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Originally Posted by Truenorth00
The longest I've been away was in California. Landed back in Ottawa right in the middle of winter. This time with a spouse and a kid who was seeing snow for the first time.
I think something to keep in mind is not just your personal perspective. But how much a changing family perspective can drive your view. I left Ottawa in 2012. Came back in 2019. Tons of changes in there. Meanwhile, my wife had never seen Ottawa before. And coming from London, ON, she was actually shocked at how big Ottawa was. She was genuinely fascinated by it. And I got to sort of experience Ottawa through fresh eyes.
Things we noticed moving back from California:
1) How much more the job market sucks in Canada. It's much more competitive and your coworkers are all very guarded.
2) How much healthcare sucks.
3) How much worse our family support services are, especially in the military.
4) How much better public transit is (than the US).
5) How much more expensive everything was.
6) How much less we worry about authorities here. From security on base to beat cops.
Most interesting shock? We get out of the airport and it's been a long day of travel. It's late. But I'm happy to be back in the homeland and feel that my patriotism should be indulged with a Tim's. So we drive to the first Tim's outside the airport. I ordered my usual and the minute I tasted it, I nearly spat it out. Turns out I had lost the taste for Tim's while away. I regained my citizenship when I found out that I hadn't lost the enjoyment of poutine.
Alternatively, everytime I come back from Europe. On business or vacation though, I got through a few days of mini depression. I realize how ugly our cities are. And I don't just mean downtown. Average subdivisions can suck. Getting around is so much more difficult. From the lack of intercity rail to the lack to cheap flights to worse transit. The food. Everything from poor produce quality to so much crappy fast food.
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Some great observations upon returning, and something I didn't touch on; the reverse culture shock.
I returned to Canada to visit a bunch over the years while living abroad. From 2002 to 2021, I came back to Canada a total of 12 times. Each visit, the reserve culture shock became more minimal, unless I was gone for over two years. My return in 2021 was a big ol' heap of culture shock that I didn't expect though.
I spent the entirety of COVID in Seoul, and while it had its own issues, the social fabric seemed to be intact. Outside of an increase in businesses closing, the city and its citizens remained unaffected - from a visual standpoint. Coming back to Vancouver felt like I walked into a bit of a war zone. The city looked
rough. There was way more graffiti than usual. Everything was tagged. Even windows on occupied apartment buildings. Open drug use pretty much everywhere, even outside of banks on the westside of the city (which would have been very unusual pre-2019). You'd see people shooting up or smoking meth while getting insurance. It was everywhere. There was also a lot of people who were clearly in mental distress. I remember going to get the keys to my apartment, and while waiting outside, some guy came storming down the sidewalk, lifted up the mailbox in front of my new digs, and threw it into the street. That same day, I saw some guy in middle of East 2nd street in Olympic Village picking fights with moving cars. It was not used to this at all, and wondered if coming back was a huge mistake. Seoul was so timid by comparison.
Since then, thing have clearly improved, but I think I just got used to it as well. I don't see the same amount of open drug use and people suffering from mental illnesses these days, but it's not like they've just disappeared. Maybe I've become conditioned to not notice it as much.
The positive culture shock was seeing so many different people with so many different styles walking around the city. Vancouver was a breath of fresh air after living in an extreme monoculture like South Korea, where everyone's trying not to stand out or be different.
And the food. My god, Vancouver is a wonderful place to eat.