Vancouver Olympics: General downtown ruckus

I wish I had gotten video of people chanting "JAPADOG! JAPADOG!" as we stood in line for those savory-scrumdillyumptious hot dogs.  But I didn't, so you'll have to be satisfied with these random moments of Canadian fanaticism.

Granville St. in downtown Vancouver, where they had closed off traffic so people were free to roam about in their Canada hockey jerseys, high-fiving each other randomly, shaking their cowbells, and breaking out into bouts of "Oh Canada."

And close to Robson St. where people were generally excited and honking their horns as they drove by:

And finally an impromptu rendition of "Oh Canada" on Vancouver's very own Skytrain, on the last train to Richmond that night.  I just can't imagine Americans breaking out into "The Star-Spangled Banner" on, say, BART or the NYC subway.

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8 responses
Glad you got to visit our fair city during such an exciting time. I think everywhere I went downtown was madness and loved the spontaneous anthem singing :) Who knew we were so patriotic?!
— colene
Thanks col!  It was certainly a grand old time.
— Stephanie Lim
Re: National anthem singing, it may not be for lack of patriotism; the Star Spangled Banner is notoriously difficult to sing. Some posit that America as a relatively non-singing culture (at least, pre-American idol) is due in part to that fact.
— slu
The singing and comment on singing cultures reminds me of the high school graduation that I recently went to. It turns out that, in Japan, it's common for students to sing as a class at graduation. So the juniors as a class will pick any song (aka the latest pop song) to sing to the seniors, and the seniors as a class will sing another pop song in honor of their parents during the graduation ceremony. The equivalent would be if our whole high school class sang a Britney Spears song, solemnly, at graduation. Interesting, huh?
— eattravelwrite
Fascinating.  I could maybe see ppl singing a song but not solemnly.  Probably paired with a pop dance routine, rather.
— Stephanie Lim
@eattravelwrite very interesting! I wonder why it's done solemnly? I keep thinking of Glee :)
— colene
@col omg I canNOT wait for the next season to start!!!
— Stephanie Lim
@col Yes, it turns out that graduations (and weddings, too, from what I've noticed) in Japan are very solemn. Quiet and serious, with a lot of bowing (we bowed at least 10 times--I counted =) ).
— eattravelwrite
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