It’s Weird Being an Immigrant to Canada

Posted by Melanie in Family, Featured | 5 comments

When we first moved to Canada in 2002, we were immigrants.  We didn’t have family to show us around so we stumbled our way around the culture, trying our best and sometimes failing both miserably and comically.

Fitting into the local school system was challenging for us since we looked like we spoke the language and we seemed to fit in.  Our immigrant-ness was invisible so it led to some funny challenges.  Like the day Sela came home and said, “Quiz me on the provinces and their capitals!”  I have to admit it had never actually occurred to me that provinces had capitals although when I thought about it, it made sense.

“Do you…er…have a list?”  I asked.  We figured it out and we all learned the capitals together.

Shoppers Drug Mart

All Canadian elementary students have an agenda from the school that is used for back and forth communication with the teacher.  We got a note one day in the agenda that Sela needed duotangs.  We were puzzled.  I knew that duotangs had been on Sela’s school shopping list at the beginning of the school year but since I had no idea what they were, I had ignored them  (one of my immigrant strategies is to wait to see if things get clearer with time).

I figured, maybe the teacher could help us with the duotangs, so I told Sela to ask the teacher where we could get them.

“Shoppers” was the answer.

We actually were lucky enough to know this did not refer to personal shoppers like they have at Nordstrom or any other kind of actual shopper, “Shoppers” refers to Shoppers Drug Mart which is the Walgreens of Canada and a near monopoly.  They are a little different from Walgreens and most of them have cosmetics and a small grocery section.  And apparently, school supplies.

Duotangs

We went off to “Shoppers” and looked around everywhere to see if we could find a sign that said duotang.  We are fairly smart, we started in the school supplies thinking it would become clear.  It didn’t.

We went to the counter.  “Do you have any duotangs,” we asked.

“Oh, yeah.  Just down in the school supplies,” she said.  “There’s a whole bunch of ‘em.”

At this point we had to confess:  “Can you show us?  We’re American and have NO IDEA what a duotang is.”

Duotang

A duotang is what Americans call a folder.  The word duotang refers to the little “tangs” that go through the holes in the paper to secure the paper in the folder.  They don’t label them, because everyone knows what a duotang is.

Apparently, Duo-Tang was a brand name like Kleenex (Duo-Tang was a Michigan Company).  The company was sold, but the name stuck.  At least in Canada.