In the last couple of weeks we have watched 2 videos that are related to culture. We watched a talk by Lionel Laroche that discussed the difficulties that cultural differences can create in the the workplace and a video talk by Chimamanda Adichie who told us about the danger of the single story. Thinking about these two talks, take some time to reflect on your own culture and answer the following questions. (these two videos are linked to the speakers names if you need to see them again)
1. In what ways is your culture different from Canadian culture?
2. In what ways is it similar?
3. What are some of the problems that you have faced while trying to adjust to living in a new culture?
4. Are there any stories that you would like to share with your classmates about your experiences living here?
Take some time to read eachothers comments and respond to them by midnight on Tuesday June 21st.
It was my pleasure to have an opportunity to listen to two videos in the classroom last week, which are very important to conceptualize Dos and Donts that we may encounter in Canadian workplace. Based on the talks by Lionel Laroche and Chimamanda Adichie, I have made an attempt to answer the following questions:
ReplyDeleteIn what ways is your culture different from Canadian culture?
I am limiting my response to Nepal's and Canada's workplace culture. When I look at Nepalese and Canadian workplace cultures, I see a number of differences. On the one hand, most of the public and private organizations in Nepal are categorized as closed type. Therefore, they are not learning organizations as everything is dictated and ordered by boss who is all in all. In such a situation, learning does not take place. It happens because they often follow chain of command and communication is usually one way where none in the institution can learn from each other. On the other hand, Canadian workplace culture totally differs from Nepal because they lay emphasis on openness, transparency and human relations. In this regard, I can say that Nepal's workplace culture is still dominated by Taylor's scientific management theory and Canada's workplace culture is based on Elton Mayo's human relation theory. In Nepal, the employees are still considered manpower and in Canada, they are treated as human resources.Moreover, when I listened to a talk of Lionel, I came to know that Canada gives more emphasis on soft skills, whereas Nepal emphasizes on hard or technical skills. This difference also compels me to develop soft skills that I need to be successful in Canadian context.
In what ways is it similar?
In some ways, it is similar.Nowadays Nepal is making effort to reform its administrative system. It is trying to learn from the best practices of developed countries. However, it is hard to relicate the system due to its own constraints.
What are some of the problems that you have faced while trying to adjust to living in a new culture?
I have faced myriad of problems while making efforts to adjust to living in a new culture, especially in Canada. Way of communication is one of the problems. Even if I can communicate in English, it is very hard to communicate properly as I lack knowledge of Canadian workplace English. In the same way, I have faced the problem of etiquettes and behavior that I should perform at workplace.Apart from this, I have certain type of mindset which I must change because my mental model of Nepal will not work here. This could be because of the danger of the single story as discussed by Chimamanda.
Are there any stories that you would like to share with your classmates about your experiences living here?
In Regina, I worked as an office clerk for an immigration lawyer. Her name was Dr. Linda. She was so nice and was happy with my work. She was so friendly and approachable. In the very beginning, I felt uneasy because she used to order for lunch at 1:00 pm. She always asked me to join her for lunch. It was odd for me as it was not common in Nepal. Initially, I could not become outgoing while interacting with her. I felt shy. Gradually, I tried to remove this habit. Even today I have not been able to eliminate this completely.
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteIn my exposition I want to compare Bulgarian and Canadian culture in some ways.For some of the Bulgarian organizations "time is money", whereas for Canadians it's "not to miss lunch". Most Bulgarians are not admirers of rules. They would observe the law only if they would benefit or if this is unavoidable,while in Canada there is not another way"law is law".Another difference between Bulgarians and Canadians is that aggression and emotions should not be shown in Canada but in contrast in Bulgaria they may be given at proper time and places.Let see differences in educational system.In Canada students feel comfortable with open learning situations and good discussions, although in Bulgaria it's important to know the right answers. Teachers in Canada can say:"I don't know", on the contrary in Bulgaria teachers supposed to have all the answers.On the other hands,I saw only one similarity between Canadians and Bulgarians hiring.In both countries if you want to start some job it's important to have a friend in this company who will give the reference for you but if you don't have this person, just forget about this job. To sum up, as you see there are more differences than similarity between Bulgaria and Canada, therefore I chose Canada for the rest of me and my family life.
Hi Madan,
ReplyDeleteI have a question for you.If I ask you to join me for lunch how do you feel? Can you refuse my invitation? In Bulgaria it' common situation and it will be pleasure for me if somebody ask me to join him/her for lunch.
The two videos leaved deep impressions to me. While watching the videos, I started thinking about many things such as do I speak the danger of the single story or do I believe the story, and what kind of person I am. Throughout this experience, I realized that my culture have very different and similar culture from Canada. I first would like to talk about different culture. When Koreans catch eye contact each other, they have a staring match, so if someone avoid eye contact earlier, Koreans think, “I am a winner”. However, Canadians are different. When they are in the same situation, they greeting with smile. Also, I surprised that a lot of people bring their tumblers for drinking coffee. Besides, coffee shops are always busy. Canadian likes drinking to coffee. Korean likes drink coffee, too but most Korean never brings their coffee outside. In addition, When Koreans meet old people, they greeting with bow, but Canadians just shake old people by the hand. In addition, Koreans cannot smoke in front of old people, but Canadians do it. I have some experiences about that. When I first came to Canada, I felt strange because when I took C-train, every Canadian watched me with smile, so I thought, ”why they are laughing at me? I have something on my face?” Also, when I visited my Canadian friend’s house, I met my friend’s parents, so I greeting with bow, but his parents had a laugh and my friend smoke with his father. Therefore, I felt weird. However, I can understand now, because I have spent so long time in Canada. For that reason, I could find similar culture from Canada. Canada has beautiful nature. When I went to the Glenmore Park, I could not believe my eyes because despite I just drove 20 minute from downtown, there were big lakes and big mountains. I thought Calgary is close to nature. Accordingly, Canadians enjoy nature, so they like travel and picnic. As above Korea has beautiful nature, because of four seasons, so they also like trips. They leave on vacations to mountains or beach. It’s time to share my stories, but I do not have any terrible stories about difficult situation from Canadian workplace, so I would like to share with my classmate about these stories. Today, my husband and I went to Apple store which was in the Chinook mall. There was not busy even this day was Saturday. We were waiting any member of the staff to come to us, but nobody didn’t. We waited very long time despite they started talk with another Canadian customer after finishing their consultation. We were upset because we thought they ignore us due to fact that we are Asians or Koreans. Therefore, we are in a bad mood right now. Secondly, many foreign people, foreign actresses, and animal lovers said that Koreans eat dog meats, naming it “barbarous” but every Korean don’t eat dog meats and Korea has sad story about that. Long time ago Korea was very poor because of continuous war and pillage. At that time, their lands, livestock, and houses was burned. Do you imagine? You do not have food and everything. There was one choice, so please do not blame them. It’s just the older generation culture. The present, almost Koreans do not eat dog meats. It’s the danger of the single story, too. Also, Finally, in future we will face difficult situations from Canadian workplace. Maybe Canadian do not understand me and neither do I. One children’s story flashes across my mind. One raven wanted to be an egret, so the raven sprayed flour on him, but the raven was discovered to egrets by raining. I think we live in different country with different people. We cannot become them. We can naturally feel that cultural differences and discrimination from the danger of the single story. There’s not much we can do about these things, but as Chimamanda Adichie’s story, we can tell our real cultures to different countries people and show best behaviors as well. If we do that, their stereotype and cultural differences will disappear.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, every culture has its own advantages and disadvantages. People in China are more close-knit than those in Canada. One of the reasons is the history. Chinese people focus on the family affection, so most of family lives together. The elderly looks after grandchildren, and the adults look after their old parents. Most of the parents usually paid all the tuitions for their children until they finished the university. During the study, most of the Chinese students don’t need to go to work part time like the students in Canada. Most of the students in Canada at least work in the summer to make their money. On the other hand, the children in Canada are more independent than the children in China. Lots of Canadians have good mentioned soft skills than the Chinese immigrants because Chinese students seldom do presentation in school as it was in Lionel Laroche’s video.
ReplyDeleteI believe both cultures focus on soft skill. In China, a person with high EQ would have a better change to be promoted in comparison with people who has less EQ.
As the danger of the single story talked by Chimamanda Adichie, my husband told me that life in Canada was not as good as it may seem for a newcomer before I landed Canada. I may have to start at the level of a dishwasher due to poor English and work my way up as my English improve. I didn’t totally believe in what he said because I have a dream that I would have a good future as soon as I come to Canada. Now I can understand that I didn’t have an overall understanding of the reality of life in Canada for new immigrant. I found my first job as a cashier at T&T supermarket and I’m still in this position as two and a half years have passed. I found that there is no future in the boring job and sometimes I found it is very depressing when I have to deal with uncivilized customers who would complain over something as little as a 2cents shopping bag.
As mentioned in Lionel Laroche’s video, it would take about 6 to 12 years for immigrant to bring their soft skills to a reasonable level to fit Canadian’s culture. I have been working very hard for the past 3 years to improve my communication skills in English to pursue my career in accounting. I will continue to improve my soft skill until the day that I meet my goal and fulfill my Canadian dream.
Hi! Amy,
ReplyDeleteI like your reflection. Canada is an immigrant country whether it was someone who immigrated to Canada 600 years ago or someone will immigrate 600 years from now. There are a lot of cultures introduced to Canada. These multi-cultures makes Canada an interesting country for us to live in and learn. For example, food from different culture are very enjoyable. You can become gourmet without going out of the Canada because all the food are in Canada. That also makes Canada an unique country. On behalf of all the struggling new Canadian, we welcome you to join the club.
If I compare my middle eastern culture or my Iraqi culture specifically to the Canadian culture, I will certainly find a huge contrast between the both cultures. In other words, there are numerous core differences rather than similarities. I would like to support my point by Edward Hall's classification system of world's diverse cultures, which clearly distinguish between the oriental and the western cultures. In the Iraqi workplace for instance, employees tend to disobey the policies of their workplace due to the fragile system there. Furthermore, punctuality and deadlines are quite flexible or nearly non-existent. Also, the majority of bosses in large companies or institutes of the public sector have the absolute power in controling or even manipulating the overall system of their workplace without consulting other employess, who might be more capable in dealing with issues than their managers. Based on the facts above, the entire country's advancement was at its lowest and many facilities completely collapsed after the war.
ReplyDeleteNow, in recent years, many American and European companies started operating some facilites in many country. Thus, they are trying to adopt the western workplace culture to motivate employees to be more creative rather than being reluctant to work with honesty.
The second thing I would like to talk about is the danger of the single story. Refering to Chimamanda Adichie's lecture, a lot of people stereotype other foreign cultures based on some wrong ideas usually reflected through the media. When a large number of Iraqis abandoned the country to find a safe asylum due to the continuous violence against them there, they were stereotyped as "terrorists with bloody hands". In fact, these innocent people were victims of some foreign terrorist groups, who came from other neighbour countries during the war. We can infer that the massive media played a major role in reflecting a one side story of the aftermath of the war. In other words, instead of mentioning about the great civilization of this country, they showed to the world only the negative aspects that does not represent the culture itself.
Last week, I had the chance to watch some videos which talked about the difference between countries and its inconvenience to people. From those videos, I started to think about my country’s culture and Canadian culture, there are some differences and similarities among them and there is a story I want to tell you about the time when I first came here. First, let’s talk about the differences between two cultures. In my opinion, Vietnamese culture is a high context culture in which people live close to their families, care so much about their relationship with others and don’t pay much attention to time, but Canadian culture seems to be opposite. Although these cultures have differences, they still have some similarities such as people who come from these two cultures, are hard working and the love which they give to their families are the same; they protect their families, love them wholeheartedly and they do everything do to make sure that their families’ lives are getting better. The difference of my country’s culture and Canadian culture almost made me want to give up living in Canada. I first came to Canada one year ago and spent here one month. That time was really difficult for me, I couldn’t eat Western food, I felt that everybody was so cold, they didn’t like me, and some people were so racist because I’m Asian, I felt terrible. One year later, I came back for my study, I was so afraid that I couldn’t make it but when I came to school, my teachers and my new friends were so nice, they helped me a lot of things and also people whom I met on the streets. The Asian and Vietnamese markets were everywhere and I could find absolutely everything there so I could cook any food I like. Now I think that before I was so wrong, there are a lot of good people here, around me, the people whom I met before is just a small number of Canada’s population so why I should give up. The longer I stay here, the more I love Canada, the more I know about Canadian culture, the more I find it good and the more I like it.
ReplyDeleteHi Liliya,
ReplyDeleteI was talking about workplace context. In Nepal, no boss offers lunch on a regular basis because there is considerable distance between him and subordinates. In case of family and social invitations, Nepalese people highly value it and I will be happy to join you.
Hi Fadi,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you in the sense that you have made an attempt to reflect vices of Asian workplace culture. Like in Iraq, head of an organization in Nepal is very powerful and always maintains status of elite class. I have directly experienced how discriminative they are while dealing with subordinates. A big distance is always there. Even they have their own club and subordinates cannot become member of it. That is why once there was movement of subordinates in Nepal's civil service.The subordinates concern was that they should allowed to be member of that club, and that has not become successful till date. In contrast, I found quite opposite in Canada though it takes time to transform ourselves as we have spent many years in our home country's workplace culture.
I have been in Canada for almost three years and I have found out many differences between Chinese and Canadian culture. The first thing I would like to share is that common-law is legal here and many women don't worry about having children before married, which are thought to be immoral in Chinese culture. Secondly, Canadians can easily apply for credit cards from banks and they also like to use credit cards to buy everything they want even if they know they can not pay back to banks. However, in traditional Chinese culture, people avoid to borrow money from banks.The consuming style is more conservative. People feel anxious when they are in debts. Third, respecting elders is a virtue in China. It reflects when people give their seats to the elders. However, I hesitate to do so, because it might be interpreted as discrimination.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, I think culture is also in a dynamic evolution. China has been reflecting and learning from developed countries.Debates about whether the society needs generalists or specialists have been made. Also the social status and recognition for blue collar workers are increasing. Another similarity is that Canadians distinguish four seasons in the same way as Chinese lunar calendar displays. Also, the desire to maintain a healthy life is similar between these two cultures.
When living in Canada I have the same experience as Chimamanda Adichie does of the single story. People have single stories about China and Chinese. Also, I was shocked by what Lionel mentioned in his speech, but I believe his points are true, which I have never considered before. By understanding the structure of Canada and Canadian thinking style, I think I can communicate better from now on.
Hi Trinh,
ReplyDeleteI have the same feeling as you do. I think we must have experienced culture shock at the very beginning, but as our understanding of Canadian culture increases and our personal network is built, we can live a harmony life here as well.
Hi Amy:
ReplyDeleteDon't be upset about that. Just remember no matter where you are, you always can meet someone who is stupid. Next time when you have this kind of situation, just report to the manager that you have been given a cold shoulder by his subordinates.Then, regarding to dog meat, i think that they just don't understand what kind of dog people eating in Korea and in China too. The dog that people eat is just like pigs and cows here; they are not pets, not the friends of the owners, only the livestocks. People who have dog as thier pet, look upon their dog as their firned, or even their kids, same with people here. If I had a pig as my pet, can I say people who eat pork, are ''barbarous''. It sounds unfair. So don't take it serious, not worthy. When you hear it again, just to laugh at them and ignore it.
I hope everyone in Canada could have chance to watch those two videos, especially someone who has negative stereotype about a culture because Canada is a country which has immigrants from various cultures around the world and is proud of its multiculture.
ReplyDeleteFor sure, everyone has the culture shocks even though we had studied the culture here before we came. The most impressive deference is the privacy. People here have so many privacies, that sometimes I don't know how to talk to them first, seems like only the weather could be a talking resource. For example, they don't talk the price of something they just bought, if you ask “how much did you pay for it?'', some of them would think you are strange, they even don't talk about it with their brothers and sisters. But in China, we always talk about it; it is the most common talking topic in my hometown. Furthermore, a spouse may don't know the income of each other and who they vote for. It is very strange to me. I don't have any secret with my husband and he shares all his possession with me and I think that most of Chinese wives and husbands do the same thing.
Regarding to the danger of the single story, I recalled a conversation with one of my classmates before, it is about boys-only mindset. She told me that she watched a video on internet; a girl was killed by her father just because she was a girl, so she thought that the father in China was allowed to kill their girls if the father was not satisfactory with their girl. I couldn’t imagine how I grew up in such a terrible situation, if it was true. It was totally a misunderstanding. I think the law in China is fine enough never can be broken like that, no matter what kind of condition the father or anybody is in. Moreover, some foreign people think that Chinese like money more than their family just by knowing that Chinese don’t mind working overtime. I would say that this because we have different understanding about the responsibility. It includes the responsibility for company and the responsibility for family. Most Chinese think that their company as their second home. If the company needs them to work overtime, they think they are supposed to do it; it is just like a part of their duty. Therefore, it is better to see people without your own background because people may have different opinions on one very simple thing due to they may stand on different angle to see this.
Typically, in the North America, soft skill is more required than technical skill, because people usually working in a group and the ability of partner need are deal with the problem and do the project together. Such as in Canada, children are trained how to work with others when they are in primary school and it will be continue to their job time. Therefore, when they grow up, they become flexible. In Asia, due to the different culture, high technical skill is essential to get a high position. Compared with China education with Canada’s, 80% students have their first presentation at college or university, and it causes most of them feel fear to stand in front of class and express themselves clearly. Furthermore, the lack of the communication skill may causes they lose the chance to climb a higher position, for example, negotiate fail, business presentation fail and so on. On the other hand, the way most employees do on the first meeting is show the educational resume to their employers, because employers only care about the high education he or she accepted.
ReplyDeleteA world is consisting of different countries with different culture, so if one person moves to another country then automatically he will absorb and adopt new culture. Somewhere culture is same between two territories and somewhere totally different. When I came to Canada I found the culture is same in some aspects and different to other aspect; moreover, the culture is different even in my country from one region to another and one generation to another. Especially the family structures are so different here. In my back home country, family stay together as a big family and cultural values are so strict in some manner. Restrictions and elder seniority plays vital role to dominant the society. In Canada, I found the person’s freedom and liberty are so important in society. We are so religious; always it diverts or directs our activities and determines the role in family and society. The similarities are frankness, helpfulness and respect. I didn’t have such a big problem but some kind of attitudes of peoples that i didn’t understand I felt uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteI am totally agree with you cesar..
ReplyDeleteHi Madan,
ReplyDeleteTalking about heads of companies and their absolute authorities in Iraq, these people are often backed by some political parties that dominate the industry itself. For example, the oil and gas industry there is totally under the control of the major party that has the most seats in the parliament . As a result, most of the CEOs in large energy companies are either representatives or members of that party.
Hello everybody, comparing my country's culture with Canadian culture, I totally agree with what Lionel Laroche expounded in his speech. In our culture, professional people is at higher level than regular ones compared to Canadian culture. Depending on the position a professional occupies within a company, he or she could be earning between 3 and 10 times the minimum wage and even more. This allows lots of economic and social advantages that in Canadian culture is only possible for very wealthy people. The same apply when it comes to work skills. Whereas, in Canadian Culture, speeches and presentations are so common among the students from early grades, in my culture, at least what I remember from my pre-graduate classes at university, they are so rare and this is one of the major problems I have faced since I have been trying to adapt to this new environment. I remember the first presentation I did while in LINC 5, the very first English level I did. I was so scared! I forgot everything. I was not accustomed to a situation like that and with a huge disadvantage: it was done in a second language that I scarcely could speak, can you imagine? Well, nonetheless I got a little more confident through the so many presentations I have done since then, I still feel nervous whenever I have to speak in public.
ReplyDeleteHi Bishal, I do not agree with you when you say that if someone moves from one culture to another, this person will automatically absorb and adopt the new culture. Normally, it takes time to adopt a new culture and how long it takes will depend on so many factors. Of course, there are some people that are more adaptable than others and they will take less time to adapt and to adopt the new culture. Moreover, the younger the people are, generally, the easier it is for them to adapt to whatever changes they face. Adaptability is one of the characteristics that most employers look for among their employees. It is the one that evolution and practically any kind of environment rewards the most. The reward is the survival of the species. So, whoever possesses this characteristic, for sure, he or she will have advantages and better chances to success than those who lack of it or are less adaptable.
ReplyDeleteThe core root that makes Canada culture different from my country culture is the notion of the message. Canada, which has a low-context culture, interprets the message in one way. However, in my country, which has high-context culture, interprets the message in its surrounding meaning. That means we look to the message as an image in mind rather than words. The notion of the message provokes different affects especially in term of interpersonal relationship, social space and time. These three things have a firm impact in different sectors such as in business. For example, the hiring system in workplace in my country, companies focus on the technical skills of the candidates than their soft skills. In contrast, in Canada, companies are concerned about the soft skills of their employees than technical skills. Another example is about body language. In my country we use body language a lot of and we talk loudly, whereas people in Canada do not use much body language and they communicate quietly. On the other hand, there are a few similarities between the two countries. Both of them have in some cases the same humanity value. In Canada, people are respectful, welcoming and helpful, just as my country do because of our religion value. Another similarity is showing sympathy during difficult situation. In case of catastrophe or disaster, Canadians are very humanists, just as in my country’s people are. For example if people suffer from earthquake, people in both countries show their absolute help with money or with sympathy. People are different in this world. The only thing that we have to work on in order to advance in this society is to understand the Canadian culture and to be more tolerant and comprehensible of the way that Canadians live. We can not impose our culture in this society but we can live with our culture without blaming the Canadian culture. To realize this, the best way to live in good shape in this society is to not stereotype. Stereotype can destroy our future and dream in Canada, just being positive and that will increase our soft skills rate and will help to reach our goal.
ReplyDeleteIt was a good opportunity for me to watch these two videos. I learned a lot of them. My culture is different in many ways from Canadian culture and especially in education, social communications and entertainment. In comparison to Bulgarian schools where the students have to remember and tell the teacher about all of lessons previously learned during the time of an exam, in Canada almost all exams consist of multiple tests. In addition, there are ample differences in the evaluation between these two countries; in Bulgaria the marks are numbered from 2 to 6 while in Canada it is a percentage. Social communication in my country differs from the Canadian in the way of greeting, expressions of emotions and conversation about a person’s private live. Bulgarians have a lot of fun when they celebrate and they dance, sing, drink vodka and fight and in the end, they are still friends.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t have problems with my classmates because I try to respect every person and culture.
I have one story that happened with my oldest son during his school’s basketball game. When the opposing team won my son was very disappointed and he slammed the ball against the hard ground. As a result, the referee booted him out of the game because he said it was an act of aggression. In my home country this is considered an expression of emotion; not aggression. He was simply expressing his feelings, without any reason to hurt anybody or anything.
Hi Yanli, I totally agree with you about the various reasons that you gave us that show the main difference between China’s culture and Canada’s culture. The way that employers recruit employees in China, which is based on the employees’ technical skills, is the same as my country. I think countries that have a low-context culture are more interested in technical skills than soft skills contrary to Canada. Also, the lack of communication is a problem too in my country. People do not have a special program for communication skills in our education system that is why we are always facing stress and nervousness during a meeting or a presentation. The best way to enhance our soft skills and communication skills is to practice and overwhelming fears.
ReplyDeleteGood evening! We finished two kind of video that related culture, after watched two videos, I also had time to think about cultural differences. I compared Canadian culture between Korean culture were some differences. First, the relationship between parent and child of a Canadian and South Korea are quite different due to Korean men have obligation to take care of their parents when their parents be elder. Also Korean parents usually support their children’s education fee and expenses until they will get a job. Second, my country culture tends to the culture of heavy drinking especially, in company, men should drink alcohol. Moreover, if you visit my country, we can see many pubs everywhere, anytime you can drink alcohol in Korea. Finally, Korean’s high school students study very harder than Canadian’s high school students. Because of there is intense competition to enter the prestigious universities in Korea.
ReplyDeleteI have faced to adapt conversation method that requires in Canada. First, I remembered when I came here, I just could speak English were sorry and I do not understand. But now I have lots of presentations which make me crazy. My country has not required many conversations in school, companies even family. I believe that will give me good opportunities that understand to people. In my conclusion, we live in the life of different cultures, and these phenomena are more change to next generation. Understanding such cultural differences is the challenge faced by everyone.
I would like to start to compare difference culture at work place between Japan and Canada. I felt one major difference that a boss closes relationship with subordinates because Canadian society has flat rectangle; however, Japanese society has high sharp rectangle which means we have huge gap between bosses and subordinates. Whatever a boss order to them, we obey the boss. Moreover, we don’t allow saying our onion to the boss. We usually don’t talk private things with bosses during business hours. This is my experience at workplace in Canada. Our company’s president visited from Toronto when I worked in Banff. I was very nervous to speak with her in English even I had no idea what I should speak with. She started to ask me like how long I have been with company or how long I have lived in Canada. After we had general conversations, she asked me private questions such as I have my family here or I have a boyfriend. I was uncomfortable to answer those questions, and also I wondered to have the questions form my president because I didn’t have that experience before.
ReplyDeleteThere is a similarity among two countries at work place which is networking. When people look for a job, people who have references have a high chance to get the job; therefore, people try to build good relationship with others.
When I face to new culture, I mostly do respect and understanding their cultures. I have been working to build my soft skill at work place; however, it is still difficult for me to adjust because hard skill is more important in my country. Attending some workshops helps me to build the skill which I need to climb a higher position in Canada.
Hi Ruiling,
ReplyDeleteBulgaria is the same like China about using credits from bank. They prefer to pay with their own money because they feel more confident.
Hi! Amy!
ReplyDeleteSome of part I agree with you.
I heard many time that" can you eat a dog?"
But I do not think about people judge Asian people bad because many documentaries show Asian people’s strange food. Even though, we do not it dog. But it is true some Asian people eat dog. I heard from my father that he had any kind of food in war. However, we should not judge people. This time, I reflect our culture and others.
Hi Trinh,
ReplyDeleteUnlike you when I came to Canada I was so surprised of very polite people who try to understand and help you. I really agree with you about the fact the longer you stay here, the more you will love Canada, the more you learn about Canadian culture, the more you will find it good and the more you will like it.
Hi Lilia,
ReplyDeleteI had similar experience in Canada. I called or visited some companies to ask my cases, and then they said she/he was out of office or day off, so they don’t know. In my country, as people work the company, they supposed to answer all requirements from customers. I was surprised the situation when I came to Canada.
As the countries listed in previous comments, Peru has differences and similarities from Canada's culture. Since this is a broad topic, I want to conduct this topic into the workplace customes in those countries. Actually, the list of differences are way long than the similarities. Starting from the similarities, most Peruvian companies like canadians has people with soft skills on their top positions. This is a trend that companies are following from north-american headquarted companies. Another similarity is that social networking is becoming a good source to recruit professionals. As technology changes, the social customes also change that's why Facebook, Linkedin and other networking tools are becoming popular amoung the participants of labour markets. On the other hand, there are meaningful differences in those cultures. One of them is the companies structure that Laroche states in his presentation. While in Canadian culture the base of the pyramide is smaller, in Peru's culture is wider. It means that in not common to find a close relationship between the top and botton position in a company. In this aspect I criticize my own culture'c custom because it's wacky to think that any person can feel more than other in lower positions. all we are humans and we do not have to feel more nor less than anybody else. Other big difference is that in Peru at certain age people are treated as objects. I mean that people in their fortys have minimum chances to look for another job opportunities. People at that age are considered obsolet because companies prefer hire young professionals that are far to get retired. I do not have any professional experience yet, so I cannot say how good or bad is the canadian culture regarding the peruvian.
ReplyDeleteHi, Jing, Cathy, and Vanessa!
ReplyDeleteThank you~! I agree with you Jing! Canada is an interesting country and a unique country as well, so I expect to enjoy my life in Canada very much. Every countries have own the single of danger story. Therefore, I understand them, so don’t worry about me :) If we see other countries people without stereotype first, their thinking will be changed by us.
Hi Jing, you're right when you claim that every culture has positive and negative aspects. also you mentioned one aspect that I dislike from Canadian culture that children get independent at very young age and usually they do not look after their parents when elderly, This situation really scare me. May be my kids will send me in a senior house. oh no please!!!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with La Rochefoucauld who said: "To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.” To be honest, I have never thought about the food I eat everyday before because in my country food was healthy and my mother always cooked. However, now I am starting to think about it more often.
ReplyDeleteNowadays it is pretty hard to find good fresh food if you don't have your own garden. I am the person who hardly believes in the labels "Organic" because everything around us is only commercial and almost nobody of the food producers really cares about humans being healthy. Therefore, most of the food is not local but it is shipped.
A balanced diet in my opinion means to eat three to five times per day without mixing fruits and vegetables or bread with potatoes and rice. This way of eating is called "separate dining". Also, the fact that one food is good for one but it can be poisonous to others means that how healthy a food will be depends on the person individually.