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Vancouver is a home for people with different cultural backgrounds, and this fact affects the way its citizens identify themselves. Coming from Russia originally, I consider Vancouver to be the most favourable place, as it allows people with big cultural differences to live and work together in peace. My home country embraces more than 100…
One of the things that intrigued me most about Canada was…Canadian women. Yes, yes, despite a wealth of experience in France, I have always found French women to be distrustful and to have a closed and wait-and-see attitude. I was anxious to meet their sisters from across the Atlantic. After all, it’s the time of…
I arrived in Vancouver on a sunny Sunday in August 2014. Although I was tired, I felt like taking a walk around the famous downtown area. The city was joyous on that day, and the glass in the buildings reflected the sunlight making everything I looked at very shiny – the glitter city, I thought…
A balancing act…that’s how I perceive my conversations since my arrival in Vancouver a few months ago. Surrounded by and immersed in North American English, French-Canadian French and the French of my native France, I like to juggle all three cultures, which are dear to me, both at work and elsewhere. But I also watch…
Cultural diversity in China, where I grew up, meant nothing to me but a staged show. The so-called minority regions in some remote areas of China thrived by showcasing their unique and colourful visual culture to tourists like me. Years later, after I was acquainted with Canadian culture, I began to understand cultural diversity in…
I came into the world in Africa – the continent that gave birth to the human race. Like my father, I was born in Kenya. In 1920, my grandfather immigrated to Kenya from the Punjab in India. In 1967, we moved to Great Britain, the country that gave birth to the theory of evolution. Life…
While unpacking after my arrival in Vancouver I swore to myself when I realised that I had forgotten my neckties. What a stupid oversight I said to myself, “I’ll need those ties for the office!” Two years later I more often sport a T-shirt rather than a dress shirt, and what a relief it is…
As a born and raised Albertan, one of the central reasons I was drawn to Vancouver was, while lacking in originality, the mild winters. While still swollen by thick layers of clothing in Edmonton, I imagined life in Vancouver. I was buoyant with the anticipation of living without snow drifts, spinning tires, demotivating cold snaps…
I often doze in public transit. When I say often what I really mean is: all the time. Up to now, as a matter of fact. But one evening, I was feeling thoughtful and took a look at my traveling companions. And feeling a big curious, I watched…. The readers, the professionals, the students, and…
When I first gazed upon the peaks of the Coast Mountains from the tiny window of my airplane seat, I thought I was ready for Vancouver.
More than a habit, it’s a religion. Before setting foot in a new place, I study the museums, the great monuments, the beautiful architecture. It’s a purely intellectual exercise. I believe that the works conceived by another belong to another time. Or maybe that the very time I spend contemplating the work of that other…
Growing up in Vancouver entails navigating the complexities of the city’s familiar, highly-touted paradigm of multiculturalism. Over the years, I have witnessed many manifestations of this policy in everyday life, ranging from the brilliant to the problematic. At its best, multiculturalism can foster an appreciation for diversity and encourage inter-cultural dialogue. I have enjoyed various…
Foreign is the adjective which best describes the ambiguous feeling that came over me after the first rush of adrenaline faded.
