You always hear about how diverse and multicultural Vancouver is and that Canadians are polite and friendly. All of this is true, but even more so, I have always perceived people in Vancouver, whatever their roots are to be welcoming, accepting and unprejudiced. Once you have lived in Vancouver for a while you don’t notice how exceptional that is, but once you leave, you realize that these character traits are indeed special.

Sometime last November I went out with friends – it was the usual busy Saturday night in Yaletown. While we were walking on Hamilton Street a tourist from the USA asked for directions. I replied to him, and he thanked me, adding that he had detected a foreign accent in my English. He asked where I was from (the answer is Germany, by the way). Now this might not seem like a big thing. He was polite, and I am convinced he had no bad intentions, but yet, I was confused by his question. I was not used to someone pointing out that I was a foreigner and I couldn’t help thinking, “If you are going to ask everyone in this city who has a non-native accent where they are from then you’ll be very busy my friend.”

When someone calls you out on a characteristic that distinguishes you from the (apparent) norm or majority, it’s more than likely you feel excluded. Having lived in Vancouver for almost a year, I knew that this “standard” doesn’t exist in everyone’s minds. I don’t mean to say that this was typical of an American – I’ve had plenty of similar examples from Germany – and certainly not inherent to them. It’s just such a different way of thinking than what I had grown accustomed to in Vancouver over the past several months. From the very beginning, Vancouver made it obvious that treating people differently because they look, speak or behave differently is not a thing here.

When I remember that incident I think of something I read during my English studies: typically, American society is referred to as a melting pot, whereas the Canadian community is seen as a mosaic. It’s a good thing: people are different, and that’s okay. There is no need to “melt together.” It’s perfectly fine to be who you are.

I have always felt that Vancouver’s diverse society embraces individuality, whether we are talking about race, sexuality, gender identity or beliefs. And when it comes to accents…in Vancouver, you’ll hear “foreign” accents all around town. It’s normal, and this blend of native and non-native English is the norm. It’s what makes Vancouver, Vancouver. It’s what I missed most when I visited New York last fall (a city I absolutely adore, just to be clear) –
the lack of diversity in people’s speech.

I’ll never forget when my landlord told me one night before I headed out with friends, “to meet some nice boys” and added “or girls,” as if it was the most natural thing in the world. And in Vancouver, it is. Coming from a small town in Germany, that comment astonished me. Germany is a country where the reigning party officially endorses the “traditional” family – father, mother, child – and where some of that party’s members speak out against including sexual diversity into the school curricula, thus rejecting same-sex couples. Germany is a country where same-sex couples still cannot get married. My religious Vancouver landlord? He couldn’t care less.

After one year in Vancouver I realized that this city has one of the greatest gifts to offer: Vancouver gives you the freedom to be yourself.