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4 Canada: Immigrants welcome Before you read Make a list of reasons why people would like to move to another country. Put them into two groups: those which “push” people into leaving their home country and those which “pull” them to move to another country. Compare your findings with a partner. Reading: Attentive acupuncturist Read the text about a Chinese doctor who emigrated to Canada. Complete the sentences (1–6) using a maximum of four words. Write your answers in the spaces provided. The first one (0) has been done for you. 1 2 Dr Richard (Guo Qing) Dong, who received a degree in traditional medicine from China in 1984, left for Italy at the age of 28 to work there as an acupuncturist for eight years. His most important problem was language. “I had to learn Italian to be able to understand my patients’ problems and give them effective treatment,” he said in an interview. However, when it came to immigrating permanently to a country, he was convinced Canada was the best place. “It offers so much freedom, and in this country I can practise independently,” he says, explaining that in Italy he had to legally work under an Italian citizen doctor. “Canada is a good environment for immigrants to develop and further their careers. There are many opportunities here.” He became even more convinced of his plans to move to Canada when a patient (an Italian Canadian who was vacationing in Italy at the time) said there were many Italian immigrants in Canada who needed traditional Chinese medical experts like Dong. “He persuaded me to go to Canada to extend my career,” Dong remembers gratefully, adding that the elderly patient’s son and daughter-in-law hosted a welcome party for him and his wife when they arrived in Canada. He did not plan to depend solely on Italian or Chinese clientele in Canada, yet he was optimistic that he would become successful here, too. Dong had such confidence because he had already gone through the experience of establishing a practice in a country that was very different from his own culture and traditions. However, like many immigrants do, Dong began his life in Canada in a small apartment on Dundas Street West, in an ethnic enclave – Chinatown. “We all should stop being ethnocentric and be open to all communities, just like Canada is open to people of all countries,” he says in retrospect. “Only then we can succeed.” He eventually did find that success, but not without crossing a few hurdles. Building a brand new multi-ethnic client base wasn’t easy at all. He says the biggest barrier was language. “I knew less than 100 words in English when I came to Canada,” he notes. It was impossible to start his acupuncture business with this language barrier, as communication plays a crucial role in a doctor-patient relationship. Dong realised that, in the same way he learned a foreign language to become successful in Italy, he had to learn English to help him achieve his business and personal goals in Canada. “I went to LINC [Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada] to study [the] English language from basics,” he recalls. And by the end of six months, his vocabulary had increased by a couple of thousand words, as did his knowledge of the proper use of most words in conversational English. “But my Italian is still better than my English,” he says jokingly. “I was much younger when I went to Italy so I could learn it faster!” Jokes aside, his English improved enough that he was able to become a speaker with a storytelling initiative that provides Canadians with a greater understanding and appreciation of the contributions that refugees and immigrants like Dong make to Canada. Considering the popularity of his practice (even despite the fact that it’s not covered by health insurance in Ontario), Dong thinks he made a wise decision not to go back to school to earn a Western 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 46 Migration Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv