Canada nice people ???

Canada tempts us with familiarity,
blissfully cool weather and, most of all, a deep
reservoir of niceness.
We experience Canadian nice as soon as we
reach customs. The US border guards are gruff
and all business. The Canadians, by contrast,
are unfailingly polite, even as they grill us about
the number of wine bottles we’re bringing into
the country. One year, we had failed to notice
that our 9-year-old daughter’s passport had
expired. They, nicely, let us enter anyway. The
niceness continues for our entire trip, as we
encounter nice waiters, nice hotel clerks, nice
strangers.
Canadian niceness is pure, and untainted by the
passive-aggressive undertones found in
American niceness ( have a good day, or else! ).
It’s also abundant. Canada is to niceness as
Saudi Arabia is to oil. It’s awash in the stuff,
and it’s about time, I say, the rest of the world
imported some. (France, Russia and the UK
topped one recent list of rude countries as
perceived by travellers.) Researchers have yet
to analyse Canadian niceness empirically, but
studies have found that Canadians, perhaps in
an effort not to offend, use an overabundance of
“hedge words”, such as “could be” and “not
bad”. Then there is the most coveted of
Canadian words: “sorry”. Canadians will
apologize for anything and to anything.
“I've apologized to a tree that I walked into,”
confessed Michael Valpy, a journalist and
author, noting that many of his fellow citizens
have done the same.
Traffic in Toronto and Montreal may be awful,
but “you almost never hear a horn, even in the
most frustrating traffic jams”, said Jeffrey
Dvorkin, a Canadian journalism professor at the
University of Toronto. Horn-honking is regarded
as unnecessarily aggressive. And murder rates
in Canada are low, he said, partly because “it’s
quite rude to murder someone”.
The Canadian press is rife with examples of
niceness in action. For instance, the National
Post reported that in Edmonton, a law student,
Derek Murray, left his headlights on all day.
When he returned to his car, he found the
battery drained and a note on his windshield. “I
noticed you left your lights on,” it read. “The
battery will probably not have enough charge to
start your vehicle. I left a blue extension cord
on the fence and … a battery charger beside the
fence in the cardboard box.” The note went on
to explain exactly how to jump-start the
vehicle. “Good luck,” it added. In Ontario, a thief
returned the goods he or she stole with $50
attached to a letter of apology. "I can't put it
into words how sorry I am," the thief explained.
"Please find it in your hearts to forgive the
stranger who harmed you."
Canadians aren’t only polite; they’re incredibly
humble too, and reluctant to take credit for even
plainly heroic acts. When a gunman attacked
the Canadian parliament building in October
2014, Kevin Vickers, Canada’s sergeant-at-
arms, responded quickly and calmly by shooting
the assailant with the handgun he keeps in his
office.And while Vickers was glorified in the
Canadian media, it was his humility, not his
marksmanship or bravado, that was celebrated.
(Canadians take great pride in their humility, an
oxymoron that bothers no one.)
What explains this blizzard of humility and
politeness? Taras Grescoe, a Montreal-based
writer, believes Canadian niceness is born of
necessity. “We're a small group of people,
spread across the second-largest national
territory in the world,” he said. “We've always
known that, in order to survive – or just stay
sane – we had to watch out for one another.
The old lady down the street, the teenager at
the bus stop who forgot to bring a scarf when
it's 5 below. Hence our general willingness to
proffer assistance rather than aggression."
Another explanation for Canadian niceness
stems from the “fragment theory”. First posited
by the US scholar Louis Hartz, the theory states
that colonial societies such as the United States
and Canada began as “fragments” of the
European nations they were escaping from.
These new nations remain, in effect, frozen in
time. Thus, Canada retains a conservative, Tory
streak – that is, with a more deferential, “nicer”
nature than the one embraced by the feisty US
founding fathers.
Not everyone believes this is a good thing.
Valpy sees Canadian niceness as a defence
mechanism, one that “stems from inferiority and
an awkward awareness that our clothes don't fit
properly and we always have bad haircuts and
really don't do anything great.”
Also, in the land of nice, problems sometimes
fester because everyone is too nice to say
anything. Manjushree Thapa, a writer who
recently moved to Canada from Nepal, recalls
sitting in a movie theatre when the screen grew
dimmer and dimmer as the projection bulb
slowly burned out. The screen was almost black
but no one spoke up. Exasperated, she finally
prodded her Canadian partner to alert the
management, which he did, reluctantly.
“Niceness can silence people here,” she said.
Overall, though, she’ll take nice any day. And so
will I. Life is hard enough, with plenty of jagged
edges and pointy bits. Why not coat it with a
glaze of politeness and humility? Politeness, at
its best, is a way of honouring others, especially
strangers. Politeness is the lubricant that makes
social interactions run smoothly and reduces
the risk of conflagrations. The world, I think,
would be a better place if we were all a bit
more Canadian.
Fortunately, Canadian niceness is contagious.
On my annual northern migration, I find myself
slowing down, saying “thank you” and “please”
more often that I usually do. Maybe I go too far
and cross the line from polite to unctuous. If I
do, I can only say, in true Canadian fashion, I’m
sorry.
Actually its BBC post I liked to post it here to know your idea and thought
The original post is here am sorry for orhers men ^_^