At 15:30 on Oct. 15th, 2014, Linda Ryan-Pohl, a Canadian teacher of English from Tier University delivered a lecture entitled "What makes Canada different from the United States". She demonstrated the difference between the two countries from the perspective of a Canadian and the students harvested a lot.
Linda Ryan-Pohl indicated that the two countries are presumed to be similar to each other and belong to the same group for reason of geographical proximity. Linda, however, born and raised in Canada, thought there were huge differences in social and cultural backgrounds between the two countries. “Canada is to America what China is to Japan, Australia to New Zealand”, said she.
She presented to the audience with a detailed description of Canadian society and made an exhaustive comparison with America in the following aspects: historical development, political system, administrative governance, development of military power, social cognition, practices of the government and the public. From the lecture, we could learn about the national characters of Canada and its robust social security system, which are quiet different from those of American society. Moreover, we understood the inclusiveness, understanding and support that Canadians display towards cultural diversity. For example, at weekends, ethnical schools backed by the government will hold activities from which ethnical students can learn their own cultures, aiming to remind people of their own roots and protect the ethnical diversity. The close-to-life examples Linda Ryan-Pohl mentioned gave us a vivid picture of the differences between the two cultures and deepened our understanding of Canada.