Why do international students and immigrants in Canada look down on each other?

I have always been an angry person to some extent. I don't understand many things, and I always want to express my dissatisfaction. But, on the other hand, the idea that I accept and appreciate is tolerance and understanding. Under this general premise, the direct result of not being able to understand this is that I don’t understand myself. From a broad perspective, if everyone dislikes and dislikes each other, then if you pinch me and I pinch you, one day everyone will die, so tolerance is a virtue. From a selfish point of view, if you look at something that doesn't please your eyes every day, one day you will make yourself angry to death.

Questioning everything is a good academic attitude, but it is not suitable for life.

What's more, many times, as long as you think about it from the other person's perspective, many things are not so unreasonable and difficult to understand. I know this is very vulgar, you don’t know how many times you have read it. But it works really well. The most vulgar words are the words that are repeated the most, and the words that are repeated the most are always useful (such as self-comfort or self-deception, but this is not what I want to talk about today).

When I was a young immigrant in high school in Toronto, I was exposed to children who immigrated with their parents just like me. Some of their families are very powerful, but most of them come from intellectual families like mine and are from skilled immigrant backgrounds. They are thrifty, they work hard, they are diligent, and at the same time they are equally annoying. At that time, I particularly looked down on them. I thought they were cowardly. When they were laughed at or ridiculed by some inexplicable people, they never knew how to protect themselves, they just stood up silently. I think they are too set in their ways, spending time with the same people as themselves every day, and never daring to step outside their own small circle. It is precisely because of this that many people's English has always been average. I always felt that I was very smart at that time, so I didn't like to play with them. They don't like to play with me either, they think I'm too cool.

Later I graduated from high school and went to college. In college I met many international students. These children, who come from the same place as those small immigrants, lead a completely different life. They also formed gangs, but they lived a much more relaxed life. At first, I was particularly envious of their chicness. I thought they were feasting and feasting, which was very exciting. They spent a lot of money, either going out to drink tea or singing K-pop every night. When they went shopping, they packed up a lot of money to fight back. One day could cost me a month's living expenses. However, after spending some time with them, I began to dislike them. I think they have no sense of responsibility, are naive, and are ignorant. They spend all day eating and waiting to die. They are not as cute as those diligent and down-to-earth little immigrants. So I stopped playing with them. But they stopped playing with me because they thought I was fake and noble.

After that, I didn’t contact anyone for a long time.

Later I made many new friends. Some of them are international students and some are immigrants. Most of my international student friends look down on immigrants. Their thoughts were similar to what I thought at the time. At the same time, they also felt that the immigrants were too self-righteous. A friend of mine said angrily: "What's so great about it is that you came here earlier? Are you really a Canadian? Besides, what's the good thing about being a Canadian? Those who look down on this and that are so arrogant!"

Most of my immigrant friends say they look down on international students. Not surprisingly, they also felt that these young international students were too extravagant, too childish, too irresponsible, and in addition - too arrogant.

In other words, for the first time, I discovered that I possessed everything that was looked down upon by both parties: false aloofness and too much arrogance. I suddenly felt very confused. I couldn't stand this and that, and others couldn't stand me at the same time. Maybe "can't stand it" is a subjective and unnecessary joke. Being such a conflicted person, I couldn't help but find the whole thing somewhat funny.

Human nature likes to stick together. Teamwork gives us a survival advantage. When we had no culture and just learned to use tools and make fire, we learned that only when people of a tribe unite to help each other get along every day, they will not be eaten by wild beasts, freeze to death in winter, and so on. In addition to our natural centripetal forces, we also have repulsive forces.

Tribes often clashed with each other over competition for resources of one kind or another, and this nature has not changed even after thousands of years in such a high-tech and civilized society. We still like to hang out in groups and get along with people who have the same thing as us, which makes us feel safe. At the same time, we also like to exclude people who are different from us, even if they just look different.

Yes, it just looks different. Although people have differences in personality, appearance, preferences, ideal tastes, and other differences, in the final analysis we are all the same thing. The goals we strive for are very similar; the paths we take are also different. Therefore, racial discrimination is fundamentally a human weakness. In foreign countries, the mutual repulsion between young immigrants and young international students is nothing more than part of this weakness.

In a place where the mainstream society is composed of white people from the British Empire, the Chinese are actually a very small percentage, occupying very few resources and abilities. Under such circumstances, the self-exclusion still carried out is really a little bit nonsense. If human beings are essentially the same thing, then the differences between Chinese and Chinese are even smaller. As people who have received the same type of education and whose lifestyles follow the same culture, as outsiders living in such a country, I can’t figure out why we still can’t stand each other.

Both foreign students and immigrants are human beings, both Chinese, and have the same cultural background, regardless of their family background. In other words, when they were born, they were indistinguishable from each other. If you leave a young international student in Canada when he is a teenager, force him to endure the cultural shock, emotional conflicts between his parents, and the pressure of life, and teach him where to buy groceries at the cheapest price and how to spend the least money to buy the best things, he will They will also become a complete, so-called "little immigrant". The same is true. So, whenever my friends complain to me, I always feel depressed. While I understand their disapproval, I also don’t understand why they can’t overcome this “dislike”.

There are indeed some young international students who do not repay borrowed money, use other people's money to spend money and drink, are two-faced, have a shady appearance, feel good about themselves, eat around and wait to die, and have no future. Among the young immigrants, there are also those who treat themselves as a big deal every day, looking down on this and that, thinking that they are the smartest and the most promising in the world, and when they see people who are better than them, they try their best to stumble others. This is scum, and scum can be found everywhere; people with bad character will appear in any race or small group. If you throw this kind of person anywhere and let him or her appear in any appearance, he or she will be a scum. This is not about that race, or group. This is an individual difference, and we need to understand this individual difference and not extend it to the entire group. Otherwise, not only will we make no progress day and night, but we will also make ourselves mad to death.