Real people. Ten-minute stories. Life across cultures. Each event brings together storytellers and audiences for an evening of honesty, laughter, and understanding. Because building stronger communities starts with listening to one another.
The Intercultural Exchange™ is a live storytelling event series where real people share ten-minute personal stories about navigating life across cultures. Each night focuses on a different intercultural theme, beginning with romantic relationships and expanding into work, leadership, and everyday life.
After the featured storytellers, the room opens up for conversation and connection. These evenings are designed for newcomers and Canadian-born residents alike. You don't need speaking experience to attend, and you don't need speaking experience to apply.
Each speaker shares a personal, lived experience. Funny, moving, eye-opening, or all three at once. No slides. No scripts. Just real stories, told well.
Every event includes time to mingle, reflect, and talk. The audience Story Crossing lets a few attendees share a brief story of their own, chosen names-in-a-hat style.
Selected speakers get coaching and preparation support. First-time storytellers are encouraged to apply. The only requirement is an honest story.
Five speakers, ten minutes each. True stories about what we carry across cultures, generations and borders — and what we decide to put down. Plus Story Crossing, where people in the room took two minutes on the same stage.
Four speakers shared personal stories about navigating intercultural romantic relationships: the assumptions, the misread signals, the family dynamics, and the resilience that comes from learning to love across difference. A sold-out night at the Black Swan Tavern.
Culture doesn't stop at the front door. Whether you grew up caught between your parents' traditions and the world outside, you're raising kids who speak a language your own parents don't, or you're learning that "family" means something different on each side of the table, these are the stories that rarely get told out loud.
You adapt. You code-switch. You learn the rules of a place that doesn't quite feel like yours, while the place you came from starts to feel unfamiliar too. This night is for the in-between stories. The ones about identity, belonging, and what happens when no culture claims you completely.
Every workplace runs on rules nobody writes down. Who speaks first in a meeting. Whether silence means agreement or disagreement. How directly you can challenge your boss. When those rules collide across cultures, the stories get personal fast. Ten-minute stories from people who learned the hard way what nobody told them.
I created The Intercultural Exchange because I've lived these stories myself. I'm Canadian, married to an Argentine woman of Japanese heritage. My parents, a father from Saskatchewan and a mother from Ireland, met while teaching in Nigeria. Navigating cultures has shaped every part of how I see the world.
I've spent my career helping leaders and teams turn cultural differences into strengths. Through Hiyaku Coaching, I work with organizations on inclusive communication, cross-cultural leadership, and the kind of understanding that only comes from asking better questions and listening more carefully.
This event series grew out of a simple belief: when people share their real stories, understanding follows. I wanted to create a space where that could happen in person, face to face, in the city I love.