International student's comical take on “cryptic” Canada goes viral

As Canadian federal election results rolled in Monday night, an international student in Toronto was tweeting his observations of Canada — a country that he says “feels like America, but something is fundamentally off.”

By Wednesday, the Twitter thread by Shoji Ushiyama, who goes by the pseudonym Kavaeric online, had been praised and retweeted by journalists from Canadian media such as the Globe and Mail, Maclean's, and the National Post and commented on by one internationally acclaimed author.

It all began with the 21-year-old industrial design student was messaging his friend in Calgary from his apartment in Toronto during the elections. They started talking about how he had never been to Edmonton and this lead Ushiyama to jokingly question if Edmonton was, in fact, a real place.

Soon more observations came to mind.

"And they just kept coming to me and before long I have written a gargantuan thread," Ushiyama told CIC News. "Each of these tweets that I wrote in the thread, aside from the one about Saskatchewan ... they are all based on real-life experiences I had living as an immigrant here."

As an expat living in Canada, the more I live here, the more I'm convinced I'm actually stuck in some kind of cryptic horror nightmare country that's subtly and slowly eating away at me.

— 将司 (@Kavaeric) October 22, 2019

From there the 101 tweets cover the absurdities of Canadian life from coast to coast to coast.

You meet new people, and they think you are Canadian. You insist you are actually Japanese, born in Hong Kong. They do not believe you. No, you are Canadian, they say. You start to doubt yourself.

— 将司 (@Kavaeric) October 22, 2019

"You're not from around here," one of the locals points out. You agree meekly, but you know they aren't as well. Hardly any of them are from this land, yet they remember a false history. They will realise soon, though, it's just a matter of time. Just a matter of time.

— 将司 (@Kavaeric) October 22, 2019

Though he has only been to B.C., Alberta, and Ontario, he used common stereotypes to spin his view of other provinces.

You have been to Saskatchewan and it is very flat indeed, yet the horizon is never in sight.

— 将司 (@Kavaeric) October 22, 2019

As to Alberta...

Your friends took you out on a trail one day in Alberta. The hiking is leisurely, and they say it is healthy and bracing to be outside. You nod and try not to look behind you, for the forest reaches high and out across the mountains.

— 将司 (@Kavaeric) October 22, 2019

Many of the tweets pertain to experiences unique to Toronto where Ushiyama lives, and plans to stay. Here he refers to the seemingly non-stop construction of new office buildings and condominiums in Ontario's capital city.

You leave Toronto in the summer. You return to Toronto come autumn. You swear that tower building was not there in the summer.

— 将司 (@Kavaeric) October 22, 2019

Do not speak of Vancouver. Do not speak of Montreal. Do not yearn for those other places. You are safe here, here in Toronto. It is for the best you are here, with us. You must be confused for thinking otherwise. The City of Toronto will now run an art festival to calm you.

— 将司 (@Kavaeric) October 22, 2019

He also touches on his experiences with locals, the quirks of Canadian English, and trying poutine for the first time. Many who live in Canada or who have been to Canada will understand the references he makes to Canadian franchises and culture.

You pass by a store. It's called Canadian Tire. They have many things, you've never seen any tyres. You realise they spell it differently here, and everyone thinks you're strange because of it.

Canadian Tire. You feel the same.

— 将司 (@Kavaeric) October 22, 2019

The thread also caught the eye of author Neil Gaiman, though, as Ushiyama admitted on Twitter, he had never heard of the literary superstar before then.

Canadian journalists such as Peter Scowen, Rebecca Tucker and Terry Glavin also commended his work online and the National Post published a feature on him.

Ushiyama said since the thread went viral he has received a mixed bag of compliments, media requests, and some messages from people who didn't get the joke.

"On Twitter people think I imagine myself as some kind of expert on Canada, but that’s the joke," Ushiyama said.

"The joke is that I don’t know anything about Canada."