Canada vs. America
[quote=Clockwork Smith]One of my main characters is a 14 year old Canadian (probably lived around the Toronto area) who just moved to America. I am trying to think of things that he might miss. I am drawing up a blank. Tell me about the differences between Canada and America if you would be so kind. Or just tell me about Canada.
The novel is set in the present day. What might his favorite sports team be? If you could tell me about different big cities in Canada, I would really appreciate it. I don’t know if I even want him to be from Toronto or not. Would a fourteen year old be allowed to rde the subway by himself? Etc.
Answering any of these questions will help me greatly. Thank you.
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I’m going to agree with every one who’s saying it depends on where in America they move to. I’m also pretty shocked at nearly every answer on this thread, because I’ve lived in America my whole life and I’ve never heard of half the things these people are answering you with. Funny thing is, I know everything the Canadians are answering you with. Could it be that Maine is more like Canada than it is like the rest of America?
I’m wondering why everyone keeps saying Canadians would miss Tim Horton’s – they are close to being on as many corners in America as Starbucks is – pretty much every street in every town has at least one of each – and I hate both of them btw.
[quote=Moondragon]noticed some differences in speech:
They say Natives; we say Native Americans (Well, I guess Native Canadian is a bit of a mouthful!)
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Well I guess that just depends on where in America you are than, because in Maine, we say Natives too.
And I live in Old Orchard Beach – we get 2 million tourists every summer. Most of the one’s from Canada talk no different than the locals. Here in Maine, we have a really hard time understand what folks from the lower 47 are saying, esp if they are from New York or Utah, and we often ask them to repeat themselves several times before we finally figure out what they are talking about. New Yorkers and Utah folk are the absolute worst, it’s like even though they are speaking English, it’s so far from being the English I know, that it’s like they are speaking a completely different language.
For instance in Maine we say Soda, in Utah they say Pop.
We say Roof, they Raouuuuuf (like it was 3 syllables not 1)
We say Brook, they say Crick
We say Cougar, they say Mountain Lions.
We say Sleeping Bag, they say Sleeping Sack.
We say Sex, they say Shag
We shake hands and say “Good morning how are you doing?” they say “Yo Dude, wassup?” and slap you on the back.
You try to shake hands with a Non-Mainer/Non-Canadian and they jump back and look at you like they have never seen a handshake before, but around here that’s how every body greats every body – and I’m told it’s a “very French Canadian/Quebec thing to do”.
Another thing Non-Mainer/Non-Canadian folks complain about us Maine folk doing and say it is a “very French Canadian/Quebec thing to do” is the way we eat. In Maine, a meal could take an hour or two or three – we prefer to actually sit down and enjoy our food. (Which I suppose is why you can go 10 or 12 towns before you see a McDonald’s) We tend to eat at home or eat at restaurants, rather than at fast food joints. The Non-Mainer/Non-Canadian tourists though? They get all upset and act like it’s the end of the world if you haven’t scarfed down your food like some sort of rabid animal. They are always in a rush to eat in 5 minutes or less and than rush off to the next thing. . . and than they leave half their food on their plates! I say once again – HOW RUDE!
We say Hood, they say “That Thingamabop there on the front of the car, you know I mean, that thing, right there, that” and they start RUDELY snapping their fingers inches from your noise with one hand while pointing to the hood of their car with the other hand.
And WHAT is it with the really RUDE and ill mannered way that New Yorkers NEVER SHUT UP and keep snapping their fingers in your face when they talk to you? (Utah folks wag their index finger and they DO sometimes hit you in the noise because they get so damn RUDELY close to you when they talk)
Our chowder is white and has fish and corn in it, their chowder is red and has tomatoes and pasta in it . (Chowder by the way MEANS “White Stew”, so technically any soup that is NOT white is NOT chowder)
Us Native Mainers (a Native Mainer being a person whose family has been in Main for a minimum of 5 generations and -yes- leaving Maine for a few years to go to a NonMaine college will get you branded as a Non-Mainer) are constantly amazed by the Out-of-Staters that move in here because they love Maine, but than bitch and moan a few months later because it’s too much like Canada. Well, did they ever look at a map?
My over all impression of the lower 47 is that they are fast talking rude busy bodies. The tourists who come here are often quick to say they love coming to Maine because it’s like going to a different country without the need for a passport or because it’s “Like going to Canada with out going through customs”.
[quote=MichelleZB]What I notice when I go to the States is that people don’t know the little verbal dance of politeness most Canadians do. Buying gum from an American corner store, I’ll look the clerk in the eye as he gives me my change and say, “Thank you so much,” or just “Thanks!” And they usually have no idea what to say back. I usually get a look of shock and an “Uh-huh, ” or a “Yup!” Both of those responses sound weird to my Canadian ears.
I don’t think it’s because Americans aren’t polite. I think they just don’t have the catchphrases we do. And Canadians aren’t particularly polite. I just say “Thanks” because I’m used to it. I don’t even hear the “You’re very welcome” or “No problem” they say in response. It sounds too normal to register.[/quote]
I completely agree. I worked in retail for 17 years and the Non-Mainers/Non-Canadian tourists that I meet have no manners or etiquette skills whatsoever! Every time I meet someone who acts rude at the register, I’ll ask “So how are liking Maine so far?” and they’ll get stunned and shocked that I could tell they were a tourist! LOL! They are completely clueless!
You are right, I don’t think they are intentionally being rude, I don’t think they are even aware that they are among the rudest folks I’ve ever encountered. They completely have no idea that they are acting rude in any way at all! The fact that they are so completely clueless as to how rude they are, always amazes me!
From what I can see though, from the Non-Mainers/Non-Canadian tourists I’ve meet and dealt with over the years, I think the problem is that they are always in a hurry. They have to rush in the store and rush back out in 5 seconds flat otherwise the whole world will blow up – I mean, that’s how I see it. I mean look at the way they eat! Scarf the food down in under 10 minutes and than they are out of there. No time to sit and relax. No time to enjoy their food. No time to just look out the window and think about life. No time to . . heck, they don’t even have time to look at their watch and see what time it is! OMG!
I look at these folks and I wonder, what’s the rush? Where’s the fire? Why are they running around like half crazed mad men all the time? Sometimes I ask them why they are in such a hurry, and it’s never a for a good reason, either. It’s not, my wife’s in labor and I have to get to the hospital so no time to eat. No. It’s the game is on and I gotta get to the bar and watch it with the boys. I’m like really? That’s important? How?
So my conclusion is, that it’s not that they are rude because they lack manners, they are rude because they (supposedly) lack the time to be considerate.
But hey, time is what you make of it, so if you lack time, maybe what you really lack is management of your life.
[quote=Laura Rainbow Dragon]
Guns are a biggie. Canadians don’t carry them. We don’t feel that we should or that our neighbours should or that common citizens should have a right to. This is not true of all Canadians, of course. There are some who wish to carry guns, and there are some people (police officers, hunters, etc.) who are legally licensed to possess a gun (and there are some criminals who carry one illegally) but this is a minority opinion in Canada. If your character is a city boy, there’s a good chance he’s never seen a gun in real life — and seeing one in a friend’s house/car could freak him right out. (Plus, if you move him into a community in which possession of guns by the citizenry is commonplace, this could freak his parents out. They might forbid him to go into the homes of kids whose parents kept guns in the house, for instance.)
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That’s another thing – EVERY ONE in Maine walks around with a shot gun or rifle, usually every where they go. Men. Women, Children. If they don’t have it on them, they’ve got it sitting on the seat of their car. Non-Mainer tourists get all freaked out about it when they see folks walk into a store carrying a rifle. It’s kind of weird, cause they act like the guy is going to shoot up the store or something when all he was doing was stopping in the buy a case of drinks for his hunting buddies – hell, the store owner usually has a rifle sitting under the counter. I never understood why the Non-Mainer tourists freak out like that when they see folks carrying rifles. It’s pretty weird, I mean, you’d think they never saw a gun before! Can’t say I’ve ever heard of Canadians doing this (carrying guns every where), I can’t recall ever seeing a Canadian carrying a gun before, but they don’t get all freaked out over it the way the Non-Mainer tourists do.
[quote=Laura Rainbow Dragon]
In Canada, when we enter a person’s home (our own, or someone else’s), we remove our shoes at the door.
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We do this in Maine too, and it’s another thing that Non-Mainers/Non-Canadian tourists get all bitchy about. . . I’m mean, really, really, REALLY bitchy about it too. You ask them to take off their shoes and you’d think we just said we wanted to cut their feet off! OMG! They start flipping out talking about germs and getting their feet dirty and freaking out like I don’t know what! Again, more rudeness. Boy, do the Non-Mainers/Non-Canadian tourists act like a bunch of winy spoiled brats sometimes – no all the time. They complain about everything. EVERYTHING! It’s too hot, it’s too cold
And than there’s cell phones. You are lucky if you can get cell phone reception in most places in Maine. Pretty much only York & Cumberland county have cellphone access, outside of York county, heck, tough luck getting a land line, let alone cell phone! But the Non-Mainers/Non-Canadian tourists don’t realize this until they get here, and boy oh boy you should here them howl! You’d think their entire family had just been killed in a plane crash or something the way they moan and groan and bitch and complain and go on and on and on about how they can’t live without their cellphone!
[quote=swenson]
Also, many people not from Quebec do not like the people from Quebec. Quebec get some specific privileges over other provinces (oh, there’s another thing- provinces in Canada, states in the US) because they are primarily French. For example, the official language is French (not English). Quebecers are viewed (at least by people from Ontario, which is where my knowledge comes from) as being kind of full of themselves, kind of like how a lot of people in the Midwest (like Michigan!) would call people from out East “full of themselves”.
Most people in Ontario would probably have learned French in school, so if they aren’t exactly fluent, they know a fair bit.
(by the way, my knowledge all comes from having relatives and close friends in Canada, as well as traveling there several times!)[/quote]
Yep, same with Maine. Most folks in Maine are French, speak French, act French and would rather hob-knob with Quebec folks than the lower 47.
Do you realize that EVERY YEAR Maine and Quebec join forces and try to recede The Union/Canada? Why? Because once upon a time Quebec was it’s own country. (and it was not that long ago either, some of the old folks are old enough to remember that – Maine is was of the last States to join the Union after all) Than America chopped off Maine and Canada adsorbed Quebec.
Maine HATES the rest of America and we Mainers are not afraid to tell every Non-Mainer/Non-Canadian tourist as much, of course, a lot of Non-Mainer/Non-Canadians tell us they hate Maine too, so the animosity is mutual. And from what I hear Quebec folks say, they pretty much hate the rest of Canada and the rest of Canada hates them. (a lot of Quebec folks shop here in Maine and visit Maine on the weekends) (Maine is not really connected to the rest of the Union, we are smack dab in the middle of Quebec only connected to the USA by a small sliver on the west side.)
Keep in mind here that though Maine is part of America, geographically speaking, we are farther North on the map that a large portion of populated Canada. Many people think “America” (in reference to Canada) and think warmer, souther, but they forget to think about Maine and Alaska – both North and colder.
[quote=ohmynoti]
-all packaging in canada is printed in both french and english. consequently, when i look at american packaging, i often feel like it’s missing something. (in other matters, some provinces are more bilingual than others — + there are substantial french-speaking populations outside of quebec. for example, i live in new brunswick right now, which has a large acadian population. but packaging is bilingual across the country. so even an anglophone who’s never conversed or taken a class in french in their life can probably recognise a lot of french food-words. they kind of become part of how you visually recognise a product. it seems woefully incomplete if it’s not jambon ham + cheese fromage.)[/quote]
[quote=Moondragon]The whole English/French thing in Canada is like the English/Spanish thing here in California. Everywhere you go just about, signs are in English and Spanish, and you can pick up a few spanish words that way.
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REALLY????????????????
Do you mean outside of Maine America does not print all food packages in French and English???? WOW! I actually did not know that. EVERYTHING in Maine, food, computers, appliances, comes in packaging printed in English on one side and French on the other.
That is so weird. I’ve never seen the packaging without French on it before. Yeah, that’d sort of freak me out.
[quote=ohmynoti]
-canadian tire is the standard go-to place for anything useful. it’s kind of like wal-mart, but slightly less evil + with even more annoying commercials. [/quote]
WalMart just started showing up here in Maine. OMG! That store is like freaking HUGE! Man! Most stores here in Maine, you walk in, and you can see the entire store – the whole place is maybe 900 feet square. Than WalMart shows up and what are they 200,000+ square feet? I mean, you can’t even see the back of the store from the front door and finding anything – argh! It takes you 20 minutes just to walk from one side to the other. It’s so weird and freaky. I don’t really like the big block stores moving in. It’s like we are being invaded or something. It’s just too weird for me.
[quote=jadedragon]There are harsher littering laws in Canadian cities than here in America so Canada is oftentimes way cleaner. NOT THEIR HARBORS.. but the streets and parks.[/quote]
That’s another thing Non-Mainers/Non-Canadian tourists point out about Maine. Maine has no-smoking laws (you can’t even smoke in your own car) and has had them since the 1970′s. There is a $500 fine for littering, and if police catch you throwing a cigarette butt on the ground, yeah, you got to pick it up and pay $500 for tossing it. You CAN go to jail for littering if you already got a warning before.
It’s rare to see trash on the ground in Maine, even in the big cities. Most towns have clean up crews that do nothing but walk around town all day long picking up litter. Non-Mainers/Non-Canadian tourists are constantly commenting on how clean everything is, which I’ve always found as strange because, I mean, why wouldn’t it be clean? What, are they saying that the rest of America outside of Maine are rude lazy slobs who don’t clean up after themselves? That’s always what I think, when some tourist comments on how clean and un-littered Maine’s cities are. It just baffles me, that where they come from is so different in cleanliness that CLEANLINESS is the thing they found to say as the reason they like Maine! OMG!
[quote=deadlyretro]
The only thing I can think of is that Milk tends to come in bags,(while I’ve been told it only comes in cartons in the States; just another stereo type?) LOL.
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I can’t speak for the rest of America, but in Maine, milk comes in plastic bottles – pint, quart, gallon and glass bottle – pints and quarts only. It’s highly unusual to see a cardboard carton of milk. Orange juice comes in cartons.
Also, there are huge fines and jail time for buying and selling non-Maine milk in Maine. It’s like the equivalent of bootlegging.
And that’s another thing Non-Mainer tourists constantly complain about – milk prices. Every time I go to the store to buy milk, there will be some tourist there arguing with the store clerk about the milk prices. They really get going too – screaming and yelling and pounding their fists on the counter their face turning purple, their eyes bulging out hysterically, as they shriek out about “highway robbery” and “gypping” them. They go on about how they have never in their life paid more than a dollar for a gallon of milk, they say stuff like “You’d think it was gasoline” and “I could fill my car up for less!”, and than they storm out of the store without buying the milk.
I stand there amazed each time I see this, because well, a dollar for milk? A you kidding! Quarts of milk haven’t been a dollar since the 1970′s and don’t ever remember gallons being that cheap! Milk is a commodity, the price goes up and down with the gold bullion, gas, and corn prices – yeah, usually it’s 5 dollars a gallon, but it can go higher, a lot higher. Ten dollars for a gallon of milk – not unheard of. The price changes every day, some time several times a day, you never know what the current milk prices are until you get to the store and buy a bottle.
I kind of get the impression that milk is not a commodity outside of Maine, or that other states don’t have the “only in state milk” laws, and that the rest of America doesn’t have dairy farms on every corner.
[quote=TheWorldBeginsWithMe]I don’t think this has been said yet (I haven’t gotten through the whole thread), but vinegar on french fries. (and they are called french fries or fries not freedom fries or whatever) and our iced tea has a lot of sugar in it. It is not simply cold tea.[/quote]
Yep, again, Maine, a state in America is going with Canada on this. Tourists always freak out when they see us pouring vinegar on our French-fries. (and I’ve never of freedom fries before).
And when they order tea at restaurants they always freak out over it being way too sweet.
[quote=Bellalovett]The warmer weather might take some getting used to, especially if he goes as far Florida or Texas.[/quote]
Maine and New Hampshire are both actually colder than Canada. Some parts of Canada have a much longer growing season than we do here in Maine.
[quote=kimifly][quote=Nibo]Skittles made of chocolate in Canada? To my knowledge, having lived there for three years, they were not made of chocolate. However, Smarties were made of chocolate in Canada instead of that horrible chalky stuff (in Canada, that stuff is called Rockets).[/quote]
No, Skittles are not made of chocolate in Canada. Haha. 
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There ARE chocolate skittles. I don’t know if they sell them in Canada or not, but they do exist, and they are called “Chocolate Skittles”.
. . . and I agree with this bloggers review of them, they taste terrible! http://www.unboundedition.com/pdp_thinking/2008/nov/13/rainbow-blight-a-chocolate-rain-on-skittles-parade/ (but there is a picture of them here if you’ve never seen them.
[quote=stefaneko]
Trees. I always miss the trees. Trees everywhere. I grew up/live in a suburb of Vancouver, and my house from ages 5-present is pretty much in the middle of a fricken forest. I walk through a forest to get to school, I play in the forest, I’m SURROUNDED by forest. I’ve noticed that in the States, even in the more northern regions, there’s a lot more clear-cutting and general suburban sprawl. It drives me NUTS. [/quote]
That’s the first thing Non-Mainer/Non-Canadian tourists say when they come to Maine – “Ugh, there are so many trees! You can’t see the sky! How can you stand it?” and than they start talking about being afraid of bear and mountain lions.
[quote=stefaneko]
That’s another thing. America feels more… soulless. It feels more unhappy, more… forced, I guess? It feels like everyone there hates their life. There’s more suburban sprawl, like I said. Plus, things seem less tidy. There’s more litter and more decay.
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I get that same impression about the Non-Mainer/Non-Canadian tourists when they are here each summer.
[quote=kimifly]Also, depending on where in the US your character is moving, the winters might be very different. In the southern states they don’t have snow, so that means no building snowmen or having snowball fights or ice hockey or snowboarding or any other winter activities like that. And no snow at Christmas…. That’s what I missed the most when I was away from Canada.[/quote]
I hear a lot of the Non-Mainer/Non-Canadian tourists who come to Maine in the winter say they come for the snow because wherever it is they came from in the lower 47, they don’t have snow and well, Maine can get up to 6 or 7 feet per storm and in some place the snow drifts get over 20 feet tall. YAY Snow! Also, it’s pretty cold year round, and we have gotten snow in every month except for August. Our winters can be 8 months long during colder years in some areas.
And Non-Mainer/Non-Canadian tourists with children who spend their first winter in Maine and enroll their kids in the local school, freak out over the lack of “Snow Days”. We call anything under 6 inches a dusting and they start flipping out saying the schools should close! I’m thinking “What the hell? Are they nuts? This is nothing! Honey, I got news for you – in Maine there has to be 2 or 3 feet of snow and a blizzard wind force to get school canceled on account of snow. If you are scared of 6 inches of snow than you sure as hell better get your ass out of Maine before the FIRST (of many) blizzard of the season hits!” It never ceases to amaze me how folks from the lower 47 can have such huge panic attacks over a little snow.
Of course, you do got to remember, though Maine is part of America, geographically speak, we are farther North on the map that a large portion of populated Canada, so yeah, we are colder and get more snow than many places in Canada.
And let’s not forget Alaska – which is WAAAAY Above Canada. 
So yeah, where you move to in America is going to make a pretty big difference.
[quote=MissLizzy]I
-School here starts in September. In some parts of the States (I’m not sure aboue all), school starts mid-August.
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Yeah, Non-Mainer tourists comment on how Maine’s school year is different than the rest of America’s – In Maine it runs from last week of August to the second week of June. So only July and a couple of weeks off August and June for vacation. But this is because of the snow. As mentioned above, it takes a lot of snow to warrant a snow day, but there is a reason for that. When we get enough snow for a snow day, it’s a snow week or more, usually due to state wide month long black outs and that fact that well, it’s kind of hard to have school when you can’t find the school building under all the snow. =P Most years students end up with no school through out most of January and most of February.
I guess, based on what the Non-Mainer tourists say, the rest of America has school running first week of September through second week of May.
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[quote=Laura Rainbow Dragon]
There are many cultural differences — which ones in particular your character experiences will depend on where in Canada he lived and where in the US he moves to, but expect him to experience some form of culture shock.
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Yeah, what she said.
But anyways, the point of my post is. . . you REALLY need to figure out WHERE in the USA your Canadian is moving too, because if they were to move to Maine, the only things that would be different would be stuff like money and measurements, and such. Stores, habits, accents, slang, and attitudes would be pretty much the same as what they are already used too. Where as even a Mainer would have trouble moving to another state in the America, just because Maine is so different from the rest of the Union. (And that’s another thing – Maine folks say The Union, not America.)
Likewise, you got to remember, it would also depend on what part of Canada your character came from too. If he came from Quebec, French would be his first language, and changes are pretty high that he wouldn’t speak English much, if at all. Whereas the rest of Canada, speaks English and may not even know French.
So, you need to try to pin point exactly WHERE in Canada he came from and WHERE in the US he went to. Keeping in mind here that you are dealing with two of the world’s largest countries, meaning the peoples of each are pretty diverse and vary widely depending on what region of Canada/America they hail from.
Than once you know from where and to where, you can re-ask your question, and get better, more precise answers. As it stands right now, the best you can hope for is a huge mish mash of hundreds of different sub cultures.
All Hail Bela Lugosi!
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I just never can understand how folks can believe her. The whole believing that demons and witches are real, is just something I can’t get my mind around. It’s so illogical. I can not understand how my mom or her brothers or Bishop M or Bishop K can believe in those things.
And me living right on the ocean, I’m surrounded by rifle toting lobster man, and get to see the lobster war shoot outs all the time. Fishing is our # one source of income, and it’s big business. If you are not a fishermen, you are related to one, married to one, work for one, or at least know some one who does. Maine is 73% water and has the longest coastline of any other state. Yeah. Every one around here has fish on the brain.
