It's a cold place, Vancouver, and not just weather-wise. A recent survey found it the least friendly city in Canada for immigrants.
When Viola Liu moved here three years ago, from Xian, Shaanxi province, she thought her outgoing personality would help her assimilate.
"It's easy to meet people here, but not that easy to make friends," she says. "It's very hard to break in with strangers, into their circles here in Vancouver."
The survey, conducted for HSBC Bank Canada, asked 607 adult immigrants who had arrived in Canada in the past 10 years, to score cities on friendliness. The most welcoming city was Montreal, which scored 89 per cent, then Calgary and Edmonton, each with 84 per cent, followed by Toronto with 79 per cent. Vancouver earned a stand-offish 73 per cent.
Liu, who was a college English lecturer back in China and now writes business plans for small enterprises, says she's not sure why it's so hard to make friends in Vancouver, although the grey, rainy weather seems to isolate people.
When Mario Canseco arrived in Vancouver 12 years ago, as a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, he thought that, with a few years of hard work, he could achieve the success he would have had in his native Mexico City.