Traditional Canadian Dance?

I was stopped by a Tongan stranger at the school today, who asked me where a certain teacher was. They were all in a meeting (for form (homeroom) teachers, which I wasn’t), and while he waited we chatted about Tongan history (a subject I always try to bring up). After a few minutes, he said, “you’re Canadian, aren’t you?” I looked down at what I was wearing to see what gave it away., but my t-shirt was Australian BillaBong.
“What makes you say that?”
“I can tell from your accent.” This was the first Tongan I had met my six weeks here who didn’t assume I was American. I’ve been called American more times in six weeks than in my life up til then (though I try not to take it personally).
Sione was a singer, and one of the side benefits was that he had gotten good at telling the difference between people’s accents. Canadians typically talk much cleaner, while Americans tend to “hide their vowels,” he told me. He added that he gets annoyed when people say Canada and America are the same, because he notices the differences. When I tell Tongans, “no, not America, I’m from further North,” they guess, “…from Denmark?” As if Canada is the 51st US state on their maps.
Canada’s anonymity does have its fun moments though. At a staff meeting where the student clubs were introduced, the administration was trying to start up a dance club. “And not just traditional Polynesian dance, “the deputy principal said, “we have international teachers here…Suzuki (really, that’s his name) from Japan, and Taniela (the Tongan version of my name) from Canada.”
I tried to imagine what traditional Canadian dancing would be like, and then mentioned to the nearby teachers a hide and seek dance that I said had evolved out of our yearly national polar bear hunt. I got an approving round of nods.
Instead, though, I started an Ultimate club. The first meeting is tomorrow with 22 students who seem to have never seen a Frisbee before. Still many students made the most common comment of Ultimate players, “hey this would do a lot of damage if you put razor blades on it!”

P.S. – I fixed the blog so that you no longer need a gmail account if you want to leave comments.