A woman describes how she struggled to adjust to the new cultural reality of
Canada and focuses mainly on contacts with Canadian men and women.
Α.Κ: Also, when I arrived in July 1968, I came in the
week of the Stampede. And everyone at the time was dressed more with… blue
jeans and cowboys and Indian and they had bought me a very nice dress as well
and I was like an Indian princess. And I wrote the first letter which I sent
back to the island, it was that here it’s exactly as we see it in films, in
westerns, in which they wear jeans and they have guns. And life seemed, the
people were very different. The English I had learned, because I had English
professors and I had taken the proficiency when I was 16 years old. Eh, my
English was very formal. And I would say to them “How do you do?”. Therefore
people, particularly young women whom I met at university, would see me and
say “Hi!”. Also, there was the cultural adjustment. I tried to hold them arm
in arm and they told me that “Here this isn’t done, we don’t do it, it’s not
right”. When a visitor and friend of the Johnston family’s son asked me out on
a date, I say to him “Date Wednesday!”. So, the cultural aspect was very… big
for me, because I didn’t have… Alright, I spoke the language but I didn’t know
the culture. And I didn’t have any Greek-speaking people to help me adjust in
the culture. Eh… the kindness of those people… it made me love this country
here.
