When I first moved here, the sheer number of Tim Hortons I found around Downtown was amazing. ('Mom, there's a Tim Hortons like around every other block!') When I go back to my family and friends out of the country, I explain to them what Tim Hortons is. ('It's got coffee and, y'know, a lot of doughnuts...') If I'm with a friend, we joke about living off of Tim Hortons. ('It's the closest place to go get food, so I go there far too often') The list goes on.
This week's reading made me realize, well, Tim Hortons really does constitute a considerable amount of 'Canadianness' that I (think I have) experienced over my last few years here. The consumption of coffee as a sort of identity politics links to the consumption of Tim Hortons coffee as a internalization of that subtle 'Canadianness' as described in the article. Because Tim Hortons transcends distance (connecting the vast terrain of Canada), having coffee at any Tim Hortons brings the feeling that there is a connection, something nationalistic in that cup of coffee. The notion of 'banal nationalism' is really important for me too (I'm an international student - I don't identify myself as Canadian), because it's those subtle things like Tim Hortons or picking up those free papers on the subway that makes me realize 'whoa, I think I'm becoming 'Canadian''. It feels much more insidious and effective rather than obvious displays of 'cultural celebration' or something along those lines. Such things like festivals and celebrations of culture are just 'festivals' - they aren't the everyday, but it's within a limited space. Tim Hortons, as the article suggests, is integrated into the most intimate parts of 'Canadian life' so much that it almost feels like a ritual, in a very subtle way.
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