Wel­come to my new series, Ten Immi­grants, Ten Inter­views.

You guys all know my story by now, and you have a pretty good idea of what my life in Canada looks like. I thought it was time to let other immi­grants and new Cana­di­ans speak. I con­tacted ten of them, who each have their own story, their own rea­sons to come to Canada, their own point of view on how life is up North in the igloos. They all answered ten ques­tions, bring­ing a new per­spec­tive on immigration.

A new post will be pub­lished every Saturday.

Mehmet and his wife, Brenda

Mehmet Kaya has been in Canada for just over a year, and is still get­ting used to life here. He met his wife Brenda, an ESL teacher, while she was liv­ing and work­ing in Istan­bul. One day she walked into Mehmet’s uncle’s shop, where he was work­ing, and the rest is history!

They cur­rently live in Toronto, where he is look­ing for work, and has recently started part-time col­lege stud­ies in com­puter tech­nol­ogy. Brenda writes about their life on her blog, Life Like This.

What brought you to Canada?

I met a Cana­dian woman in Istan­bul. Before that I didn’t think of going to Canada par­tic­u­larly, but as our rela­tion­ship got more seri­ous, I started think­ing of going to Canada. We both felt that Canada was bet­ter for our future.

We got mar­ried in Istan­bul, then moved to Malaysia where we lived for two years. She was work­ing there, and we applied for my Per­ma­nent Res­i­dency dur­ing that time. A few months after we received my PR card, we moved to Canada. That was about a year ago.

Did you find the immi­gra­tion process dif­fi­cult?

The process was very dif­fi­cult. It took us almost a year to gather all the doc­u­ments we needed. This was so hard because we were in a third coun­try (not my coun­try or my wife’s coun­try). The process was quite clear, so we didn’t use any con­sul­tants or lawyers, but the dif­fi­cult part was to get all the doc­u­ments they needed.

One of the most dif­fi­cult parts was to prove our rela­tion­ship was gen­uine. Luck­ily my wife writes daily in an online diary, and when she printed out all the entries about our rela­tion­ship, there were hun­dreds of pages. We also had lots of pic­tures and cards. But we were still ner­vous that for some rea­son I would not get accepted by Immi­gra­tion Canada. We got the accep­tance let­ter about 9 months after we sent in our appli­ca­tion, and that was a great day!

How long did it take you to find a job that you liked in Canada?

The tough­est part for me in Canada has been not being able to find a job. I have been look­ing for any kind of job and can’t find any­thing. I’m plan­ning to con­tinue my edu­ca­tion in Canada but while not work­ing, it’s hard to cover the costs. I see that as a dif­fi­culty from my first year. I hope my sec­ond year will be better.

Where did you learn French/ Eng­lish? What was your sec­ond lan­guage level when you first came to Canada?

I’ve been work­ing with tourists in Turkey since I was a child. In that way I had some prac­tice with them and learned words from them. I never stud­ied Eng­lish in school, I just learned it from trav­ellers. I’m lucky because my wife is an Eng­lish teacher, and she has been teach­ing me since I met her. We speak Eng­lish all the time of course, and she cor­rects me and even gives me home­work! I don’t have dif­fi­culty with speak­ing or lis­ten­ing, but I’m still work­ing on my writing.

What was your biggest cul­ture shock?

The social life here is quite dif­fer­ent from Turkey. In Turkey peo­ple usu­ally get together dur­ing the day­time and week­days, but here it’s usu­ally in the week­ends or late at night. Peo­ple seem to be more busy here with their work and their life.

What haven’t you got­ten used to yet in Canada?

Well, I haven’t got­ten used to the sports, such as hockey. I don’t know how to play, the rules, and I def­i­nitely don’t know how to skate! Also, here I don’t have a chance to watch a lot of soc­cer on TV. Also peo­ple here are not as into soc­cer, and it’s hard to find peo­ple to play with. In Turkey, soc­cer is such a big part of the cul­ture, that if you just walk with your ball, peo­ple will come to you and ask you to play.

Did immi­grat­ing to Canada match your expectations?

Right now, if I say my expec­ta­tions have been matched, it would be lying. If I find a job, and work through my dif­fi­cul­ties, I will be able to answer that ques­tion. Canada is a beau­ti­ful coun­try, with friendly peo­ple, and it’s quite clean com­pared to where I come from. I haven’t seen any con­flicts in the street or vio­lence. Canada seems a peace­ful coun­try to me, so in this way it meets my expectations.

You can read a pretty funny sum­mary of Mehmet’s first year in Canada, com­plete with pic­tures, here: A year of new expe­ri­ences for Mr. M.

Do you find life expen­sive in Canada com­pared to your home country?

Def­i­nitely. Rent is very expen­sive here, every­thing. Food, trans­porta­tion, every­thing is more expen­sive than we pay in Turkey.

Will you apply for Cana­dian citizenship?

Yes, def­i­nitely. As soon as I am able to apply for cit­i­zen­ship, I will apply! I think it will be very good to be a Cana­dian citizen.

What advice would you give to some­one inter­ested in immi­grat­ing to Canada?

I would say make sure you have a good level of Eng­lish, and if you don’t have some con­nec­tions here before you come, make some as soon as pos­si­ble. I would also rec­om­mend you bring some ref­er­ence let­ters with you from your work places in the past, because it might be dif­fi­cult to get them when you’re in Canada, espe­cially if they don’t speak English.

Related arti­cles:

1. Adam and Eric: From the USA to Toronto
2. Nel­son: From Venezuela to Toronto
3. Neeraj: From India to Toronto
4. Andres Berrio: From Colom­bia To Toronto
5. The Cana­dian Immi­gra­tion Taboo: Those Who Go Back Home