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Riddle

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I shared this story with a colleague at lunch today and decided that it would make a great riddle.

When I first moved to Canada from Ukraine, one of the things that shocked me the most was something that I saw happening at a bus stop. When I saw it for the first time, I thought that maybe I was misunderstanding something. But then I kept observing the same scene at every bus stop I passed.

“Wow, these Canadians truly are different,” I decided after the fifth bus stop in a row had presented the same strange scene to me.

Question: what was it that I kept seeing at bus stops and that seemed so incredible to me after living my entire life in Ukraine?

P.S. Russian speakers, shush! I know it’s easy for you to guess but I’m trying to mystify non-Russian speakers here.

5 responses to “Riddle”

  1. luna Avatar
    luna

    People were queueing up in a civilized way to get onto the bus? Noone was pushing each other?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Wow, that was quick!

      The Canadian people waited in an orderly line for the bus and even allowed the arriving passengers to disembark before pushing their way in. This was something I’d never seen before.

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  2. nominatissima Avatar
    nominatissima

    I was going to guess saying “thank you” before disembarking the bus, but luna got the correct guess first. Would Ukrainians do that?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Say “thanks”??? 🙂 Never! It took me years to learn to say “thanks” and “welcome” and “how are you?” 🙂

      My colleague told me that she stayed at a resort in Turkey where every other family was Russian. So at the buffet restaurant, people would stampede to the food, sweeping aside everybody who’d get in the way. And these are all pretty well off people, so it isn’t like they are hungry.

      Politeness and kindness are not our forte. 🙂

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  3. Deanne Avatar
    Deanne

    Nice! On a university trip to Italy with a combination of Italian and Canadian students the Italian students took photographs of the Canadians lining up to use the one available bathroom at a lunch stop because they had never seen people do that before 🙂

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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