Un espresso, per favore! Immigration and communication

You should never start a sentence with the word “no”, unless you really mean that! That is one of the first rules I learnt in Canada and, to be really honest, I am still working on it!

In front of something she doesn't like, an hypothetical exactly identical to me woman named Claudia would say something like, "No, I don't like it at all. I would say it is really awful and we should do something different. The reason why I don't like it is because I think it would be nicer...bla...bla"

This is totally different from what a completely integrated woman whose name is also Claudia, what a coincidence!!!!, would say. The integrated one would definitely say something like, "This is very interesting and noticeable. I would say actually fantastic! Definitively similar to what I was looking for...Would you be so nice to show me some other alternatives? Something just a little bit different that maybe would have a....bla, bla..."

As you can see the things in common between the 2 scenarios are only the 2 "bla, bla..."

Communication and Immigration is another essential topic to deal with. You move to another country with your 20, 30, 40 years of life experience somewhere. You are quite sure about the basic rules of communication because you haven't read yet that if in Italy when you speak to someone to make eye contact is fundament in a conversation, if you are in Japan you shouldn't because that is considered a sign of not politeness. Or, for example, you are almost sure that if you are asked with the question, “How are you?” the person who is asking you, really wants to know it.

Day after day, observing people’s reactions, you start learning interesting things and promptly all the things made sense until one second before stop making sense, or at least stop to be so certain. I am not saying that in a bad or good way. I am just saying that because it happened to me a couple of times. Sometimes my way of thinking needed to be reviewed, some others looked even nicer than before.

When I started going out, I remember I was quite impressed by the fact that people working in stores, restaurants, anywhere,  were asking, “Hi! How are you?”  I didn’t expect that! The first times, I remember I stopped at the question coming from a smiling face and, trying to be as much Canadian as possible,  I  answered, “Hi! I am well thanks! And how are youuuuu?”

The odd change on my interlocutor face made me think there was something wrong. Maybe, it was just my accent, wasn’t it?  After a while I did realise that the question “how are you?” doesn’t require an answer. This is not bad and not good. This is just different. If you ask an Italian how he/she is doing (“Ciao, come stai?”), be ready my friend to listen to a long story. You will know how  the night before was compared to the previous one, something about the dinner and then about an amazing pizzeria where you can eat an astonishing Margherita. And on that topic, you will receive a complete report about how many types of Pizza you can find. Finally, after at least ten minutes of soliloquy your turn will come. You'd better try to do your best and avoid to say just "not too bad"!

After one month I realised all that and now I laugh while driving my car I remember some of those faces.

Tim Horton is also part of this topic. My husband's and my first 200 coffees at Tim Horton were everything except what we were expecting to receive.

"Hi, how are you? What would you like to order?"

"A coffee, please"

"What size? Small, Medium,Largeextralarge?" (the speed was accelerating dangerously)

"Yes...small?"

"Milkorcream?"

"Excuse me?"

"milkorcream, do you want milkorcream?

"Yes...milk?" (you start being scared...)

"Sugar?Wouldyoulikesoemthingonyourcoffee...chocolatecreamorsomehtingthatmaybeIamnot

sayingbutyouknowwehave?"

At this point we both were completely lost, overwhelmed by a feeling of frustration. Actually, something between frustration and incredulity.

I remember a couple of times I was heading back to my car staring to a huge cup of coffee that tasted like vanilla and was loaded with cream, too sweet. Or another day when my original request was an "ice cup" and I ended up with a cup with some watery coffee and some floating ice cubes. To not mention the collection of trays in our car until we were able to recognise the word "tray" and became confident enough to say "NO, THANK YOU!"

See how different things can be?

If you ask an Italian how he/she is doing, you will get a novel. On the other hand, if you go to Italy and you ask for a coffee, you just get an espresso!