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Summary

An English TikToker Is Sharing Her Biggest 'Culture Shocks' When Moving To Canada & LOL

Loon calls are pretty terrifying if you don't know what they are! 😅🇨🇦

Senior Writer

Moving to a new country always comes with a few surprises and one English TikToker is sharing the biggest culture shocks she encountered when moving across the world to Canada.

Kate Johnson (@thenewcomercollective on TikTok) refers to herself as an "English girl building a new life in Canada one timbit at a time," and she's documented a few things that took her by surprise when she moved from Britain to the Great White North.

Part 1

@thenewcomercollective

#cultureshock after I moved from UK to Canada 🇬🇧🇨🇦 #moveabroad

The first thing that surprised her was that driving at the speed limit can sometimes result in angry drivers who are expecting to zoom at 20 km/h over.

She was also shocked that being invited to a Canadian family's cottage could, in fact, be a beautiful property and that we call every type of pasta noodles, like macaroni or fusilli.

Part 2

@thenewcomercollective

Should I do more? I have so many 😅❤ #newtocanada #expatlife

For part two of her series, she documented her surprise that Canucks add on a sales tax at the checkout and that, for some reason, there tend to be bikers hanging out in Timmies parking lots during nice weather.

She also thought that a loon call was actually a wolf trying to attack her (fair enough!) and, like many newcomers to this country, was confused by the whole milk in a bag thing we've got going on in some provinces.

Part 3

@thenewcomercollective

skunk. huh. who knew. #newtocanada #immigrationcanada

In her most recent video about culture shocks in Canada, Johnson explained how she realized why weed is called "skunk" and talked about learning that you can't buy liquor in all grocery stores.

She also noted that you have to pay for bank accounts here, which is different from the U.K., and that you can actually turn right on red traffic lights.

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  • Senior Writer

    Sarah Rohoman (she/her) was a Senior Writer with Narcity Media. She has worked at BuzzFeed Canada, Yahoo Canada, and CBC Radio in news, lifestyle, ecommerce, and social media. She has an MA in Journalism from Western University and a BA from McGill. She loves libraries, alpacas, and all things witchy.

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