[b]I came from Beijing last summer to study journalism at UBC. My Canadian [b]experience takes a new shape every single day, newer than I can handle, so [b]I’d like to story tell it for the old folks to critique. [b][b]Politeness [b][b]My first culture shock came from Canadian politeness. I played soccer in [b]UBC’s league and couldn’t stand the fact that people were so nice to me. [b]If I kept the ball to myself without passing, say, back in China, guys [b]would call me a“ballhog” and names; when I do it here they say, “Do you [b]need any support?”Sweet, the result is, as you can imagine, I always [b]refuse to be supported. [b][b]Friendliness [b][b]I like the fact that strangers sometimes greet you with the warmth of a [b]friend. It’s even nicer in Vancouver Island where people new to each other [b]can engage themselves in a talk for no reason.Since I came I’ve made more [b]friends than I expected. My Caucasian roommates are beautiful people and we [b]had a good time playing “mafia”, sharing food and shouting “Go Canucks [b]go!” Do we have any problem with each other? Yes we do. A roommate of mine [b]makes a lot of noise when he makes love, and the wall between us is too [b]thin to contain the moaning. But I am not too upset about that, as he does [b]it only twice a day. [b][b]My pushers, my best friends [b][b]“Welcome to BC,” said my classmate Mike on my birthday party as he took [b]out a pipe from his pocket. [b]My jaw hit the ground when he laid some tea-like stuff in the pipe and said [b]it was a birthday gift he bought me from Hasting. “I don’t even smoke [b]cigarette, man, and you give me pot?” I turned him down [b]. [b]He was so upset that it’s not exaggerating to say that he was hurt. But he [b]didn’t give up. He started to invite other guys to take inhales [b]rotationally. I was surprised to find that half a dozen of my classmates, [b]male or female, are so marijuana-friendly that they smoke it like a [b]chimney. “Come on, man, this is BC,” they can’t wait to stone me. And I [b]took my first inhale. It didn’t work on me though, probably because I [b]never smoked cigarette and was unable to force the air into my lung. Mike [b]was so happy about becoming my pusher. I have another pusher Geoff, my [b]roommate who tries to make me a Christian. He bought me a bible, took me to [b]church and all kinds of Christian parties. I like his earnestness in trying [b]to “save” me, though I don’t like the idea of being saved by somebody [b]whose existence is in question. I enjoy singing songs with lots of people [b]in church ? not when SARS is spreading ? and listening to their [b]discussion on life and death. It’s a big part of Canadian culture [b]worth experiencing. [b][b]Though neither of them has changed me successfully, my pushers have become [b]my best Canadian friends. I spent thanksgiving and Christmas with their [b]families on the Island. My first taste of turkey, first self-made Christmas [b]tree and first talk with sexy country girls ? everyday has been a new [b]experience, thanks to my friends. [b][b]Nasty times [b][b]Did I have blue times in Canada? Yes. The first time I felt being [b]discriminated was when I interviewed an immigration official on the [b]government’s plan to disperse immigrant settlement. “Your questions are [b]nonsense,” she tried to intimidate me, “They don’t make any sense.” [b]“You are just a student,” she went on, “You are not professional [b]enough.” [b][b]What hurt me most was that she said “Do you understand the English that I [b]am speaking?” as she knew that I was from China. It hurt me so much that I [b]was even afraid of hearing her voice when I went ove r my tape, something I [b]usually do before writing a news article. It has been my worst Canadian [b]experience, but I take it as an individual behavior rather than society as [b]a whole. I should say ninety nine times out of a hundred people I interview [b]are nice to me; the percentage is much higher than what I experienced in [b]China. In fact, some bizarre experience helps me learn more about Canadian [b]culture. [b][b]I was wanted by a cop last October. Assigned by a mad professor to find out [b]the body condition of Wei Amanda Zhao, I phoned Vancouver’s coroner and [b]made some guesswork which I asked her to confirm. This tight-lip lady [b]turned out to be a nervous nanny. Not only did she refuse to tell me [b]anything, but she told the Burnaby police that I had “hold-back” [b]information which they withheld from the public. God knows, maybe my [b]guesswork happened to be right. So an RCMP guy called “Tyson” started [b]looking for me. He called the heads of my school for information on me and [b]I was scared because I didn’t know if he wanted to arrest me. [b][b]When he finally got me on the phone, he was condescending, if not [b]threatening. In a humble way I answered all his questions and explained to [b]him that I didn’t have any “hold-back” info. At last he was bored I [b]guess and gave up questioning. [b]But I regret being nice to him. I regret not exercising my rights [b]guaranteed b y the Constitution and I am probably not gonna have any more [b]opportunity to ex ercise it! I should have teased him and got more [b]information on the case as an exchange. Conclusion: You don’t have to be [b]nice to a Canadian cop unless you’ve broken the law. [b][b]Go out and talk to people [b][b]Canadian culture is not carried by the Rocky Mountains, I believe, but the [b]peo ple they nurture. Informed and intelligent, hospitable and artless, [b]this is largely what I find Canadians. Many of them have traveled around [b]the world and I’ve learned a lot more about Europe and Africa by talking [b]to them. Even about China, they sometimes know b etter than I do. For [b]example, I didn’t know Google was banned in my country l ast September [b]until they told me so. It’s always been an excitement for me to scoop up [b]interesting people in this brand new culture. [b][b]I’ve done a video documentary with two of my classmates on a girl who’s [b]surv ived on the street without her family. An ex drug dealer and addict, [b]she broke my stereotype of desperate people needling themselves on Hasting. [b]I never knew they had human faces until I got to know her. She’s a good [b]rapper who writes rhyme and performs with a passion for life. He r energy [b]spins with her as she dances. “I got the skeletons in the closet But that [b]don’t bother me I be the soldier from the jungle approximately My corrupt [b]past didn’t take me Never beat me, never been locked up in society’s [b]cage.” [b]She writes and raps. She has a faith that keeps her strong, that has pulled [b]he r out of the quagmire and leads her towards a better tomorrow. She now [b]starts fresh in a job training program and paints murals over the city’s [b]graffiti. “I’m goin’ up in flames Never hold me down” I decide that the [b]part of Canadian life she’s shown me is never to be learned at school. [b][b][b]Education [b][b]Now back to school, it took me quite a while to figure out why I had [b]studied s o hard here, like never before. It could be that my classmates [b]are workaholics. Some of them work like masochists, and take inhuman [b]pleasure out of it. I guess I am more or less pressured by the fact that [b]they work like crazy, if they are not. But why do they do so? My answer is [b]that they love what they’ve chosen ? and they drop out if they don’t ? [b]which is a big thing about Canadian education , free choice and motivation. [b][b]Few of my schoolmates have entered the program without being committed to [b]jour nalism. Two students did come to “see how it goes” and they’ve [b]dropped out because they don’t love it. Fortunately I love what I am [b]taking. This I believe has been more important than pressure in keeping me [b]going. In fact, I have made some contribution to Canada’s education, [b]though by mistake. Looking for a TAship when I first came, I ran into a [b]program called “humanities 101” sponsored by UBC. It offers free [b]education to people aged from 20 to 70 who have not had opportunity to go [b]to college. It was not because I had a good heart that I undertake this [b]unpaid TAship; I s aid it was an accident. I didn’t know what [b]“volunteer” meant when I saw the job posting, which could be deadly for a [b]job hunter in Canada. When I found it out it was too late to withdraw, so I [b]assumed that I had a good heart and moved on with it. It turned out to be a [b]rewarding experience. I got to know underrepresented and disadvantaged [b]people from different parts of society: an old fisherman hurt by fish [b]farming, a jobless immigrant crippled by language problem and a girl who [b]found “six bucks sucks…” The only pity in my one year study is that I [b]dropped out from a minor course o [b]f Canadian history. I took it only because I wanted to know more about the [b]country, but unfortunately it was too hard for me. The only thing I learned [b]from that course: It’s nothing like Chinese history. [b][b]Employment [b][b]A job doesn’t come easily, especially for an international journalism [b]student . I spent tons of time applying for a summer internship, which is a [b]requisite for my degree, but failed to find one in Canada. While my [b]schoolmates go to work for the Toronto Star, the CBC and the Vancouve r Sun [b]for $ 500--$1,000 Canadian a week, I can only struggle to get a job in S [b]ARS-hit Hong Kong, for as little as 6,000 HKD a month. But I know I [b]shouldn’t complain. If there’s anything to blame, it’s my English. The [b]one year education has helped me a lot; without it I wouldn’t even get a [b]job in Hong Kong. [b][b]Hopefully the internship will add to my resume and help me get into [b]mainstream media next year when I graduate. To my encouragement, a second [b]Chinese student who went to Hong Kong last summer has made it to the [b]Toronto Star. If I couldn’t find a job here upon graduation, I wouldn’t [b]blame Canada. Going back home is not a bad choice. The whole point of being [b]in Canada to me is not to get a visa, but to learn as much as I can. [b][b]End [b][b]I enjoyed reading the article by the Waterloo student from Peking [b]University. I’ve written this only to provide a different perspective of a [b]Chinese arts student in Canada [b][b]