Why my daughter is French, NOT Canadian.
27 July 2019 [link youtube]
https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel
Youtube Automatic Transcription
yeah I think the number one question was
the first one that I listed basically like why did you choose France and also you know then you move to Taiwan no you chose that place that you were going to start raising right so what made you decide on France and then Taiwan [Music] so I am sitting here with my best girl Melissa this is packing night before we're going off to Europe to see my daughter and I thought I'd make a quick video of the gift hole the gifts I'm bringing across the ocean to her now I did this about two years ago you may recall I made a video before I want to meet my daughter in Germany of all the gifts laid out on a on a couch I do this partly because I think my daughter might watch the video one day and kind of vaguely remember like oh yeah right I remember having that thing when I was a kid I didn't realize that my father taped that to me or that my father brought that all the way from China one trip it was going from Canada to Germany and France and in this case we're going from China to the south of France so those are two two very different stories the question of where we would give birth was a huge pile of research we worked against an amazingly long list of options that we we researched primarily through Google you know primarily with internet I mean and no it's actually significant also we did in some cases rely on human opinions we were lied on talking to and asking people's opinions who seemed like they know what they're talking about and that can be way more misleading than Google but we considered having my daughter born in Taiwan Thailand you know various places in Asia my wife's work or my work had connected us to we considered United States and Canada but obviously Canada even just within Canada there'd be many options and then within Europe and we looked at actually a long list of obscure and remote places Islands that are controlled as French territory because my ex-wife is a French citizen and some of the islands that are controlled as as US territory and so on and so that was really a process that was a brainstorming process really starting from a blank sheet of paper and a lot of the research was about how did the hospital system work in the given place how did the insurance system work but in all these places you had to research one what's gonna happen if it's a normal healthy birth with no problems no complications to what's gonna happen if there are problems them because then terms of health insurance money cost even just where you're gonna stay right like where are you gonna be living if things go wrong and you know but yet cost is certainly a factor and then three how are we gonna live for the immediate period of weeks and months after the the child is born because we were doing this as there was just two people alone in the world no aunts and uncles involved no parents involved her parents not involved my parents not involved and so on I figured you had done plenty of research because you research everything but you know it's unfortunate that you went through all that research and nevertheless had such negative experience we fended up in a situation I was unhappy with right but you us to go to the second question is why we have been why did we end up in Taiwan after that I mean I got and assembled all the furniture we moved in we created this home to raise our daughter and in Perpignan France we put in all this work to get set up there and just because the immigration office in that city in France was garbage should I say it was corrupt should I say it was incompetent should I use other more colorful words because of a couple bad people in one government bureaucratic office it was impossible for us to stay there so that was a paperwork created situation that were bad people in positions of authority in one office in the government in France and we did formally complain anymore highly-educated how literate people we saw to what extent we couldn't fight the system then it was very clear that because these few people in this one bureaucratic office in France were terrible people when running a terrible office said well either we have to exit France completely and then re-enter France and restart the immigration process with new paperwork like pretend we never arrived in France at all pretended we didn't just give birth to a baby in France start with new paperwork in a different city in a different province in France you could do that if that was allowed that wouldn't be breaking the law that's that's the law you can restart with a new sheet of paper or we leave France entirely we give up on France as the plan if you've been in one city in France where the immigration process was incompetent corrupts bad etc why would you think it would be better elsewhere remember when you have to move everything you own by airplane and everything you only includes a new infant you own almost nothing because you have the baby of the diapers of the baby of all the things you need for the baby I mean you know I didn't I didn't have a own a single book you know what I mean I lost everything I had my own you know you don't even can't even bring many adult clothes you're very limited luggage allowance is devoted entirely to the baby and the things that baby needs first and foremost right so you know we'd already gone through that in effect going from Canada to Perpignan really hard to create a home and nothing in Perpignan you know rents rent an empty apartment furnish it and in France it is very hard to get the electricity and light setup and phone it was a real you but that was a big struggle in France some countries even others know it is what it is and then we were losing all that and we were leaving like refugees and the question is well if we're going to leave like refugees do you want to come back to France do this all over again or do you want to give up on France entirely there's really more than one story that gets buried here a story that's rather difficult to unearth you might say for my entire adult life I did not want to live in Canada if I was not connected to First Nations languages indigenous Canadian languages by the same token that I wouldn't live in Cambodia if I wasn't actively studying and learning cambodian were some other indigenous language of cambodia by the same token whereby i didn't want to leave in Laos country in Southeast Asia if I wasn't learning lotion or studying other indigenous minority languages in Laos I did not want to be part of the Canadian genocide and I lived outside of Canada for many many years as an adult I mean when I made the decision to become a scholar of Buddhism when I made a decision not to be working on First Nations languages I went and lived in Asia where there's a tradition and history of those languages and I was always really clear with my ex-wife you know at the time when I was married or at the time we work together you know if I'm gonna live in Canada that I'm gonna work on the indigenous languages and the indigenous peoples political struggles one way or another whether that's through the Board of Education or something else my point being here not all political struggles involve waving flags in the streets you can have really meaningful political struggles that are at the Board of Education you could have meaningful political struggles that go on you know in the back of a restaurant there were different ways to struggle to make the world a better place but in any case for me there was first and foremost this issue of being a white english-speaking Canadian part of a genocidal colonial history and regime and you know the question I asked as I put it on this YouTube channel is you know if not you then who so at that time terms who I was I was a former scholar of Buddhism giving up on Buddhist scholarship and moving back to Canada me read to a cultural anthropologist cultural anthropologists who worked on indigenous minority languages in Yan'an I had been working on indigenous minority languages and peoples in Laos Cambodia Yunnan not the only thing I was doing not even the main thing I was doing but one of my research interests was in that field so okay the two of us as a couple me and my ex-wife moving back to Canada if not you then who it's fair to say not everyone can learn Mohawk not everyone can learn a jib way not everyone can learn you know in the yo and whatever II want to say you could list off designers not everyone can learn in you it you know not everyone but if not you then who when you look in the mirror I mean if you're a professional PhD in cultural anthropology that's who my ex-wife is you're coming back you're working on indigenous peoples and minority languages not okay if you're you know a white vegan who cares about ecology and history and politics and you've been working on indigenous languages minority languages issues and language education issues in Southeast Asia when you come back to Canada I think the dotted line of responsibility is set out for you you know it's very clear now there were other interesting positive things you can do with your brain I would not ridicule someone for wanting to learn sign language to speak with you know to death the thing is the Deaf are not indigenous people of Canada the primary political absurdity of 21st century Canada is not reconciling the relationship between the hearing and the Deaf and especially if you live in Saskatchewan Canada which is where we were moving to max life the primary political struggle very much is reconciling the reality of the white European colonial colonial settler civilization with the indigenous people and what happens next so I think that was the correct judgment at the time right so I mean the most fundamental reason why my daughter does not have a Canadian passport I've said this to max wife more recently I said it way back before we had a kid I said during the birthing race in which I was know if this doesn't work out if I can't stay here and work on curry or a jib way or mohawk if I'm not working on one of the indigenous languages if I'm not positively engaged with this political problem one way or another then I'm not staying here and my daughter is not going to have a Canadian passport so there's a very conscious and intentional decision I made and still to this day I am in a sense proud to say that my daughter does not have a Canadian passport my daughter the plan was there for after the whole situation fell apart in Saskatchewan after it became impossible for me to continue with Korean achievement as languages because the decisions max wife made the decision was that she would be raised with French Chinese in English in that order as their languages of scholarship growing up in France I don't know babe any any comment I mean how how exhausting was assembling this this three-dimensional marble puzzle that is true but once you get the knack down once you learn which pieces fit with which pieces you wouldn't need the book but when you're first doing it snapping together the various slides and shoots so that's it I'm going to see my daughter in France and thus you guys will not see me on YouTube for a little while Alexander if you're watching this video in the year 2025 maybe oh some vague memory of these toys of the bicycle I sent you when you were living in France that was living in Canada it is what it is when I remember my toys from my childhood but do I remember who gave them to me No [Music]
the first one that I listed basically like why did you choose France and also you know then you move to Taiwan no you chose that place that you were going to start raising right so what made you decide on France and then Taiwan [Music] so I am sitting here with my best girl Melissa this is packing night before we're going off to Europe to see my daughter and I thought I'd make a quick video of the gift hole the gifts I'm bringing across the ocean to her now I did this about two years ago you may recall I made a video before I want to meet my daughter in Germany of all the gifts laid out on a on a couch I do this partly because I think my daughter might watch the video one day and kind of vaguely remember like oh yeah right I remember having that thing when I was a kid I didn't realize that my father taped that to me or that my father brought that all the way from China one trip it was going from Canada to Germany and France and in this case we're going from China to the south of France so those are two two very different stories the question of where we would give birth was a huge pile of research we worked against an amazingly long list of options that we we researched primarily through Google you know primarily with internet I mean and no it's actually significant also we did in some cases rely on human opinions we were lied on talking to and asking people's opinions who seemed like they know what they're talking about and that can be way more misleading than Google but we considered having my daughter born in Taiwan Thailand you know various places in Asia my wife's work or my work had connected us to we considered United States and Canada but obviously Canada even just within Canada there'd be many options and then within Europe and we looked at actually a long list of obscure and remote places Islands that are controlled as French territory because my ex-wife is a French citizen and some of the islands that are controlled as as US territory and so on and so that was really a process that was a brainstorming process really starting from a blank sheet of paper and a lot of the research was about how did the hospital system work in the given place how did the insurance system work but in all these places you had to research one what's gonna happen if it's a normal healthy birth with no problems no complications to what's gonna happen if there are problems them because then terms of health insurance money cost even just where you're gonna stay right like where are you gonna be living if things go wrong and you know but yet cost is certainly a factor and then three how are we gonna live for the immediate period of weeks and months after the the child is born because we were doing this as there was just two people alone in the world no aunts and uncles involved no parents involved her parents not involved my parents not involved and so on I figured you had done plenty of research because you research everything but you know it's unfortunate that you went through all that research and nevertheless had such negative experience we fended up in a situation I was unhappy with right but you us to go to the second question is why we have been why did we end up in Taiwan after that I mean I got and assembled all the furniture we moved in we created this home to raise our daughter and in Perpignan France we put in all this work to get set up there and just because the immigration office in that city in France was garbage should I say it was corrupt should I say it was incompetent should I use other more colorful words because of a couple bad people in one government bureaucratic office it was impossible for us to stay there so that was a paperwork created situation that were bad people in positions of authority in one office in the government in France and we did formally complain anymore highly-educated how literate people we saw to what extent we couldn't fight the system then it was very clear that because these few people in this one bureaucratic office in France were terrible people when running a terrible office said well either we have to exit France completely and then re-enter France and restart the immigration process with new paperwork like pretend we never arrived in France at all pretended we didn't just give birth to a baby in France start with new paperwork in a different city in a different province in France you could do that if that was allowed that wouldn't be breaking the law that's that's the law you can restart with a new sheet of paper or we leave France entirely we give up on France as the plan if you've been in one city in France where the immigration process was incompetent corrupts bad etc why would you think it would be better elsewhere remember when you have to move everything you own by airplane and everything you only includes a new infant you own almost nothing because you have the baby of the diapers of the baby of all the things you need for the baby I mean you know I didn't I didn't have a own a single book you know what I mean I lost everything I had my own you know you don't even can't even bring many adult clothes you're very limited luggage allowance is devoted entirely to the baby and the things that baby needs first and foremost right so you know we'd already gone through that in effect going from Canada to Perpignan really hard to create a home and nothing in Perpignan you know rents rent an empty apartment furnish it and in France it is very hard to get the electricity and light setup and phone it was a real you but that was a big struggle in France some countries even others know it is what it is and then we were losing all that and we were leaving like refugees and the question is well if we're going to leave like refugees do you want to come back to France do this all over again or do you want to give up on France entirely there's really more than one story that gets buried here a story that's rather difficult to unearth you might say for my entire adult life I did not want to live in Canada if I was not connected to First Nations languages indigenous Canadian languages by the same token that I wouldn't live in Cambodia if I wasn't actively studying and learning cambodian were some other indigenous language of cambodia by the same token whereby i didn't want to leave in Laos country in Southeast Asia if I wasn't learning lotion or studying other indigenous minority languages in Laos I did not want to be part of the Canadian genocide and I lived outside of Canada for many many years as an adult I mean when I made the decision to become a scholar of Buddhism when I made a decision not to be working on First Nations languages I went and lived in Asia where there's a tradition and history of those languages and I was always really clear with my ex-wife you know at the time when I was married or at the time we work together you know if I'm gonna live in Canada that I'm gonna work on the indigenous languages and the indigenous peoples political struggles one way or another whether that's through the Board of Education or something else my point being here not all political struggles involve waving flags in the streets you can have really meaningful political struggles that are at the Board of Education you could have meaningful political struggles that go on you know in the back of a restaurant there were different ways to struggle to make the world a better place but in any case for me there was first and foremost this issue of being a white english-speaking Canadian part of a genocidal colonial history and regime and you know the question I asked as I put it on this YouTube channel is you know if not you then who so at that time terms who I was I was a former scholar of Buddhism giving up on Buddhist scholarship and moving back to Canada me read to a cultural anthropologist cultural anthropologists who worked on indigenous minority languages in Yan'an I had been working on indigenous minority languages and peoples in Laos Cambodia Yunnan not the only thing I was doing not even the main thing I was doing but one of my research interests was in that field so okay the two of us as a couple me and my ex-wife moving back to Canada if not you then who it's fair to say not everyone can learn Mohawk not everyone can learn a jib way not everyone can learn you know in the yo and whatever II want to say you could list off designers not everyone can learn in you it you know not everyone but if not you then who when you look in the mirror I mean if you're a professional PhD in cultural anthropology that's who my ex-wife is you're coming back you're working on indigenous peoples and minority languages not okay if you're you know a white vegan who cares about ecology and history and politics and you've been working on indigenous languages minority languages issues and language education issues in Southeast Asia when you come back to Canada I think the dotted line of responsibility is set out for you you know it's very clear now there were other interesting positive things you can do with your brain I would not ridicule someone for wanting to learn sign language to speak with you know to death the thing is the Deaf are not indigenous people of Canada the primary political absurdity of 21st century Canada is not reconciling the relationship between the hearing and the Deaf and especially if you live in Saskatchewan Canada which is where we were moving to max life the primary political struggle very much is reconciling the reality of the white European colonial colonial settler civilization with the indigenous people and what happens next so I think that was the correct judgment at the time right so I mean the most fundamental reason why my daughter does not have a Canadian passport I've said this to max wife more recently I said it way back before we had a kid I said during the birthing race in which I was know if this doesn't work out if I can't stay here and work on curry or a jib way or mohawk if I'm not working on one of the indigenous languages if I'm not positively engaged with this political problem one way or another then I'm not staying here and my daughter is not going to have a Canadian passport so there's a very conscious and intentional decision I made and still to this day I am in a sense proud to say that my daughter does not have a Canadian passport my daughter the plan was there for after the whole situation fell apart in Saskatchewan after it became impossible for me to continue with Korean achievement as languages because the decisions max wife made the decision was that she would be raised with French Chinese in English in that order as their languages of scholarship growing up in France I don't know babe any any comment I mean how how exhausting was assembling this this three-dimensional marble puzzle that is true but once you get the knack down once you learn which pieces fit with which pieces you wouldn't need the book but when you're first doing it snapping together the various slides and shoots so that's it I'm going to see my daughter in France and thus you guys will not see me on YouTube for a little while Alexander if you're watching this video in the year 2025 maybe oh some vague memory of these toys of the bicycle I sent you when you were living in France that was living in Canada it is what it is when I remember my toys from my childhood but do I remember who gave them to me No [Music]