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Moving to a new country can lead to a variety of new experiences. When moving you expect to see the cultural differences between the host country and your own, but what you don’t usually expect to encounter is new cultural consciousnesses with 6 other countries. In this blog I will discuss the strange and wonderful things faced with living in a foreign country with international students. From dancing around trees to drinking a lot of beer.
I moved to Montreal, Canada in September 2016 to continue my studies at university. Moving to various countries is something I am used to. So prior to my flight I researched the common cultural differences in Montreal in comparison to the UK. What I really did not expect to encounter was living with a bunch of students from 6 other countries. All with completely different cultural habits! The four months I lived in Canada I lived with students from Finland, Germany, Chile, USA, France and Sweden.
I have never been to Finland and in all honestly didn’t even know the location of it. So you could imagine by curiosity when first meeting Jannike. For starter the language sounds ridiculously hard to learn but her English was close to perfect, even better than mine! I had the privilege of spending Christmas with her and was surprisingly shocked at the different ways we both were used to celebrating it. For starter there was no turkey or roast potatoes and she didn’t have the faintest idea even what a Yorkshire pudding was, so you could imagine my devastation. Instead the traditional meal involved lots of nice food blended into mush. She told me about common customs in Finland one of which is to do a special dance around the Christmas tree while singing, which was very strange but also great fun.
It really is true that Germans are hard workers. Apart from always smiling and giggling Alex had other duties and was certainly the Mother of the group. She was always extremely organised, from being our tourist guide to telling us when to leave for a night out. She also drank a lot of beer! I have previously heard about Germans and their love of beer. But after living with Alex I finally found out the extent of it. The thing I found the strangest was her tendency to bring snacks whenever she went to someone else’s house. Whether it was for studying or drinking, snacks were always there. The funniest thing I noticed was her behaviour when crossing the roads. No matter if it was day or night Alex would always stop at red lights. Even if no car had driven there for a year she would still stop.
Similarly to Finland I have never been to Chile, but after meeting Pedro it is now somewhere I would love to visit. I have
never met someone who smiles all the time, not once did I see him stressed or sad. At first I thought maybe this was just Pedro, but no. After meeting his Chilean friends they all really are always jolly. I got a strong sense of community when hanging around with him, friendship really is a huge importance to them. The number one passion however was music. Pedro actually went to the extent of renting a guitar to encourage music in the apartment, but maybe his passion was a bit too much. My favourite encounter with Pedro was when he got so into a song while banging on the wall to the beat that he actually ended up punching a hole into it. But his caring nature has really given me an incredible stereotype for Chile.
Typical stereotypical features I think of when thinking of America is their happy and friendly nature but Adam ticked all these and more. Similarly to Pedro from Chile, there was always a smile on Adams face and he would always cheer you up. Like us English, Adam loved a drink or 20. But my main memory was the extent to which Adam celebrated traditional events and this is similar to most Americans, from Christmas to Movember. I had heard of thanksgiving of course but never celebrated it, but Adam made sure we did. We didn’t just celebrate it a bit, we went all out in celebrating. In the end we had around 30 students in our apartment all of which had cooked a dish of their nationality. The next big event was Halloween, and we were not just allowed to just dress up, oh no, Adam m
ade us decorate the entire apartment from top to bottom and cleaning it all up after was not fun to say the least! Bringing people together really was one of Adams main attributes and I would like to believe that most people from America are the same.
