An Englishman's impressions of the USA and Canada

In 1991, I went on a three week holiday to the USA visiting six different parts of the States. Afterwards, I made a list of 28 impressions I had about the USA and Americans. In 1998, I fell in love with and married a Canadian, and shortly afterwards emigrated to Southern Manitoba, where she grew up. I have been in Canada for less than year, but my experience of Canada has been limited to the prairie provinces. I thought it would be fun to compare my list of what I experienced in the USA to my experiences of living in Canada. My Canadian experiences are marked in red.

1. Don't judge the USA by New York. People in New York can be very abrupt and rude. I have found Americans elsewhere friendly and helpful. They tend to be very warm hearted, generous and easy to talk to. The same is true in Canada. My only experience of rudeness in Canada was an encounter with a French speaking official at Montreal airport. I'm not sure why he was so brusque with me, but I think it was because I didn't speak French to him.
   
   
2. Summers are hot. No need for a pullover except in some air- conditioned homes. I've been told prairie summers can be very hot, but I've yet to experience one.
   
   
3. Can you believe that most cars are air-conditioned ? Many cars in Canada have air-conditioning.
   
   
4. Most cars have automatic gear changing. The same is true in Canada, although I think the percentage having automatic gear shift is not quite as high.
   
   
5. Fridges in the average American home are enormous. Makes the British fridge look like a dinky toy. The Canadians are like the Americans in this regard.
   
   
6. Goods on sale seldom include tax, so you can reckon to pay about 10% more than what's on the price tag. You pay 14% more in Manitoba. If there are $2.3CDN to the British pound, then just halve the price on the price tag, to get the equivalent price you actually pay in British pounds, including tax.
   
   
7. In Arizona the speed limit is 55mph, and they stick to it. There is much I could say about how bad many Manitoban drivers are. It may have something to do with there being so little traffic, so they think they can afford to drive carelessly.
   
   
8. Americans are obsessed with having ice with their cold drinks. Two thirds of the glass is full of ice, even if the drink is cold anyway. Ditto with Canada, but not to the same extent.
   
   
9. Americans are big meat eaters. I didn't taste the steak that flopped over both sides of the plate. My experience of Canadians is that they don't consume as much meat as their southern cousins.
   
   
10. Ice cream is the national dish. Canada is too multicultural to have a national dish. Living in a Mennonite area, I find the locals love their "farmer sausage".
    
    
11. You need a car. Distances are big, even to shops in your own town. Public transport is at the best poor and at worst nonexistent. Ditto with Canada.
    
    
12. Americans are very environment conscious. They love to recycle things. Recycling is taking its time to catch on in Canada.
    
    
13. Nature reserves and public monuments I've seen have been very well kept. No litter. Ditto with Canada. You could say that most of Canada is one big national park.
    
    
14. There were fewer advertisements than I had been lead to believe that interfered with my day. That was because I hadn't watched the Television. I try to keep away from Canadian TV because of the numerous adverts and the poor quality TV, however American TV is far worse. In Canada, you don't get so many bill boards along the highway as you do in the States.
    
    
15. Many Americans I met were not happy with the health system they had, and felt powerless to do anything about it. Canadians tend to be proud of their Medicare system which in many ways is like the British National health system. The problem is that it is not working properly. Medicare is overstretched, and their workers are underpaid, and many doctors are relocating to the USA. These problems are aggravated by US companies undermining the health care system.
    
    
16. In parts of the States there were churches everywhere you turned. Some I saw ran private schools for their church members. Living in an area that was settled by Mennonites, a very high percentage of the population attends church. Many schools were church schools until the government took them over. However, at the request of many parents Christian education is taught in schools. This would not be true for other parts of Canada.
    
    
17. Public Telephones were pathetic. You were continually interrupted by a voice that told you how much credit you had left. The voice then thanked you for using that telephone company. I haven't had the same experience in Canada with public telephones.
    
    
18. Don't forget to tip for Taxis and in Restaurants. It's really part of the price. I've never used a Taxi in Canada, so I don't know what the protocol is. In restaurants, it is normal to give a 15% tip (approximately the amount you pay in tax for your meal). Eating out in Canada is so much less expensive than eating out in the UK.
    
    
19. Americans love English accents. Canadians tend to like British accents, but they are not enamoured by them in the same way that Americans are.
    
    
20. Many Americans live in Bungalows, which are really 2 story as they contain a basement, that can be used for any purpose. Ditto with Canada.
    
    
21. American houses tend to be much more spacious than British ones. Ditto with Canada. This however, is only a recent phenomenon. Older houses tend to be smaller.
    
    
22. I learnt and used some new words in order to be understood properly. Ditto with Canada. I constantly have to ask people to clarify what they are saying in order to make sure that I have fully understood.
    
    
23. The shops are not in the town centre. They are situated off a main road with a large car park in front:-very convenient for a driver. However, you may need to go to several of these places to do your shopping. There are of course the famous shopping mall. Ditto with Canada.
    
    
24. Pleasantries like, "Have a nice day", and "It's really nice meeting you" take some getting used to when they actually mean nothing more than "How do you do". I would say, there tends to be more depth to Canadian pleasantries. I think Canadians are more like the British in this respect.
    
    
25. Education in the States leaves much to be desired, having looked at some questionnaires filled in by teachers. Grammar and spelling was worse than mine. Memorandums put out by the education department that a friend worked at were badly written, ambiguous and verbose. A customs declaration form I filled out was ambiguous, when I entered the USA. This is a distinguishing factor between Americans and Canadians. Canadians pride themselves with the fact that they can 'speak and write English proper'...and they can laugh at themselves.
    
    
26. Light switches are different: Up for on, down for off, and sometimes it's from side to side. Ditto with Canada.
    
    
27. When getting into an American bath you normally step down into it. Ditto with Canada.
    
    
28. The Americans are very patriotic for their State. Each State is like a country that has its own laws. Canadians tend not to be patriotic, and seem to identify themselves more by their ethnic background. They hate being thought of as being American.

I would like to add a few other observations I have made whilst in Canada.

1. In many ways they are like Brits in their attitude to life, which has made settling here quite easy. In the book "Brit Think Ameri Think", which is a light hearted comparison between the two cultures, my wife is of the view that Canadians lean 4/5ths on the British side.
   
   
2. Canadian humour is more British. They love to make fun of the fact that Americans tend to know so little about their northern neighbour. "Do you live in igloos?", you may hear one ask. One Canadian TV camera crew will go and talk to Americans on such subjects as:
   
   
   1. The Russian invasion of Saskatchewan?
      
      
   2. Canadians opening their first university.
      
      
   3. Whether engravings of Nixon and Mulroney should be added to the presidents on Mount Rushmore.
      
      
3. I have not experienced a really cold Canadian winter. However, -26C has been common. To a Brit that sounds cold, but it doesn't feel too bad if you don't stay long out in it. The reason for not feeling too cold is because there is no moisture in the air. We Brits think of our damp cold of around zero which gets to the bones, but in Canada -15C can be really quite pleasant. The sun can be shining and your living room can be very warm in winter as the sun pours in.
   
   
4. Houses are so much better heated than in Britain. There is much better insulation, and they use a method of blowing hot air into the rooms through large ducts that run under the floor.
   
   
5. I continually suffered electric shocks from the amount of static that built up in winter because it was so dry.
   
   
6. The problem with Canadian winters is not the cold: it is their length. You can expect snow for 5 months of the year.
   
   
7. I found it more difficult to adapt to mosquitos, wood ticks and flies.
   
   
8. Canadians tend to pride themselves at being politically correct which, in its extremes can be a bit silly.
   
   
9. Trouble is brewing if the problem of Quebec is not sorted out soon. If Quebec will become a nation state, what will happen to the provinces east of Quebec which will be separated from the rest of Canada? Will they become part of the USA? Why is Canada bilingual when Quebec is the only province where many people do not speak English? Why do people who work for the Government need to be bilingual, when in practice they will seldom need French. The imposition of the French language on the rest of the population is only serving to build up resentment amongst the non-French speaking peoples. In British Columbia, there are many people of Chinese and Japanese origin. I would argue that every province needs to have a lingua-franca, but that every encouragement needs to be given for peoples to preserve their own culture and language, as with say the peoples from Pacific East Asia. I personally am sad to see that where I live, low German is no longer in common use amongst the younger generation of Manitoban Mennonites. A pragmatic solution is needed to the French problem, but it can't involve the imposition of a language where the majority of the population do not speak it.
   
   
10. The other big issue in Canadian politics is the native people. It is true that they have been disciminated against in the past. There is much the European settler has to answer for. Solutions need to be found so that the native people get their dignity restored and the wrongs of the past are rectified once and for all.

Hugo Moule 1st July 2000

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