French language and culture, and catholic church architecture in Canada and the US

French language and culture

We stayed in Montreal and PEI in Canada and to New Orleans and Lafayette in the United States, where are. Regions historically influenced by French culture or language. Comparing languages and ethnicities in each region.

Ville Marie, Montréal downtown, founded French settlers about 400 years ago

First, Montreal is a city with a large majority of French speakers. As you walk around the city, most of the shops are mostly written in French and only a little English is written in everywhere tourists visit. When shopping in a store, most people speak in French at first. However, I realize that more people could speak English better than those of other French speaking countries. The official languages of Canada are English and French. French is the official language of Quebec and the rest of the Confederation it is English. Therefore, English may be happened to be spoken in many cases. Furthermore Montreal is a unique multiethnic city which is very different from the other Canadian large cities for example Totonto and Vancouver. Of course, the latter two big cities are also multiethnic, however I feel Montreal's ethnic demography is completely different from Toronto and Vancouver. The Province of Quebec has her own immigration policy prior to French speanking because of keeping the percentage on French speaking Canadians. So we often see Lebanese, Polish, Haitian, African and Vietnamese restaurants and general stores in the streets or the underground city “RESO” in Montreal. It is unusual to find many Asians, especially whose roots are in East Asia, across Europe and the United States.

The PEI was an island ruled by Britain, although France was former ruler. Many historical sites have been left after that, however it is hard to see how people have accepted and lived in French culture. And PEI has a higher immigrant percentage more than that of any other Canadian province. This is because the PEI is a remit-friendly area, where they will relocate to other cities, such as Vancouver and Toronto. During this SV, I met a couple living in Hong Kong who are considering moving to PEI at B & B. The PEI is like a first gateway for immigration to Canada.

Third, when I visited New Orleans, I noticed that no French speaker found despite the fact that French-originated Creole culture, such as cuisine, music and festivity like Mardi Gras, was prevalent. The city itself has become quite a tourist destination. Also, New Orleans is a touristic city, so I can't say that unconditionally, but there were more black people than in the cities previously visited. There were many black people who came to Bourbon Street to drink. Perhaps there was a Haitian religion called voodoo, or blacks had originally increased in southern history.

The last I noticed at Lafayette that there is a lot of French writing because of the French Cajun culture. There were Spanish as well as English on the bus from New Orleans to Lafayette. This indicates that Spanish speakers are the second common in the United States. The manager of the inn “the Mouton House” where we stayed spoke English, French, and Spanish. And Lafayette's people ranged from white, black, and Latinos, and seemed to be a good representation of the American “melting ethnic pot.”

Canada is a multicultural country, and the United States seem no reference to one culture. In the future, immigrants will be more visible in Japan also, Canadian and US cases are very helpful for imaging a future Japanese society. I think that trough this trip.

Catholic Church

Every large or small city we visited in this short visit program has a large catholic church or cathedral in the downtown or the city centre. So I was interested in architectural differencies among those we have seen in this trip. I became interested in differences of these churches.

Notre-Dame Basilique de Montréal. This cathedral is famous for a wedding of Céline Dion, a worldwide star singer and born in a suburban city just near Montreal. It is the first Canadian catholic church whose style is Gothic revival and is strongly tied with Québec and Montréal history. Entering into the inside of the cathedral, I saw a large altar. The altar itself is coloured in red, however illuminated in cobalt blue from the bottom, so gave us a mysterious atmosphere. In addition, many sculptures or statues are engraved in the altar. Four scenes cited from the Old Testament predicting sacrifice, and the altar is surrounded by many crucifixes showing the passion of Christ. In addition, there is stained glass showing history of a huge organ and the establishment of Montreal to be known as the world's largest grade.

Altar of the Notre Dame Basilique de Montréal

St. Dunstan's Basilica Church. Prince Edward Island and its capital city Charlottetown have no skyscraper, we can see this church even from very far away though it is in the centre of the downtown. Two high and sharp towers are characteristic. It was burned out in 1913, and rebuilt in 1916. It is a stone made and French style Gothic church. A big pipe organ was central and hit overwhelming presence. It was divine, and light leaked out from the stained glass when I turned around in the next. The inside of the sanctuary was bright unlike Notre-Dame Basilica. (See Image of the first page)

Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. It is the American oldest catholic church located in the Jackson Square, the center of the French quarter. The church has three towers and snow-white coloured wall shining beautifully. Although the square was so crowded with tourists, musicians, painters and souvenir sellers and that it was so noisy, the inside of the Church was so solemn on the contrary. I saw many American national and Louisiana state flags being raised in this sanctuary. I have never seen raising the national or state official flags raised inside the church. The best characteristic of this sanctuary is a fresco drawn everywhere from the wall to a ceiling. A story of the Bible is described.

Saint Louis Cathedral in French Quarter (New Orleans)

St-John's cathedral in Lafayette. It was a red, pretty church. It soared in red and white building in brick like a big tower. In the inside, a lot of stained glass overflowed for light and I felt refreshing.

I felt many differences including structure and the brightness by a church. The Notre Dame sanctuary of Montreal in particular was the best part. I have been to various church in japan because I passed my Catholic school life before university. All Catholic churches I visited in this trip are bigger than Japanese churches which are mostly Protestant.