As I have briefly stated in my previous posts, international students may experience cultural shock to different degrees, which may lead to feelings such as loneliness and homesickness . Cultural shock can be described as the feeling when one experiences a cultural environment that is different than what they are used to (washington.edu). I guess all international student feel the effects of cultural shock at some point after we arrive to the destination city. Those feelings don’t come out right away, and may hide deep inside for a while.
In order to deal with the cultural shock, we start to hang out with friends from our country and spend time in places that match our culture: meeting points such as restaurants, shops and cafes.For example, I sometimes go to a Turkish restaurant to eat delicious Iskender Kebap and Kunefe, and drink some Ayran. It is nice to be able to find some Turkish Tea and sweet snacks from my childhood at the turkish market, and enjoy my afternoon tea fest! Turkish football fans get together during the derbies in Burnaby and watch the games together.
I have found a short video about Japanese international students and how they spend their time in Vancouver.
I think we all have this kind of behavior when we travel abroad. Maybe it is exciting to try new things at first but i think in deep down inside of us, we all get happy when we see a familiar brand or lifestyle.
Just a quick question. Imagine, you are living in Paris for the last 6 months and you just discovered a Tim Horton`s on the other side of the city. Would you go there and grab a cup of coffee even if there are better, closer and cheaper ones around the area? I am sure that time to time you would do that because we all want to feel connected to our roots at some point!!
Being International 
I find it so inspiring how international students such as yourself can move half way across the world and fit into a new lifestyle. You have to get used to living in a completely new environment so of course homesickness is likely. To answer your question, I think I definitely would go get myself some Tim Horton’s, even if it was on the other side of the city!
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Yes, definitely I would do the same thing 😀
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I really enjoyed this blog post! I went on an exchange in Japan for a year and I definitely know what it’s like to try and find your own culture. For students such as yourself that come to Canada it must be a very different feeling, there are many authentic Turkish restaurants and permanent residents aren’t there? Finding small pockets of Turkey well within Canada must be a cool feeling.
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yes, especially i found it very useful for the first couple of months.
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As someone who gets extremely homesick very easily, I have a lot of respect for people who travel to foreign countries to pursue their dreams, whatever they may be.
And yes, I would be going to that Tim’s everyday if I could!
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