Multiculturalism!

Over the past week, I have had quite the assortment of co-workers – one from Lebanon, one from Beijing and one from the Philippines. All came to Canada to start a new life. Just like me.

I loved every minute and kept thinking over and over again that I wouldn’t have met this assortment of people over the course of living an entire life in Louisiana.

Everyone thought the Lebanese girl and I were sisters, even mistaking one of us for the other when one of us walked into a room without the other. She’s going home for a month on vacation soon, but I hope to get to know her when she comes back.

The other two girls had what seemed to me like their own version of English, and there were so many times during the shift where they gave me instructions and then walked out the door, leaving me literally holding the bag, wondering whether I was to wait, follow or do… something all because I couldn’t quite make out their accent and/or grammar. They were super sweet though. And usually they came back.

The Chinese girl amazed me. She’s attending college here and when I asked her how she liked her program, she replied with a little rant on how our ever-growing city of approaching 150,000 was too small for her. Meanwhile I’m thinking that the place is so big it might pop. What with all the tourists and students and suburbs. But she’s from the captial city of China and you could tell she thought we were old school. It’s all about perspective, eh?

But definitely the highlight of the week was feeling for the first time ever that I was a member of the minority ethnic group in a society. I don’t know what feature about me set her opinion, but my Filipino co-worker was flabbergasted to discover that, contrary to what she thought, I was indeed a “white girl.” She says to me, “You look like one of us!” lol

Actually, after learning the truth of my ethnicity and home state, she confessed that she had thought I was Hispanic. Must be my very dark hair and ever so slight summer tan, I told her. How funny. White girls definitely aren’t the norm around here.

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