The third life

Some students left comments in the previous two articles :” How much does it cost to order a takeaway abroad? “Besides, many students are interested in emigrating, so I would like to introduce the living cost here for students’ reference.

In addition, Canadian companies value work-life balance, so I still have a lot of business time after work. So this time also introduce the life in Canada.

Eat 1.

Eating out: Less willing to eat out. This is different from China, when I was in Hangzhou, I used my grandma’s house, Yan Zhou Prefecture restaurants as canteens. Go to order 6 or 7 dishes with wife, also 100 multivariate, eat not finish pack come back, still can eat again. But when I got to Canada, I was a little shy about eating out. Because when we go out to buy something, including dinner, we have to pay 13% GST and then give a 15% or 20% tip when the waiter serves you. Last time I went out to eat a Japanese food with my wife, I spent more than 150 yuan, but when I checked out, it was nearly 200 yuan. Here’s also the Thanksgiving Turkey in Canada. When it comes out, it’s really good. It’s not good at all. With some gravy, some people add cranberry sauce to make it better. But the cabbages are so bitter. I don’t think so.

Supermarket to buy food: Canada is very inconvenient. There is no vegetable market, only go to the supermarket to buy. Secondly, there are very few vegetables. Later I found some Chinese supermarkets, but there are only so many dishes, far less than the local vegetable market in China. Third, salad dishes, or other weird dishes, which my wife and I are not used to. For example, a small cabbage, taste super bitter, difficult to swallow. When buying meat, I usually go to Costco, a large supermarket. They have a large quantity and are cheaper.

Take-out: In my last post, someone asked if take-out here was expensive. Here takeout is sparse and you should tip 15 to 20 percent, just like you would in a restaurant. Take-out is less, which means that only some fast food restaurants and pizza shops have take-out, unlike China, which has door-to-door service from eating to service.

Potato chips: Potato chips are singled out here, because I hate too deep. I don’t really like potato chips, just occasionally. But you get used to being in China, and at first glance, you find that there are very few varieties of potato chips here. I’ve had pickled cabbage and fish, hot pot, lemon in Chinese crisps… In Canada, you only have a few flavors like original and ketchup and salt and vinegar. Oh, my God, this is the home court of the Chips. I can’t believe I lost this game. And as a joke ketchup doesn’t taste like the tomato we eat in China. Chinese tomato tastes sweet and sour, quite delicious. The ketchup over here is so sour that I have no desire to eat a second bite. There is a salt and vinegar taste, this opened the bag on choking, a go down is really distressed my teeth. The smell is totally inhuman. How westerners love sour food.

Sweet and sour: Canadians eat very sweet food and can get used to super sour things. The donut, or little sweet balls, at Tim Hortons(the local Equivalent of Starbucks in Canada) is tragically sweet in one bite. And I also found that Canada is not alone. I have a colleague who immigrated from Holland, and he says Amsterdam is also super sweet. And canadians can eat acid, too. I went out and ordered a burger, and they put sour radishes, sour cucumbers, sour olives, and I couldn’t eat them. It’s like the whole burger flavor is taken away by the acid, and it’s not burger at all. I like a burger with extra vegetables and a slice of pineapple to make it tasty without being greasy with meat.

2. Play

Personally, I just love gadgets, so I bought a Nintendo Switch last Christmas and played Mario and Zelda at home. Also, I want to buy a new MAC. My MAC is still 2012 and a little old. But the top-up is over $4,000, and with 13% taxes, it’s close to $5,000. A little distressed, still hesitant.

It didn’t hurt too much to buy games here. For example, the recent Chinese New Year hit Assassin’s Creed origins, which costs around 400 dollars in China, is discounted here, and the luxury version costs around 70 dollars.

I went to a shooting club with my wife last year. My wife and I experienced a handgun and a rifle. After going to know the original super noisy gun, and really is the feeling of smoke filled with gunpowder. Because the target is close, so the shot is pretty accurate, mainly to overcome a lot of recoil. My wife and I tried handguns and rifles. We fired dozens of rounds and nearly $200 plus tax!

My wife and I also love to drive to provincial/national parks to camp during the non-winter months. Camping here has many amenities. There are pits for parking (each location in the provincial park costs around $50+ a night), fire pits for cooking or barbecuing, faucets, electrical outlets, and shared showers and laundry. We prepare some food before we go, and when we get there, we put up a tent, build a fire and cook, and then we can sit on chairs and watch squirrels and birds. Plus, we’re seeing more people coming in RVS. When camping in the fall, we also find families coming in two cars, one is an RV, the other is a pickup truck or a regular car with a trailer. The trailer was full of wood, and when they got to camp, they took their own axes and chopped wood to keep warm. Some of them came here towing canoes. Because a lot of parks have lakes or are close to the Great Lakes, people also go boating and things like that.

Line 3.

Car: This area is quite different from China. China’s public transport is developed, you can go to many places conveniently even without a car. But here, the public transportation is not developed (Toronto has only three or four short subways for hundreds of years). If you don’t have a car, you can hardly go out and buy a vegetable. The nearest Chinese supermarket is 20 minutes away, costco is half an hour away, and camping outside in a provincial park is an hour or two away. In short, you can’t go anywhere without a car.

And cars are cheap over here. For a Jeep Wrangler, the price in China is more than 500,000 RMB, while the price here is also more than 45,000 RMB. Same with other cars, it’s cheaper to buy European/American/Japanese cars here compared to buying imported cars in China. I bought a car for over $30,000 with a bank loan and no interest. This is really good.

There are rent here, every month out of a little money, rent a new car to drive. After a few years, you can replace your car with a new one. But at the end of the day, it’s not yours. But it depends on your personal preference, whether you like to try different cars, or want to have your own car, for personal use or for business. Once you have a car, you can drive around. Last year was the 150th anniversary of the founding of Canada. Admission to national parks across the country was free, so my wife and I went to take a look around.

Transportation:

• Toronto bus is mainly TTC, 3 dollars per trip. Different from that in China, if the transfer is in the same direction and the bus is from the same operating company, you do not need to pay any more money. You only need to show the transfer.
• It must be a little congested downtown. The various freeways between the satellite city and downtown Toronto are also congested during morning and evening rush hours. But some expressways are chargeable, so the traffic is less congested.
• The parking fee mainly depends on the location, which may be expensive or cheap. Generally, green P parking is relatively affordable here. In my neighborhood, it’s about $2 and a half an hour, but downtown it’s about $4 and a half an hour. Some places are parked for a day, capped at $30. That’s too expensive. I can’t afford to stop.
• The big supermarkets here, in front of you are super large area for free parking. For example, costco, the supermarket I often go to, has hundreds of parking Spaces in front of it, so you don’t have to worry too much about finding parking Spaces when you go to the supermarket.

4. Live

Renting: Renting should be quite expensive in Canada. In Duo Cun, for example, a two-bedroom apartment with a gym and a swimming pool around 80 square meters, not far from the subway, costs more than $1,800 a month. Plus a parking space for $150 a month.

• Water and electricity policies vary from apartment to apartment. Like my apartment, water is included in the rent, not electricity. The water includes both cold and hot water. Electricity is about $30-50 a month.
• Some apartments have fitness facilities. We have a squash court in our apartment, and my wife and I love to play squash after work, so we get both the upper body and the lower body moving. Unfortunately, after I bought the house, I no longer have such conditions. Because squash requires a fairly deep pit, I’m sure my house doesn’t have that.
• Many apartments don’t allow pets. My wife and I have two cats from China (articles cover is one of our family), was found for a long time to find our apartment (come before looking for a better family hotel and real estate agents to help find, said they will keep a pet), a agreed to a cat, two agree we rented this new immigrants (didn’t work the new immigrants, there could be problems to rent). But if you have a bank statement, bring it in for them to look at and make sure you have the money to rent for more than a year, you might be able to get it.
• You don’t have to pay three for rent here. B: Just one month’s deposit. Just pay it every month. And the deposit is for your last month’s rent, so you don’t have to pay anything for your last month.
• Rising rents. Canada is great for that. Because there are legal provisions, each year can only increase a few percent, so we are very regular. A few months in advance, in writing, how much money is going up in a few months, and you can move out if you don’t agree. This rise is very low, generally 1.5%~2% or so, and can only rise once a year. For example, if the rent is 2000, that’s an increase of more than 30 dollars a month. It’s much better to deal with some Chinese landlords who are willing to open their mouths when they are due.

Buy a house: if do not rent, oneself want to buy a house, with China difference is also very big.

• Just start to buy a house, it is best to plan to buy what price of real estate (mainly looking for a bank to do loan evaluation, directly pay the local tyrants directly ignore it), and then look for an intermediary to see the house. Because if you take a fancy to it, there will be a lot of procedures for the intermediary to help do (suitable for us who don’t want to toss about), such as the next offer to the seller. First of all, offer is an intermediary to the seller, and the buyer and the seller do not contact directly. Secondly, the Offer is not so simple as how much money, including closing day(when to turn in the key), how to do if there is any problem with the house inspection quality, how much deposit, when the deposit can be returned, etc. These are quite complicated, you’d better have an agent to help you do it. House Inspector, real estate lawyer. Most importantly, the intermediary does not need you to pay, the intermediary between the buyer and the seller, all by the seller to pay. I think it’s about 2% of the price
• After the seller accepts your offer, you need to prepare a bank loan and conduct a house inspection. Checking your house is a tricky job: where it leaks, where it’s not sealed, where it gets wind in the winter, what size of the electrical wiring, how the attic is kept warm, when the boiler is in your home… Check all kinds of things. If there is a problem, according to your offer, you can let the seller repair or let the seller reduce the price
• Bank lending is also very different from China. There are fixed and flexible interest rates. If it’s fixed, it’s fixed every five years. After five years, you can talk again, even with another bank. I don’t understand that either. But anyway, the interest rate is negotiable, every five years. People usually take out a loan for 25 years, and they can choose to take out a longer term loan.
• Houses are divided into houses, town houses, condo and so on. We bought a house with a yard in front and back and a basement up and down three floors. I just want to have a yard where my wife can grow the meat she likes.
• When the house is bought, the land is yours (unless you buy an apartment). Therefore, you have to pay the land tax every year, which is over $3000 in our case. Actually the number of this land tax is not certain, see your community in the price of this house to pay. So some people joke that some rich Chinese buy houses abroad, raising the housing price in their communities. I thought that would be a good thing, then you could sell it for a higher price. But as a result, he says, he has to pay a lot more land taxes every year. In addition, if your family has luxury items, the local tax will be more expensive. For example, if you dig a pool in your backyard, your land taxes will go up by a big chunk.
• One of the biggest house-related fears for many people in Canada is shoveling snow in winter. I heard there was a pedestrian in your hallway who slipped on the snow. You’ll be fined. Plus your car has to go out, so you have to shovel snow to get your car out, which is what a lot of people do on winter mornings. When my colleague heard I was doing the job, he joked directly to me, “You will enjoy the fun of shoveling as a home owner in Canada.”

5. ZaLun

(1). I know the waiter here doesn’t earn a very high basic salary. We live on tips. I understand, but the waiter is actually a way of showing you a table, ordering your meal, and coming around once or twice to ask if the waiter is ok, which will cost us $10 to $10. Still, the tip should be 15% to 20% of the total amount you spend, and the waiter is not allowed to tip as much as you want. So I prefer China at this point. A lot of things are already included in costs and taxes, so you don’t have to do it again. You feel good order, feel bad don’t order, not as troublesome as here. Last time our company had a dinner party, everyone paid his own way, and everyone had to calculate how much he should pay for the tip. I was really tired and distressed. Eating isn’t the only place to tip. Tip the driver for taxis, the guy at the hotel who carries your luggage, the barber for the haircut…

The first Uniqlo opened in Toronto last year. My wife and I went shopping for some clothes. When I was in the store, I opened the Tmall app and checked the prices in China. I found the prices on both sides were similar (in RMB). But actually, it’s more expensive in Canada. Because the price is similar, but China already has tax in the price, and in Canada, you have to pay 13% tax, so the price in Canada is more expensive than that in China. Not to mention, there are all kinds of events in China that are often discounted. Online shopping in Canada is quite underdeveloped, black Friday is not as popular as in the US, and there are few discount opportunities. To sum up, the price in China is already taxed, but there is consumption tax in Canada. In other words, we should promote national consumption to develop the economy. It is completely incomprehensible what all these western countries have a consumption tax on. China wins this point.

On the cash side, small merchants have to charge Visa/Master fees to receive credit cards, and probably also for policy reasons (probably tax avoidance, I guess), many merchants only accept cash. In fact, cash is really inconvenient, there is change (because many prices are 1.99, 2.99 and so on Settings), and it is not sanitary. When I was in Hangzhou, FROM eating Suzhou soup buns in Old Shengchang to taking a bus and buying things in Hualian supermarket, THE whole process was alipay, which made me feel very convenient.

6. Summary

This time introduces some things about life. Next time I’ll talk about the company and development culture here. After all, this is a programmer related system topic, and I will also introduce how western teams manage projects, how they develop, and what’s interesting. Stay tuned for: Canadian Programmer Anecdote 4/N: Teams.

This series of portals

Interesting Canadian Programmer Stories series 1/N: Job opportunities

Canadian Programmer Anecdote Series 2/N: Compensation and Benefits

Interesting Canadian Programmer Series 3/N: Life

Interesting Canadian Programmer Series 4/N: Teams