What do these two have in common?





A panda and an odd looking girl - what possibly could these two individuals have in common? A good question in many weeks, but not in this one.

Both the panda and girl were repatriated this week. And, to my mind, it wasn't just a coincidence.

This week in Washington, before all the snow hit (it really is all about the timing), Tai Shen a multi-year alien resident of Washington's National Zoo left his American home for his native China. After living in the US for the entirety of his life, China formally requested that the panda be returned to China. China's official reasoning was the need for the pandas to increase the population of the rare and endangered species in its native land.

The odd-looking girl was not specifically called home to breed, but not unlike the panda, was recalled home this week. After 4 and a half years in the US - well Boston - I too was repatriated to my homeland of Canada.

While I do not regret a second of my time in Boston, I also came to realize in the last few months I was there that Boston and I needed to break up. We were clearly done with each other and had no future. There were times I loved Boston and never thought I'd leave it. Although I never really hated it, recent times had proved trying on multiple levels. I was done with Boston and it was done with me. Our love affair over, there was but one option - to go back to my original love Toronto.

This blog was created to contrast and compare the two towns, but really my love affair with Toronto never ended. Could I be frustrated with Toronto? Oh yes, I could! But here's the thing, Toronto never really cheated on me. Boston, at the end, began to feel like it was running around behind my back with some other Modern Lover (who could continually promise its love to the city, the 128 when its cold outside and Stop and Shop). So it made sense to break up. It just wasn't meant to be.

Again like Tai Shen, my little panda friend, I think too there was something to this whole being foreign thing that factored into my decision. For all its promised commodious living, being the local 'resident alien' isn't all it could be. I moved to Boston in the Post-911 era, a tenuous time in American I knew. However, in my time there I saw what was a legitimate concern about threats to the US from external entities become all-out hysteria. My trip home over Christmas (in the post underwear bomber era) only made that too clear. To be hassled is one thing to actively engage in racial profiling based on ethnicity is another.

The US is a great place and one I love. Yet, it is also a place with no sense of priorities in terms of how to deal with foreigners or foreign entities. I knew about US isolationism, but had no understanding of what that was actually like until I lived there. The US is a patchwork of poorly thought out immigration policies, trade pacts and foreign 'intelligence'. All of this contrived out of fear, love, hate and no real idea of what outcomes should be sought. Without strategically thinking out all of these, the US's international supremacy is bound to falter. If I was done with Boston, I have to admit I was also done with America. I loved it, but just couldn't support it any longer.

So Tai Shen and I will move back to our respected countries to try it elsewhere by ourselves. Like the thousands of foreigners who have worked in the US and leave every year we will take our knowledge and ambition with us and offer that to our homeland.

America - Boston - Thanks. You gave me a lot. Now I'm out. I'll talk to you later. Good luck with everything.