To help myself integrate better, I joined an international student’s club in my high school. Since people there went through same problems as I did, it was easy for me to interact with them. We would find same topics to talk about and same experiences to share. I was able to be good friends with few of them. Some of the students there already had group of friends in school. They introduced me to their other friends and this is how I made friends initially.
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| My group of school friends in Nepal since Kindergarten. |
I think I am naturally an introverted person; so learning how to interact in a new society was a challenging task for me. First few days I came to Canada, I hardly spoke to anyone. In Nepal, I had a group of friends and we had been friends since childhood. Thus, when I was suddenly put in a situation where I had to make new friends, I was scared. Although people interacted properly in class, it did not mean they wanted to put me in their group of friends. Thus, I had to put myself out there and try very hard to interact with high school students who were already had a strong group of their own.
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| Nepean High School, a place where I made my first Canadian friend. |
Slowly, I learnt that many students were interested to know about my culture, my country my experiences in this new land and by sharing my feelings and thoughts, I learnt how to communicate with a complete stranger. I also realized that while cultural differences could also act as a barrier to communication, it could also create opportunities to interact with people. Through all this interaction and building connections with my classmates in school, I realized that people are different everywhere and it is difficult to find people who are exactly the same as us. I learnt that during initial interaction talking about a common interest topic always helped to break the ice.
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| In Canada, I realized that these entire steps facilitates the process of interacting with people in different culture |
