Cultural Experiences and Comfort Food

Gurasis 0:00

I am going into the final segment of the podcast. I call it Beneath the Accent because we are knowing each other beneath the accent. I'm going to ask a couple of questions. You can answer them in one word or a sentence or howsoever you feel like the idea is just to know more about Peter Gay. Okay, so ready, okay, ready. What advice would you give to your younger self and at what age.

Peta-Gaye 0:23

I replay this all the time. I don't know where I would intervene. Sometimes I think I would intervene in my teenage years. But no, I would. I really do want a time machine because I would go back to that moment when I am four years old and I'm first learning the word divorce, or I'm learning, I'm starting to pick up on negative cues around me and I would say to that four-year-old I love you, you're going to have a great life, don't worry so much, you're going to be okay. I would hug my four-year-old self and I would say promise me that you believe in yourself and all that you can do, no matter what anyone tells you. Anyone tells you, no matter what you're called, just believe in yourself and follow your dreams. That's what I would say. My intervention would come early.

Gurasis 1:40

Wow, very, very powerful. I love that, okay. Second, describe a moment when you experienced a significant cultural difference.

Peta-Gaye 1:43

That surprised you. There have been so many, but the one that I remember that's at the forefront of my mind right now is the whole thing of using Mr and Mrs and a last name. When I came to Canada in 2002, even though I had lived here before, I went into my workplace and first official job and I called my boss Mr and his last name, and everyone just sort of you know tittered and I thought to myself, well, I'm being respectful.

Peta-Gaye 2:21

Yeah, you know but I realized it wasn't done. Well, I'm being respectful, you know, but I realized it wasn't done and that was a really odd cultural difference for me. But you know, the same thing happened when I went back to Jamaica this past summer 2024, with my daughter. She was confused about what to call people, because in canada she calls my friends by their first names. Yeah, in jamaica they said oh hello, I am auntie, may not be related by blood exactly, yeah and she would look at me, all confused.

Peta-Gaye 2:59

Do I? Do I call her auntie so and so and I would? I just, yes, you know, different place, different culture do I call?

Gurasis 3:05

her auntie so-and-so.

Peta-Gaye 3:05

And I would. I just said yes, you know, different place, different culture.

Gurasis 3:08

Yeah, very small, small advances. Like also we call sir or madam back in India to our professors, but here they call by the first name, you know, and it was a little awkward for me initially, but okay, now I've got a hang of it. Yeah.

Peta-Gaye 3:22

I remember walking Sherway Gardens with my dad who had come from canada and I do believe it was a young man who was punjabi or maybe somewhere else in india, and he called my father, uncle, and my dad would not understand that and I said I grabbed him and I said, dad, he just showed you a sign of respect yeah, oh, my god, this reminds me another story.

Gurasis 3:48

I was uh, sharing, uh, this apartment with somebody and this I told him my landlord used to live on the basement and we were on this first floor and we were there and I told him oh, uncle is calling you regarding something. He said uncle, which uncle? And I said the landlord. He said why are you calling him uncle? He's not an uncle. I said, oh, okay, because it comes naturally to me. We call older people uncle or aunt, you know?

Peta-Gaye 4:16

yes, yeah, oh, that's funny. Why are you calling him uncle?

Gurasis 4:23

tell me about this one dish from your home country, Peter Gay, that always brings you comfort and nostalgia.

Peta-Gaye 4:30

Oh, apart from a nice big juicy mango, okay, I do love. I do love ackee and codfish. And the reason why? Well, first of all's, jamaica's national dish. Okay, but I love it because aki, which originally came from west africa, as far as I remember, grows on a tree, but the pod has to open. If you force it open it's poisonous, I see and could make you very sick.

Peta-Gaye 4:59

So, you know, the pod opens, you pick out the yellow fleshy thing and you cook it. You have to cook it and it's cooked with codfish. And it's so funny because this was introduced to feed the slaves. Really, yes, they wanted a cheap meal to feed the slaves, so they would cook ackee with cod from Canada. So the countries, we are all linked in this world. When we think that we have, you know, one country has nothing to do with another. It's so untrue. We're just all linked in some way. Anyway, the cod came from Canada, from, I guess, the Atlantic provinces, nova Scotia, newfoundland and it has gone on to become the national dish of Jamaica and, you know, seasoned very well, of course, with onion and other things. I'm not a great cook, but eating ackee and codfish makes me, it reminds me of my grandmother.

Peta-Gaye 6:01

Of course it reminds me of when I lived in the States, going home to visit her and her making ackee and me saying I don't want to eat that Because it wasn't American food, and then slowly getting used to it and realizing my grandmother is an amazing cook. And yeah, ackee and codfish is just everything Home. It means home. It means family.

Gurasis 6:30

Yeah, that brings nostalgia and comfort, right, of course. I'm just curious, like what kind of food do you guys make at home right now, you know, since it's a mixture of multiple cultures in the house, so how is that like?

Peta-Gaye 6:42

Well, first let me start by saying that we are not very traditional with our roles. My husband is a much better cook than I am. He's from Jamaica and he does most of the meal planning. So, him loving cooking, I'm very spoiled, very. My kids and I were just very spoiled, and it ranges from Jamaican to Italian to basically everything. Very lucky to have someone else do this for me because, to be honest, not my thing, If I could, I would eat out every single day, just to not have to cook. All right, but, we have everything.

Peta-Gaye 7:27

You know, we do mexican, we do jamaican, we do indian, we do indian, yes, we do next time you know you are here in montreal, I'll cook for you, for sure oh, thank you.

Gurasis 7:38

Okay, I'll be there next weekend, awesome um, tell me about a favorite cultural festival or a celebration in canada, and how do you celebrate it?

Peta-Gaye 7:49

my favorite okay, here's the thing. I love crowds, sometimes not all the time. My husband doesn't, so we do not partake in so many as before, but I do love Carabana. I love Carabana for the music, for the food, for the costumes. Actually, I don't think it's called Carabana anymore. I am definitely dating myself. That's what it was called when I first came to Canada. It's now called something else the Caribbean Cultural Festival. I've heard.

Gurasis 8:26

Caribbean yeah.

Peta-Gaye 8:28

Yes.

Gurasis 8:29

Yeah.

Peta-Gaye 8:29

That is one of my favorites, but I also love other cultural festivals that sometimes I just happen to come across. There's a Latin festival where there's a lot of salsa dancing in toronto. I think I'm drawn to color, dance, music and food, so wherever those are all combined, I love that, and it doesn't really matter which festival I just think. I think it's just a great opportunity to experience something different.

Gurasis 9:05

Color dance food. That sounds like an Indian wedding to me.

Peta-Gaye 9:11

Love Indian weddings. I went to one last year. It was fantastic.

Gurasis 9:15

Oh, that's awesome. Okay, tell me about the first friend that you made in Canada, and are you still in touch with them?

Peta-Gaye 9:23

Yes, okay, I am going way back, way back to 13th grade when this Canadian she was black, is black came up to me and she was excited that someone like me different because I lived in Burlington At the time. There was not a lot of diversity in Burlington, so she was, I think, my first friend and we lost touch for many, many years Now. She organizes a lot of cultural festivals in Burlington. She organizes a lot of cultural festivals in Burlington. And she said that she, I said something to her so long ago that had always upset her.

Peta-Gaye 10:13

I didn't even know that I said it, but she told me. We were all young at the time. She told me that she was pregnant and my first response was why? And she said I always thought about that and wondered why you said that. And I said again if I could just make that time machine and go back in time, I would be so very different. I would have hugged you, I would have told you congratulations and that everything is going to work out. I would not have responded that way. But I think I said why? Because I just could not imagine being so young, having children and not having looked after myself or pursuing my dreams. She had gotten pregnant and she wasn't married yet, and it would prove to be a very long journey. But she has proved to be amazing, resilient, an incredible mother and, although we don't see each other very much, at least we have instagram and whatsapp to keep in touch. But that was. That was my first friend and also a good lesson in not just saying whatever comes out of your mouth absolutely.

Gurasis 11:38

Wow, I love that story. Do you haveichagi any funny stories related to your accent or English? Or maybe like a certain word that you mispronounced or some mishap, anything around it?

Integrating Cultures and Personal Reflections

Peta-Gaye 11:52

You know what? I have issues with the word comfortable versus comfortable. Okay, I would love someone to tell me why is it that everyone else says comfortable and in North America it's comfortable? I think this word has changed over time, but the reason why I'm bringing it up is because I also do some English examining and I've been told that comfortable is incorrect. But I cannot feel that this word is incorrect Because so many people Indian, jamaican, caribbean say comfortable. Now, to say comfortable, comfortable, I have to practice it.

Peta-Gaye 12:49

But what's a funny story? It's not so funny in that when my daughters came here they were little girls and they had these strong Jamaican accents they said they quickly learned that people would just hear the accent and not try to understand. That was their first lesson at age six and three. So they purposely tried to speak like a Canadian and it worked, except for some words that were just so stubborn. And they say Mom, to this day we still get, you know, laughed at, not laughed at, but friends just making fun with them. You know they're like. I just got laughed at again for saying mascara and I said what's wrong with mascara? That's? You know that's the word. No, it's mascara. And I'm like okay, yeah, so certain words have been stubborn, still in their vocabulary. You know, you learn what you learn absolutely.

Gurasis 13:53

There are so many words that you know, I think I still kind of like say the same way, for some reason, the word you know, shower, like it's shower, or I always say shower, I'm going to go take a shower, and I don't think that comes from the word power and par, you know, and that's kind of like stays in my mind and I always say when I say like okay, I'm going to take a shower, and my friends will be like why, what is shower? I'm like okay, shower you? That always happens, yeah.

Peta-Gaye 14:30

Yeah, and you know, if you went to the deep South in America, they would speak completely differently than we do, and it's really just a matter of getting your ear tuned to that new sound, but it's not easy.

Gurasis 14:38

Yeah, absolutely yeah. So I have another question, that is this? Something that you ate for the first time in Canada Would be pierogies.

Peta-Gaye 14:49

I don't even know what it is. Pierogies, I believe, is. I think it's from Ukraine or Poland. Okay, and when I had pierogies for the first time. You know, for me this is not Caribbean food, but there's just something about a dumpling kind of food that is just so hard to resist. So I tried to make pierogies, not from scratch, just the frozen. Didn't work out as well. My children can do it a lot better, and it's actually so delicious. It's something so different from my culture. But yeah, I'm making myself hungry right now just thinking about it.

Peta-Gaye 15:33

But that was something that I'd never heard of before I left Jamaica to come here.

Gurasis 15:38

Okay, Okay Interesting. I might try it sometime. Tell me if you could describe yourself as any creature, animal, bird, anything. What would it be and why?

Peta-Gaye 15:53

A dolphin? Okay, Definitely a dolphin, Because I love the water so much. I always want to be in the water. I don't want to be far from water. I wish my life was just spent on a boat or in a house by the sea, frolicking. I know that is totally ridiculous. We need to work. We need to be productive. Yes, I am ambitious, but I do love my fun time. And a dolphin, you know, you see it just jumping up out of the water and down frolicking. It's with friends. They're traveling in groups. They're in the sea where I really just want to be all the time. Yeah, definitely. What about you?

Gurasis 16:49

yeah, definitely. What about you me? Um could be any creature, I think definitely a bird you know, more of like an eagle. I would say uh, because I just want to fly high and be open and and kind of be up in the air, and it'd be also. It's also the, the board which one of our uh gurus actually had, and that kind of like symbolizes that only the strength, the power, the sharpness and and kind of the uh, the go for it mentality that it has. So I think, definitely, I think I would be an eagle, yeah.

Peta-Gaye 17:22

I love that Soaring above everything.

Gurasis 17:25

Absolutely. And if you could create this one law that everybody has to follow, what would it be?

Peta-Gaye 17:32

Everyone has to be respectful to each other. Everyone has to be kind. Kindness would become the culture, and I know that sounds strange because it's not really a law, but I think that's really important to me. If we're going with an actual law, I would have to go with a traffic law. You know what really bugs me? Parasis. What really bugs me is the fact that pedestrians are walking while cars are turning. I don't think this should ever happen. I think that all cars should stop. People can wait another minute and all pedestrians go.

Peta-Gaye 18:12

I saw this done in New Zealand. It was the best thing I've ever seen. I still call it the New Zealand crossing. You can cross across the road. You can cross, you know, to the other side. You can go right through the middle, which I love. All cars stop. This is the safest way.

Peta-Gaye 18:32

They tried it in Toronto some years back. People didn't like it and my first thought was you didn't like it because you weren't being open to something new that was safer and better for everyone. Again, just as the way people are, we don't like change. We don't like to open our minds sometimes to things that are new, and I thought that this was a moment where we went so wrong in downtown Toronto. We went so wrong here. I would have insisted we need to try this not just for a month or a year. We need to try this for a while, maybe five years. By the end of that five years, everyone would be doing it New Zealand style. Nobody would get hit. Pedestrians would not get hit by vehicles who are rushing trying to turn right. This would be the law, and I think it's so important.

Gurasis 19:30

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, and if you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Peta-Gaye 19:35

To fly or be invisible. I just can't choose one, I think, because if I could fly, I would fly to the Caribbean or anywhere tropical in the winter, and if I were invisible I would jump on a plane.

Gurasis 19:53

So the goal is just to go to Caribbean or just go to a warmer place. That's your goal.

Peta-Gaye 20:03

I really like the sunshine. I am so different in the sunshine, I'm so different in the heat. I love it so much. But you know, I really think I already do have a superpower, and it doesn't always work well for me, because my superpower is being able to think big, big picture, big picture with the world, with history. Less of a superpower is focusing on details, but being able to focus on the big picture makes me able to think. Things like this is a cycle. It may feel bad in the moment. Let's say child-rearing. This is a cycle. Everyone has gone through this. I did, my children will. When they are parents, it's that superpower to say, well, let me not be nitpicky now that this is happening, because this is just part of a big picture. Yeah, same thing if I'm at work and I'm having a rough day. What is the big picture? The big picture is to support newcomers, right?

Peta-Gaye 21:14

yeah so I can focus and say, okay, I have to do this uncomfortable thing, to to, to add to the big picture. And I think that is a superpower, when you're able to look beyond the little frustrations in life, not get caught up in them and cause arguments, but to see that there is a bigger picture, absolutely.

Gurasis 21:38

Yeah, we all have those good and bad days, but it's just a bad day, not a bad life, you know Right right so finally, Peter Gay, how would you describe Canada in one word or a?

Feeling Safe and Inspiring Others

Peta-Gaye 21:49

sentence. Oh my gosh, you've asked me the hardest question and I think the reason why is a lot of people come to Canada and they just easily accept it as home. But with my personality, I'm always analyzing and searching and looking in other pastures. You know how they say the grass is greener. I am forever looking in many other pastures. So it's very hard. I almost feel attached to nowhere I see. But if I could describe Canada, I would say safe, safe. Canada represents safety to me and I hope it always stays that way.

Peta-Gaye 22:40

Yeah, hopefully yeah, you know, safe to express myself, safe from political violence, safe from crime, safe in terms of you know you can be who you are, you can express your gender, you can express yourself as a person of color, absolutely, um, yeah, I love that about canada. Yeah, I feel so safe I love.

Gurasis 23:14

That definitely defines canada. Yeah, and if you could leave me peter gave with one piece of advice, what would it be?

Peta-Gaye 23:21

keep on inspiring the world with what you're doing. What you're doing is so amazing. I'm so glad that I was introduced to your podcast. I am. You know I'm now your fan. Don't give up on those hard days.

Gurasis 23:38

Thank you. Thank you for our kind words.

Peta-Gaye 23:41

Because there will always be people listening who might be going through a really hard day, and what you have to share will help them to know that they are not alone. A hundred percent.

Gurasis 23:53

Yeah, thank you for saying that, and how would you describe your experience being on this podcast today?

Peta-Gaye 24:08

Awesome, absolutely awesome. I was nervous. I'm not usually nervous about speaking out, but I was a little nervous to share things about my life and you made me feel so comfortable. I love that you mean comfortable?

Gurasis 24:17

yeah, I got it I meant comfortable I love that thank you. Thank you so much, peter. I really enjoyed this and thank you for being on the podcast and adding value to my listeners and really, really had a good conversation. Thank you, thank you.