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I arrived here dragging my feet, despite having had this expatriation project in mind for many long months before my arrival in Vancouver. I’m attached to my hometown, my culture and my gastronomic delights. On the eve of my departure, I indulged myself in a feast of cheeses and foie gras with fine wines to…
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…
As we know, xenophobia starts with first impressions: a simple glance allows you to see the Other’s difference. If we all come from similar racial backgrounds this difference doesn’t immediately show through our physical aspect, but it clearly shows up the very moment the foreigner begins to speak, revealing his accent. Surely we should marvel…
There are few cities in the world that have the ability to transport me to different places at different periods of my life. Walking the streets of Vancouver is like stepping into a time machine that launches me back to other cities – Hong Kong, Tokyo, Osaka, Amsterdam, New Delhi, Mexico City. Sometimes the trip…
Like a fish in water. That’s how I felt a few days after my arrival in Vancouver. The reason? The apparent lack of obstacles to my integration into this new environment. Language was not a barrier between Canada and myself, and the Canadian culture wasn’t so far removed from mine to make me feel instantly…
One day my best friend made me realize that we live in the golden era of Vancouver salsa. Social partner dance classes and Latin dance events in salsa, bachata, merengue, kizomba, tango andzouk are now so prolific in this city that we cancelled cable and ran off dancing every night of the week. In fact,…
In February 2015, at the age of 55, I moved to Vancouver. Yes, I was fleeing winter but I also had a desire to better understand my own country. I had always wondered why Canada did not feel united as the United States does. Or was I the one feeling all broken up? The question…
When I’m out and about in Vancouver, be it at a party, shopping or sheltering rainy hours away at a coffee shop, people often ask me, “Where are you from?” Perhaps it’s based on statistics; so many people pass the Rocky Mountains and call this city home, but the questioners come across as genuinely perplexed.…
Who knew that a choice made at the age of 11 would impact my personal and professional life for many long years? French is my mother tongue, so what would I choose to study as a second language? I chose German. But then, what of English? English was my second choice and to which I…
Last October in Australia I fumbled over a ballot I ordered from overseas. Feeling politically isolated in a remote city named Wagga Wagga, I researched various candidates. At that time I was confronted with a startling question: what does it mean to be Canadian? Reading the headlines on my favourite websites I suddenly missed the…
When we think about Vancouver as one of the most multicultural and diverse cities in the country it’s important to consider how this diversity is represented in the social and geographical makeup of the city and what kind of diversity this suggests. Growing up in Vancouver, I learned to distinguish between neighbourhoods based on their…
The most revealing experience of Vancouver’s cultural plurality has been, for me, the daily ride on bus route 49, connecting South Vancouver to UBC. Firstly, I was amused by the fact that at a corner on Knight Street, a KFC, a Chinese restaurant and an Indian caterer were all neighbors. I then had the idea…
My conscious life essentially began when I moved to Saskatchewan, just in time to begin kindergarten. There it seemed that cultural diversity didn’t mean quite as much as it does here in British Columbia. In Saskatchewan, I lived almost exclusively among working – or middle-class white families, many of Ukrainian descent, many more being Catholics…
