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Scarborough Curse

This is where I started to laugh... page 1

This pattern existed in other groups: with Jamaicans in the 1980s, where new immigrants were called Freshies, and it has been seen in the Sikh community (where new arrivals are called Gurus) and Chinese community (pitting the CBCs—Canadian-born Chinese—against Chinese FOBs).
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I never knew that CBCs fought FOBs! I think the reality is that many CBCs are actually trying to emulate the FOBs... it's hard for CBCs not to become fobbish with Pacific Mall nearby and Fairchild TV at home. A more prominent divide in the Chinese community would be between Hong Kong immigrants, who tend to think that they are superior to mainland Chinese immigrants, but this division has never led to any violence (at least outside of gangs).

It's interesting that the TL article wrote about Scarborough's "sectarian tension". Scarborough is far from being Canada's version of Palestine, the Balkans, or even Detroit when it comes to racial issues. What I see in Scarborough is tolerance of other ethnic groups among first-generation immigrants, leading to a "melting pot" in second-generation immigrants (especially those who went to high school in Scarborough).
 
wyliepoon said:
This is where I started to laugh... page 1



I never knew that CBCs fought FOBs! I think the reality is that many CBCs are actually trying to emulate the FOBs... it's hard for CBCs not to become fobbish with Pacific Mall nearby and Fairchild TV at home. A more prominent divide in the Chinese community would be between Hong Kong immigrants, who tend to think that they are superior to mainland Chinese immigrants, but this division has never led to any violence (at least outside of gangs).

.
Click to expand...

This was mentioned to be back in the "80's" which I won't presume to know about. However, growing up in Scarborough and Mississaua in the late 80's (1987) to the new century, I won't say I felt violence of the FOB vs. CBC. As you said, I tried to be a CBC that attempted to fit in with the FOBs (although not completely).
 
I dated a FOB from Hong Kong back in the late 1980s and I remember her mentioning CBC. At the time I didn't know what that even meant.

I have several CBC friends, two of which can't read Chinese at all, and can hardly speak it. When asked, one of them rightfully said to me that it's wrong to assume that since he looks Chinese that he speaks or reads the language. At the same table was our friend whose (grammar lesson folks, "whose" is the possessive, not "who's", ie. who is) parents were from Ireland, who couldn't speak a word of Gaelic, while my wife whose parents were Ukranian also couldn't speak a word of her parents' mother language. That's when I learned a new term, Banana, which apparently means a Chinese person who doesn't speak or read Chinese. Sounds a little insulting though. Interesting, one of my non-Korean speaking Korean friends speaks fluent Spanish, having been raised in Argentina.

The lesson is, I suppose, don't assume that someone can speak or read a language just because they fit the stereotype of that language's speaker.
 
But as KoK mentions, "violence" may not be the best term to use. How many "sectarian" deaths does Scarborough, home to over half a million people, see each year...2? Maybe it balloons to 4 or 5 if gang/crime deaths have some kind of peripheral race element, but that's it.

Having said that, though, if warfare between sectarian/race-based gangs ever ignites in Scarberia, there's potential for some mass casualties. Hopefully the borough won't decay/decline to that level.
 
Scarborough is definitely a place of extremes. My parents live in a very nice house at the bottom of the bluffs and you'd never know that the Malvern area was in the same former city.
 
Well, Scarborough is physically enormous. All of the 4 major Metro cities had poorer areas as well as some of the richest real estate in the region. North York is home to the Bridle Path and Jane/Finch; Etobicoke has the Kingsway as well as Rexdale, and the old city of Toronto ranges from Regent Park to Rosedale.
 
True enough but I think Scarborough has a reputation for being more run-down, than say North York. Scarborough has always been a very working class place, but it's gotten worse as the factories have left. The area around the Bluffs is seen as kind of the exception.

Much of central and eastern North York is middle to upper middle class - the Bathurst corridor, Willowdale, Don Mills plus there's super-rich York Mills. West of Dufferin and to a lesser extent Don Mills is seeing a lot of "inner ring" blight but North York is more defined by its affluent areas.
 
Scarborough definitely has a larger swath of lower middle to middle class housing that anywhere else in the city, and its relatively rich areas suffer in the real estate $$$ department because they're east of VP and, technically, must be called "Scarborough" neighbourhoods. That doesn't stop homes south of Kingston from selling for up to $2 million, though, or from larger houses in other areas from being worth $500K to $1M.

Scarborough's a bargain...will it stay that way for much longer? I doubt it - once nothing's left in North York or the Riverdale-Beaches area for under $800,000 or so, people may be forced to flock to Scarborough. I really don't think its reputation will get worse.

Side note: if Scarborough had split up into Agincourt, Malvern, Scarborough, West Hill, etc., Malvern would be the armpit of the country, while West Hill and Agincourt would be respectable places like Richmond Hill, but Scarborough would still be uber-suburbia.
 
Scarborough suburbia is better to me then 1960's 1970's suburbia in rexdale and Malton...
 
Rexdale and Malton are very much alike. Growing up in Malton and riding my bike into Rexdale I often had to remind myself I was entering a different city. Still, the earlier the suburbia in general, the better.
 
1960's-1970's suburbia is not all bad.


There a lot of good old neighborhoods in Central Etibocke, North York and in Brampton (Bramalea) and Mississauga from that time...
 
most places that are bad are very isolated...

Our family financial adviser who is sitting around with 500k (so he is rich) is living at Keele (between Finch and Sheppard)...
Says its a nice quite area and he says rarely does anything happen...

You can see the infamous Jane/Finch Apartments from his house...

The area is okay, with mostly middle class white, mixed families...
 
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