The cold facts of a new life in Quebec

FOR Edith and David Ho it looks like the end of the line - literally.

After 12 gruelling months as new immigrants to French-speaking Quebec in cold eastern Canada, David and Edith and their two children Johnny and Daniel feel it may be time to move on from their recently-built three-bedroom home just a stone's throw from the final stop on Montreal's Metro subway, if not from the country altogether.

''I just haven't been able to find work,'' said David, a well-paid, fully-qualified draughtsman back in Hong Kong. ''I had a few weeks working alongside some South Americans as a general labourer in a noisy and dirty auto factory this summer, but that's all. I didn't know this place was in recession. They never told us that. Maybe we should have tried to find out more. But we believed them.'' Indeed, the immigration government officials didn't tell Mr and Mrs Ho much about the living conditions in Quebec before they left Hong Kong for Canada with every penny they possessed, just weeks away from the beginning of the freezing Canadian winter last September.

The officials didn't make it clear enough that French was the all pervasive language of that alienated Canadian province. They didn't make it clear that ''Stop'' signs on the roadside are illegal; (''Arret!'', is the word, one not even used on road signsin France). And they didn't explain that all official business is carried out in French, whether you understand or not.

The immigration officials didn't explain that those of the Ho family's French neighbours who speak some English would have accents so impenetrable to the Hong Kongers that it took the family months to realise they were listening to a tongue known to themin Hong Kong.

''We were so surprised to find that we had moved to place where there were people who don't speak English,'' said Edith. The Ho family also didn't understand that the kids would be pressed into a rigid French schooling system that recently tried to enforce the speaking of French not only in the classroom, but also in the playground.