and I agree with the other poster who said it is more of a businesslike brusqueness overall – New Yorkers will often show great concern for strangers who are having real honest to goodness problems. I have had some odd experiences with the Quebecois though.

For example, I spent a week skiing at Tremblant with a friend. Every other place I have ever skiied – including the New England, California, and the Canadian Rockies – if someone fell, and you were behind them, you stopped and asked them if they were okay, and maybe handed them their dropped ski poles or something. At Tremblant, if I asked a fallen skiier if they were okay (in English and then in French), they stared at me as if I had three heads. Then they would scurry away as if I wanted something from them. It obviously wasn’t considered normal. And if I fell, no one would stop and lend a hand, other than passing Ski Patrol. I’d often end up popping off my skis and climbing uphill to get dropped items.

Overall the people we met at the resort and on the way were helpful and polite. But there was some kind of vast cultural difference at work on the slopes.

[Rodgers01]

Slight highjack: anyone interested in learning more about Quebec should check out the book Sacre Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec. It can be a bit too unsentimental at times, but it was a good introduction to the province.

And City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and 50s is a great look at the city in one of its classic periods.

[Antigen]

@Rodgers01

Then again, he spoke English without an accent, so I’m not sure if he was a native Quebecer.

Well, I’m accentless and I was born and raised here in Montreal… so you can’t always judge by accent.

[Hamish]

I’ve lived in this city 10 years now, and I really don’t think it’s half as rude as Toronto down the 401, though it’s less touchy-feely than Vancouver (the only two other big cities I can compare it to).

I suspect it’s just a stereotype of French in general, though as Dr. Paprika pointed out:

The threat of separation may have increased the stresses of living in Montreal. During my stay, I met plenty of “Anglos” who would refuse to speak French and pretty much acted like elistist jerks (maybe one would expect this at McGill).

I’ve seen this more times than I can count. The racism of many of my fellow anglophones in this city, and the paranoia, is naked and undisguised. I’ve heard anglo political leaders (usually quite wealthy, like Howard Galganov) compare themselves to the blacks of South Africa and Jews in the Holocaust. I’ve heard shadowy references to discrimination without anyone able to present me with a single genuine example of discrimination.

Working as a clerk, I discovered that 9 times out of ten, when a customer was francophone, and the clerk was anglophone, the conversation would proceed in English. Of course, it always happened when the clerk was francophone and the customer anglophone. Most francophones, even separatists, make an effort to learn English, while I know plenty of anglophones who scarcely know “Bonjour.” Most are embarrassed about it, but a few brag about it.

These aren’t all Montreal-born anglos, and probably not even a majority. But they’re fairly large in number. And I strongly suspect they’re the anglophones who describe francophones in this city as “rude.”

Judging by the stereotypes I grew up with in BC, I expected the francophone population to despise me for being anglophone. Actually, almost all of them have been really nice to me.

(And usually shocked when I make an effort to muddle through with my bad accent. I think the most disturbing incident was when a clerk at a meat counter thanked me for attemping French. She seemed quite shocked. It was rather depressing that it came as such a surprise to her :()

[Rodgers01]

@Hamish

I’ve lived in this city 10 years now, and I really don’t think it’s half as rude as Toronto down the 401, though it’s less touchy-feely than Vancouver (the only two other big cities I can compare it to).

Nobody asked, but I’d agree that the Montrealers I encountered were much friendlier than the Torontonians I encountered. But that might just mentally be tied up with the fact that I liked Montreal as a city much more than Toronto.

[ProTem]

I was treated rudly in Quebec, which I wasn’t prepared for at all (it was on my honeymoon and I was in a good mood). We went to hotel with all English signage, but when the counter clerk addressed us in French we responded with Merci or something inoccuous. She immediately said she could tell from our accents that we were “English” (which I suppose meant English speaking Americans) and ridiculed us for even saying that little in French. When I tried to pay with traveller’s cheques she really attacked us for “economic imperialism”, declaring “We are not a bank, so you will pay twice the conversion fee!”
When I pointed out that we had bought Canadian traveller’s cheques at a Canadian bank, she just got madder, saying we were trying to make a fool of her. So we backed out, while she got madder for that.

Then later that night a drunk walked up to me, poked me in the chest and demanded money. Fortunately, when I pushed him back he lost his balance and had to hang on to a post, so we were able to hustle away.

We took the next ferry back to the states.

But it soured us and we took the next ferry back, abandoning our

[braggingwrites]

I grew up in Plattsburgh, NY, the first “major” city south of Montreal (a little over an hour’s drive) and constantly plagued with Canadian shop-goers because of the mall. Let me start out by saying that it’s not the young crowd that comes down to plattsburgh to shop- it’s typically 30s+ and seniors, looking for a steal in terms of exchange rates. Therefore, this does not apply equally to all quebecians.

That said, Montrealers have a HORRIBLE reputation around Plattsburgh. They’re infamous for their god-awful driving, which I myself corroborate, because the running joke is that if someone cuts you off or almost hits you, they’ll have a quebec license plate. They litter. They don’t speak english. They try to pay for everything in canadian money and then hold the sales clerk responsible for the exchange rate. They’ll bump into you and not say “excuse me”- we’re a small area, and their mannerisms are considered extremely rude. They drive their campers down, park in caravans outside of the malls, and trash the parking lots with all the wrappings they remove from their purchases before they drive back so that they don’t have to pay taxes at the border. No one wants to go to the stores on canadian holidays, like boxing day, because they’ll all be out en force.

Everytime I’ve visited Montreal, I find the people nice and normal. But, for some reason, when they enter the US, all bets are off.

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

Thanks for the responses. Judging from them, I think I can say that we’re not any more or any less rude than anyone else, but that Montrealers in particular may have a “large city” attitude that may seem rude to some people who aren’t used to it. (But even there, while Eonwe says that Torontonians are more friendly than Montrealers, Hamish and Rodgers01 say the opposite, so maybe there isn’t any real difference.) Some of you seem to have had good experiences, and others, bad experiences, which is what you can expect wherever you’re going.

As for those who have met Quebecers outside the province (in Plattsburgh and Florida), I can certainly believe your stories, but I don’t think that you’ve been exposed to the best people we have to offer. I mean, the stereotype of the Quebecer who goes south in the winter is a fat shirtless rube leaning in a lawnchair, swearing constantly, and expecting everyone to serve him. And I don’t think it is entirely untrue: apparently Mexicans know us as los tabarnacos, since it’s the only thing we say when we’re there. I guess that’s just part of the “beach vacation” mentality. I hadn’t heard about the Plattsburgh effect, but I’m not surprised either.

@matt_mcl

Urban Quebecers may not tend to be instantly warm or friendly the way people from other cities in Canada might, but I’ve never felt a particular sentiment of snobbery or snot - it’s perfectly polite, just not effusive.

I know that I’m usually not instantly warm and friendly with other people – I’m rather shy and introverted – but if you’d asked me about it, I’d probably have replied that living so close to Ontario has made me more like an “Anglo-Saxon”. And that’s actually what a guy I used to study with, who came from Montreal, said: that even the francophones around here are, in terms of attitude, too “English” and not latin enough.

@elfbabe

waves across the river at severus

waves back (I actually study and work in Ottawa, like most people from Gatineau.)

Oh, and Hamish and matt_mcl, I haven’t had any personal experiences with the “Rhodesians”, as I’ve heard the angry Anglo-Montrealers and their whiny political elites be called, but I’ve certainly heard about them. In a way, I see their point: they really were the economic and political elites in this province, and suddently, on the course of a generation, the “savages” decide to get uppity and take control, but you’d think that especially the younger ones would realise that even though they are a minority, they live quite well, and that they’d cut the barriers between them and the larger Québec population. I was talking with one of my colleagues (who’s an anglophone), and he told me that his experience teaching at the cégep level had been horrible, but that he mostly attributed this to the fact that he was teaching in a West Island cégep and that most of his students were “rich brats”. It’s great that you came to this province with an open mind about the people you’d meet.

[Anastasaeon]

I’m from New Brunswick. My French is Acadienne. I have been chastised, and ignored (quite obviously on purpose!) by a few Quebecois. However, I do not judge all Quebecers based on this experience.

I do notice that, at least where I’m from in NB, that there are many snotty Acadiennes when the subject of Quebecois comes up. It makes them get all huffy and defensive.

I seriously wonder if it’s just a vicious circle in most cases. I personally wasn’t rude to the Quebecers I was speaking to, however, there are jerks all over, so I won’t hold it against all Quebecers. Just the ones who were unnecesarily rude to me. :mad:

But I’ve seen Acadiennes charge in, horns down, just because they knew someone was Quebecois.

I’ve never been to Quebec, my only experiences have been with visiting Quebecers, and I have to wonder if they were treated rudely prior to speaking to me and just got fed up with the Saint John River Valley accent.

[Dr_Paprika]

I’ve always found folks in Toronto to be rather friendly. I once bought a used tuxedo at a thrift store and took it in to be cleaned at a Toronto store (at a time when I didn’t have two nickels to rub together). The cleaner noticed it was missing a button, insisted he would go to the garmewnt didtrict and find a similar one, and sewed it on for no charge, refusing any money for this service. I once went to a Red Lobster in Toronto and order a lobster and crab dinner. The dinner was served with lobster and shrimp. They apologized. I had to wait eight minutes for the crab. They wanted to give me the meal for free for this minimal gaffe. I have not had experiences like this in Montreal stores, but I have met a few accomodating Quebecoises.

Travelling Quebecois (I’ve met my share in Mexico) are often remarkably undiplomatic and unwordly. I was not surprised by braggingwrites views from Plattsburgh. I was surprised by protem’s experiences. On his honeymoon! My apologies from all Canadians, I hope you’ll give us another chance.

I had an open mind going to Montreal – at that point having known few Quebeckers or West Islanders, and wanting to speak fluent French. I’ve heard the term “Kraft Dinners”, but not Rhodesians. McGill had plenty of spoiled brats, many of them from Ontario, many of them West Islanders.

I do think Quebeckers are much ruder than the Canadian average. I mean, I don’t think I’ve met one rude person from Sasketchewan, ever. I lived in New Brunswick for two years (pretty much everywhere in the province during my residency), and encountered very little “rudeness” (which would certainly be expressed behind your back, if at all). The Acadien(ne)s certainly seem to have a chip on their shoulder about their language and events hundreds of years old – but the Acadiens are really good people.

[js_africanus]

The one time I’ve been to Quebec, the people were very nice.