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Hello, everyone. And welcome back to North America under the microscope. Hi, Lulu.

Hi, James, have we already changed the segment name?

No, I just figured this will be special edition because we're still talking about the United States and Canada.

So in the previous episode, in the basic episode, we talked about the similarities and key differences.

Right.

So where shall we start in this advanced episode?

Well, one of the things we talked about in the last episode was about the health care and I think we should go into that a bit more detail.

How, you guys a bit jealous?

Right, so this is a weird thing because in America there are a lot of people say, I don't think Canadian health care is very good because you gotta to wait.

But what you get is some Americans trying to cross into Canada to take advantage of the Canadian health care system.

I bet these are the same people.

Possibly, because they might be ranting on the internet which lets you be anonymous.

So there are some Americans that try to trick the Canadian system into getting health care because the Canadian health care system you have to be enrolled into the system in order to get in the system, you need to be a Canadian or resident of Canada.

Same in the UK

Are you actually committing a crime?

Oh, yes. It's fraud. It's fraud.

Americans, if you go to Canada and to see a doctor, you get charged and they are gonna… oh, you're American.

And it's gonna be expensive.

It actually will be a slightly cheaper than the United States because they don't have as much of a markup.

OK.

Your insurance probably might pay for it. But there's no guarantee of that.

They were legally cross the border but illegally…

They might be not legally stating what the purpose is in Canada because when he crossed the border they're gonna ask so what's your purpose for visiting Canada. They'll probably say shopping or sightseeing or visiting a friend, when the reality is I want free health care.

Remind me so crossing borders between these two countries, you don't need to do anything right? There is no…

You still need your passport.

You need your passport, but there's no … you don't have to apply for anything that.

No.

Um, OK.

Crossing the American Canadian border, so crossing into Canada you drive up to the border crossing, show your passport and if you're driving you'll need to show your driver's license as well. And then they're gonna ask the standard questions like what’s your purpose for visiting Canada. Do you have any of these substances in your car? They can ask can we search the car? They do have permission to search a car, it is a border check. They don't search all the cars.

But what about for foreigners like if I go to the United States, I obviously got a US visa…

You can't get into Canada, no.

So it only applies to the citizens, the people who actually…

If you have a Canadian visa, you can get in that way.

But I cannot go by sort of US visa.

No, US …being like a foreign student in the US on a US visa does not give you permission to enter Canada.

You have to apply.

You still have to apply for Canadian visa.

Now if you have a US green card which makes you a permanent resident, then you can enter Canada on the green card that's legal, but unless you come from a country that has visa Free Entry, you'll still need a visa to get in.

And that's about health care, right? Always another question, do you remember in some previous episode in the segment, we talked about the gun culture in United States.

We talked about pew pews (gun shooting sound).

What about in Canada? Do they allow guns?

They also have pew pews.

That I think is surprising to a lot of people.

Yeah. That's actually I do find that’s surprising when you talk to Chinese people says that it's not just America that has gun. -They are like “it's not?” -Canadian has guns too. -They do?

Do they sell them in supermarkets as well?

No, they don't tell them at Wal-Mart.

No, Canada is different though because Canada doesn't have the right to own guns like the Americans have. So I'm not entirely sure how it works, but I'm certain that I am sure that they do have more regulations involved in buying them. There are many more steps that they have to do. They also have much more regulations on what they can and cannot buy…

Like handguns…

Like handguns. I'm pretty sure are not allowed; but in Canada you can buy rifles to go hunting because hunting is a pretty popular activity in Canada. And I do know for a fact that some people who do work in research like in the Canadian oil fields and things like this those researchers carry guns with them when they're out in the northern areas of Canada for protection from polar bears.

Does polar bear attack happen?

Yes, because polar bear, it will attack and eat people because they live in some place really cold and food is not the most plentiful, so yeah they will attack people.

Wow, murder by a polar bear.

Yeah, terrible way to go.

Yeah, ok, so that's about guns and health care.

Let’s talk about sports.

Sports. The sports Canadians are known for…

The number one sport? Actually there are two really big sports that Canada are known for, the biggest one will be hockey and the United States and Canada do have a rivalry in hockey.

Because Canada supports like create some of the best hockey players in the world. And the American players and the Canadian players all play together on the NHL the professional hockey in America. But when it comes around to like Olympics, like 2022 we're going to have the Olympics here in Beijing. And I'm hoping they'll be a Canadian US hockey game and I'm going because there's a big rivalry between these two countries and it will be…

When it comes to sports.

when it comes to sports it will be fun to watch. Some people like say it's America and Russia. It is like it used to be America and Russia. It's much more America and Canada now.

But this rivalry is not like real sort of rivalry to the point of you hate each other.

Oh, no, it's a friendly rivalry because what will happen, so let's say in the Olympics, and let's say America and Canada play each other, and Canada beats America, ok, then in the finals, it ends up being like Canada against Russia, the Americans will root for Canada.

Oh, that is actually very common between some of the neighbors. I've heard this about Australians and New Zealanders. Like if they are going head to head against each other, especially in sports events, they tend to be like these friendly rivals as you were mentioning. But when it's the down under versus northern hemisphere, they sort of unite, we're from Australasia.

We are North Americans.

But if you get mistaken as a Canadian which I don't think happens a lot, I think it probably happens more the other way around like people…

I can say I have never been mistaken for being Canadian but I know lots of Canadians have been mistaken for being American.

Because I think for most, say for Chinese, especially people who don't really know that much about the accents have never been to Canada don't know many Canadians. I don't think many Chinese English learners really be able to tell Canadian accent from American accent.

You couldn't tell by style because they dress more or less the same, you couldn't tell by accent unless you really knew the differences, you couldn't tell much about some of the habits because they're fairly similar.

So it is hard to differentiate, but there are differences. A lot of Canadians do get mistaken from being American.

Do they get offended?

Some do, but mostly it's like no I'm Canadian.

Just put a Canadian flag.

I'm Canadian.

I've even heard of jokes about you know sometimes for example, when America has done something, when you guys have done something and then sort of like an anti-American vibe going on and then I've got American friends and just basically put…

I put a Canadian patch on my shirts like no, I'm Canadians see. I'm sorry, what are you talking about?

All right, but how do Canadians actually view Americans?

I think a lot of Americans get viewed as being very loud and opinionated but also very unworldly because Canada is a very big country, population wise it's very small, and they don't have like the same kind of influence that America does. Americans because they grew up in a country that's rich, powerful that has a lot of influence around the world.

It’s always this American number one thing, in education as well.

Canada is like we know we're not number one, we know we're not.

So they tend to know a little bit more about what's going on in the world while Americans…well I think this is a fair criticism and a fair views that a lot of Americans kind of can...

Can be more ethnocentric.

Yep.

I see, I think it's very natural if you brought up always hearing your country being number one.

America.

All right, so I know for a fact that some of our listeners actually have been to both countries and some of them are still living there, some of our long time followers actually live in Canada or in the US, if you have any interesting experiences to share or opinions to share, leave as a comment in the comment section. And thank you, James for coming to the studio again. We'll see you next time.

Bye everyone

Bye.