Photo by imagemunky, Flickr
Where to begin? Images and feelings start to blend, yet I have only been in Vancouver for two months. I remember when I first landed at YVR. I was tired from the trip. All I was able to do was to go with the flow. Obviously, lots of things struck me as odd. My first true moment of perplexity was my host family’s father’s invitation to embrace.
To hug in order to say “hi” is something I’m not familiar with. In France, we kiss to say hi or bye, which can seem strange to foreigners. It’s a sign of closeness, even intimacy for some, but here, the fact that some people hug when they hardly know each other doesn’t shock anyone.
For me, it really doesn’t come naturally. It’s a sign of affection that I reserve for my close relatives and that I have difficulty carrying out in other circumstances. Who knows why?
The first time someone I had met four and a half minutes earlier asked me to open my arms to say goodbye, I thought about my cousin, a rugby fan, saying the same thing to his mother before trying to tackle her. It wasn’t really helpful. And apart from bursting out laughing and acknowledging our mutual surprise, nothing much happened.
I haven’t warmed up to the idea of hugging someone new and I can’t say that I’ve fallen in love with the city.
Walking along the streets of Vancouver, I found the architecture without any real character, maybe too modern. In France, history is at every corner. Whether through the streets named after people who left their mark on history or through monuments that have been here for centuries –France has some serious history not found in street names like 12th Avenue.
I had forgotten that Canada is a young country and that its heritage is only beginning to be part of the landscape and that each community is adding a stone to the building. And yes, the whole world comes to Vancouver. Here, cultural diversity is a real asset.
The feeling I had towards Canadians, at least the ones I’ve met, was similar to the feeling I had towards the city. The Canadian personality, at least what I was able to perceive of it, seemed to me at first, very polite.
Here, nobody crosses the streets outside crosswalks – everybody stays on the right side of the escalators. If you don’t walk up, you stay on the right side to let people go by, and no one ever raises their voice. Very much under control, almost too much for my French liking.
It’s like a custom and no one is questioning it. Something that is impossible to see on the other side of the Atlantic because we are too fond of challenging things, discussing them, playing with words and limits. It’s not always productive, but it’s like a kind of daily exercise, a blend of humor and bad faith. Not very Canadian, indeed.
But then, weeks passed and I began to see this city and its inhabitants in a different way.
What amazes me sometimes is your unfailing calmness. How is this possible? You are proud of your country, without arrogance. You are very nice and patient, but you don’t know what conviviality is. You live in a wonderful setting that you find exceptional, but you don’t always take the time to appreciate the simple pleasures in life.
Having said that, without having fallen in love with Vancouver, I already know that I’m going to miss this city. You know, it’s like those tiny things that get under your skin without your noticing and meld inside of you. Until, one day, you’re unexpectedly missing them. It’s then that you realize that what you have experienced has become important. So, I’m already thinking about English Bay by day and Gastown by night.
According to Christopher Columbus, ‘It’s when one doesn’t know where they go that they go the furthest.”
That quote has always rung true for me, as if I needed some sort of uncertainty to move forward – nothing like living abroad for that. I don’t know where my trip to Canada will take me, but I already know that only time will tell and that I’ll take a part of Vancouver with me, wherever I go. Perhaps I’ll even start to hug people when I first meet them. Maybe.
Translation Nathalie Tarkowska
