Navigating the Challenges of Canadian School Culture as a Chinese Kid in the 1990s
September 1, 2023, Berlin.
Something about this date, coupled with a sunny, cool pre-autumn breeze invites memories from school days to resurface. Today, I have time to capture these impressions from 25 years ago (that’s the 90s!) and funnel them into words. These are the impressions from a much younger self — one that was still heavily bound by a strict Chinese upbringing, despite the very Canadian surroundings.
We moved from China to Calgary when I was six. My first few years in elementary school were spent predominantly with an ESL instructor, fatefully from Germany, where I now live. After my language skills had progressed to a level comparable to my peers, I was ‘mainstreamed’ and left ESL behind me. Nevertheless, it took me many years to acclimate to the Canadian educational system, and perhaps I never did. The culture and habits of the Chinese way of learning were deeply etched into my parents, my mother especially, and they were subsequently carved into me.
September 1st was the ceremonial day of return to school. By the time I started to clue into what it meant to go to Canadian school, I was in junior high, 13 years old. I remember the buzz…
