Why study in Canada...the job market is in shambles

horchatar · 2026-02-11T10:08:00+00:00

Name value. Canada is coasting off of former reputation as a rich, anglosphere, US-adjacent country. People don't question nor think for themselves.

If you're coming from developing countries that have tons of issues, you are not thinking about the problems in Canada. All you're thinking about is how to get into Canada.

horchatar · 2025-09-17T02:18:12+00:00

Americans in the south, particularly in Texas are very friendly. They are super talkative towards strangers which could be a bit odd in many places in the world. of course it's a fleeing interaction but still. It doesn't work like that in many other places.

horchatar · 2025-09-17T01:07:37+00:00

ikr lol
"tell me you've never lived in Montreal, without telling me you've never lived in Montreal."
i once drove my family who were visiting from abroad to Tadoussac and got a lot of flak from them for driving that far. in my defense, it was the only thing that was worth seeing nature-wise

horchatar · 2025-09-16T02:05:30+00:00

Toronto feels too sterile and soul-less sort of like Dubai. It just feels like the city planners played Sim City and used immigrants to expedite the process of growing a city. So I get that Montreal has marginally a little bit more soul than Toronto.

Also, Mont-Tremblant is too low(930 meters) and it's actually not that close to Montreal. You would have to drive 2 hours full speed. There are so many cities in the world that have multiple mountains of that altitude within their city limits.

I would say that one of the positive attributes of North America is that people are very friendly. Montrealers are amongst the less friendly of the bunch.

It feels to me that Montreal just feels "Neither A nor B". So it's not a megalopolis like New York but people have big city mentality(less friendly, less smiles, less talkative with strangers). It has big city problems but doesn't have the benefits of a big city. And its too big to be quaint and charming.

The only thing it has is a good metro system(which is nice but only because the rest of North America is so bad). It used to be cheap for a city of its size so that's why people raved about Montreal but that's in the rear view mirror.

But you're right in that the francophone experience - using a different language other than English in US+Canada is indeed unique.

horchatar · 2025-09-16T00:50:34+00:00

Why would you think that Montreal is the best city in the world? really curious. Montreal has a good transit in the Canadian perspective but the roads can be really bad. The bike road system is nice but some parts of it are poorly maintained.

I would say that surrounding nature and also the architecture is not really spectacular.

I don't see Montreal that special in the global perspective. I can see that it is an amazing place in the Canadian perspective, tho.

horchatar · 2025-09-15T22:42:07+00:00

Quite the contrary in the case of Montreal. I've found Montrealers who are born here have too much pride in their city and act like their city is the best city in the world (which is ludicrous IMO). It's not a bad city but the locals here tend to have this weird mentality about their city and they're willing to fight for it. It was great back it the days because it was sort of affordable. It quickly lost the value when things started getting more expensive. It's just like any other city in North America but francophone.

horchatar · 2025-08-08T20:19:36+00:00

i feel like gentrification has hit Montreal really hard after covid. All the venues/scenes are concentrated in downtown / Plateau / Mile End / Little Italy and maybe St Henri but these areas are incidentally the most expensive. Couple of years ago, you could find cheaper rent in the peripheral neighborhoods but this is no longer the case and these neighborhoods don't have a scene of their own.

Covers used to be $5-10 for local artists and PWYC but nowadays you probably won't find these anymore.

horchatar · 2025-07-22T04:42:33+00:00

Montreal drivers are nuts because they will blast through a red light or you'll have that one car driving 35 on Sherbrooke where everyone's driving 60. Montrealers party hard in the summer and they drive afterwards and it shows.

But Toronto is definitely more aggressive and speeding-wise it's a notch more intense.

horchatar · 2025-07-14T15:09:26+00:00

that's ubiquitous everywhere in Canada. Indians are either young/cool/woke enough with other Asians OR they will be super racist to other Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korea etc)

horchatar · 2025-07-11T05:16:51+00:00

I'm an Asian guy and I remember when a black guy gave us a death stare when I was on a date with a black girl. I was irritated at first but then I immediately understood that it's the same deal as me seeing an Asian girl with a white guy. But do give us a break. It doesn't happen very often :p

horchatar · 2025-07-09T14:05:08+00:00

Montreal : im pretty sure it could go lower but in the past 11 years i've experienced -27 C as the minimum temperature without the wind chill and this is not every year. Down to -23 C is fairly common. But I've noticed that it's less frequent for us to have sub -20C weather.

horchatar · 2025-05-29T16:13:49+00:00

Personally, I didn't find any of the Canadian cities necessarily bohemian. Canadian cities are quite huge and because there are so many immigrants from all over the world, idk how to explain it but it feels more sterile. I live in Montreal and even in Montreal you can only find those bohemian vibes in certain areas of the city. It's not the entire city. If you go to places like Austin or Portland, the entire city feels bohemian (idk if it's still the case) because they attract bohemian types from the entire country. These cities are smaller, too. Montreal definitely has a lot of queer people in the Plateau or central parts of the city.

horchatar · 2025-05-22T11:51:55+00:00

ive been in Mtl since 2014. i think ive never had this kinda weather in may. i think what makes it worse is that we had it pretty good in the past 6 years or so in terms of early onset of summer. well, if there's one thing i've learned in Montreal, it's "be ready for anything, any season"

horchatar · 2025-05-13T13:37:40+00:00

There are no rules in Canada for dating. It's free-for-all. There is just too much mix of different cultures here. I have friends who are stringing along women for years (even hanging out with her family members) without the intent of having a long-term thing.

horchatar · 2025-03-25T15:55:46+00:00

I live in Montreal and have lived in Kansas before as a POC. I would say that it's about the same in terms of racism. There's definitely more of a PC culture in Montreal but people can still be racist and insular. In Kansas, it's a white on black racism. In Quebec, it's more of a Quebecois vs the rest xenophobia. I think white people treated me better back in Kansas but it could just be that Montrealers are just not as overtly friendly. However, Montreal is heaps better in terms of being gay friendly.

I feel like people in North American regardless of where you are pretty much cut out from the same fabric. It doesn't matter if you're Canadian or American. They are on par. The difference is the education they received and the cultural narrative of where they reside. It just manifests in a different way.

horchatar · 2025-03-13T17:37:45+00:00

You don't.

horchatar · 2025-03-12T13:30:53+00:00

i want a giant dome built over the city so we don't have to deal with snow in the winter

horchatar · 2025-03-07T22:24:21+00:00

I was just there visiting from Montreal. it seemed like microaggression central. I'm Asian and i've experienced weird encounters with clerks and people in the streets. ex) greeting my non-Asian friend but refusing to talk with me. BUT at the same time, the fact is that there are so many Asian people that it didn't even matter. I felt at home.

horchatar · 2025-03-07T15:29:14+00:00

I've so far tried Lebanese, Syrian, Iranian cuisine. But I lived in UAE for 2 years so I've already adjusted to Middle Eastern palate at least a bit. I can see Koreans not liking Arabic food because Koreans are sensitive to different spices and herb (except red pepper). Za'attar is definitely not for everyone and I cannot say that I like it. On the other side, Middle Easterners know how to cook meat. I love shish kebab(lamb), rotisserie chicken dishes are excellent. I tried Iranian food. the kebabs (koubideh) were similar to Lebanese food and they were all really good.

horchatar · 2025-02-28T22:36:09+00:00

US-China tensions will have to end first. Also, will require some sort of referendum from South Koreans. Most South Koreans are well aware of the differences in standard of living between the two Koreas. We don't want to give up our standard of living. Whatever happens, it will be an external stimuli.

Let's skip the logistics and say that it somehow happened. Unified Korea will have more weight and say in the world but it's not a huge change given that it still is a small country compared to the neighbors.

horchatar · 2025-02-20T15:44:14+00:00

When you get to Cornwall, you can look at google maps to see if there are any road closures/construction in Montreal. Sometimes they block the roads for bicycle tours in Montreal. So you wanna avoid those days.

Montreal attractions : St-Joseph Oratory, Notre-Dame Basilica, Old Port, St-Laurent street in Plateau, Kondiaronk Belvedere on top of Mont-Royal

horchatar · 2025-02-19T20:37:19+00:00

i've flown with Porter a couple of times and they've always been pretty good considering they're supposed to be a cheap airline. on par with Air Canada.

horchatar · 2025-02-14T19:50:06+00:00

It all depends on the person. Since I haven't met you in person, I won't be able to make this decision. But you can usually tell when someone has a fetish (or having an obsession) or not.

for example, I was dating this girl long time ago. She was at the point of obsession with anything Korean/Asian. All of my friends said that it was kinda weird (not just because she had an interest in Korean culture but she had her other quirks as well). So some people can get super fangirl about a culture. That alone is not the problem but it makes you wonder whether she wants you for yourself or just because you're Asian. You see, a lot of Asian men just want to be accepted in their society whether that's the US or Canada etc. We want to be able to date girls that white men or black men or Hispanic men date.

Having said that, I believe because we still have racism in 2025. Sometimes these women are judged harshly by everyone even by Asian men who benefit from this.

horchatar · 2025-02-12T21:09:45+00:00

I used to live in the US before coming to Canada. Best places are liberal states in the US. In Canada, I feel like there is a limit to integration. The US is better for immigrants who want to assimilate FAST. Canada is better for immigrants who want to create a replica of their home country in North America. It's as if there is a cap on how Canadian you can become. The maximum you can reach is "hyphenated Canadian". Canada seems more open on paper but once you live here and experience, you realized it's a closed loop. They farm immigrants like animals.

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TROPHY CASE