Adapting to Canadian culture

Crowd in downtown Vancouver Celebrating Canada's Hockey Victory  by MikeWu.  CC BY-NC-SA

Before you left your home country, you may have been hearing from friends or family about how life in Canada is, how friendly Manitobans are, and how easy it is to assimilate into a multicultural society. While these may be true, you could discover that when you are actually here, many other things can be very different from what you first expected. For instance, you may sense that there are many hidden rules of conduct or practices that are hard to understand.

Although the assimilation experience can vary from person to person, generally, newcomers go through the same stages of cultural adaption. This will be discussed in the following video by Francis Tremblay of Entry Program. Aside from this, he will also talk about the elements of successful cultural adaptation, the features of Canadian life (how Canadians view time, communication, status, rule of law, and community life) and suggestions on how to adjust to various situations.

This one-hour lecture will provide great strategies for all newcomers. It will help if you take down notes during the lecture, so you may want to have a pen and paper near you:

Francis Tremblay – Cultural Adaptation (Version 2) from northpointproductions.ca on Vimeo.