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Articles in Canadian Life

Canadians Behind The Camera

October 26, 2011 – 8:00 am | 16 Comments

My story with Cana­dian cin­ema didn’t start very well. When I first came here, Feng dragged me to see Men with Brooms. Keep­ing in mind I barely spoke Eng­lish and didn’t know much about Canada, I auto­mat­i­cally assumed it was a com­edy about… guys doing house­keep­ing, a bit like Mrs. Doubt­fire. Well, turned out it was a movie about curl­ing. I didn’t even know curl­ing was a sport.

French-Spotting and Relationships in North America

October 10, 2011 – 8:10 am | 22 Comments

Dat­ing is so heav­ily cod­i­fied you’d need The Da Vinci Code’s sym­bol­o­gist to under­stand all the sub­tleties. It starts in high school, where guys are sup­posed to take women to the prom—a rel­a­tively for­mal event for which women shop for princess dresses and guys really hope to take that dress out in the car at the end of the night. And dat­ing appar­ently only ends when, as Bey­oncé put it, you “put a ring on it”.

How I Gained (and Lost) Weight in Canada

October 5, 2011 – 8:05 am | 31 Comments

Alright, I was never 500 pounds nei­ther I am 100 pounds today. I’m aver­age. I’ve never been described as “skinny” or “thin” but again, at 5’7, I’m not a tiny lit­tle thing so I’m not aim­ing for that. My weight hasn’t changed in the past three years and I’m about the same as when I came to Canada in 2004.
But mov­ing to Canada played havoc with my body, espe­cially in the first few years.

The United Nations At Home

September 7, 2011 – 8:15 am | 17 Comments

Some­times, when I look at my reflec­tion in the mir­ror, I’m almost sur­prised to see that, indeed, I have a big nose and dark eyes that are much too wide to be mis­taken for most Asians’ almond-shaped eyes. I’m almost about twenty inches too tall and forty pounds too heavy to be your aver­age Asian woman. I guess I’m not Chinese.

5 Things You Wouldn’t Believe Are Banned or Illegal in Canada

August 31, 2011 – 8:10 am | 30 Comments

I learned about local cus­toms and laws lit­tle by lit­tle, in con­text. For instance, my jour­ney to Canada started with under­stand­ing the basic of immi­gra­tion law. I learned to respect local traf­fic laws when I took my dri­ver license.
But there are some laws or bans that you really, really can’t guess. Here are 5 things you wouldn’t believe are banned or ille­gal in Canada!

5 More Things My Mum Observed in Canada

August 10, 2011 – 6:40 am | 9 Comments

I never get tired of notic­ing the lit­tle cul­tural dif­fer­ences that exist between coun­ties and culture—I even have a blog tag ded­i­cated to them! My mother and my brother came to visit us in July and I eagerly wrote down what sur­prised them, and what prob­a­bly sur­prised me as well a few years ago.

5 Things My Mum Observed in Canada

August 3, 2011 – 6:30 am | 17 Comments

In July, part of my fam­ily (my brother, who is 19, and my mother) came to visit us for three weeks. I loved walk­ing around with them because they noticed a lot of lit­tle Cana­dian quirks I don’t even see any­more. I changed over the years—I became more Cana­dian. Two pairs of fresh eyes was all I needed to redis­cover the city and some aspect of our culture.

Mysterious Signs

July 4, 2011 – 8:45 am | 28 Comments

Ottawa doesn’t have a lot of graf­fiti, except on Prince of Wales Bridge. Most opin­ions are expressed on posters scat­tered across the city, sta­pled on wooden poles or taped to util­i­ties poles, despite the “No Pos­ter­ing” signs in effect. When­ever I wait at the red light, my eyes wan­der and I read them.