I didn’t like Vancouver when I first moved here. It was a staunch place. Old but new. Cold. Eccentric. Mean. Sophisticated. Graffiti. Layered with miles and miles of hidden corners. Folded. Trapped in between ocean and mountain. Flooded. With faces I can’t read.
People argue on the bus about being too close the door and therefore the bus driver can’t close it and move on. People cutting each other off during rush hour, but also yielding to jay-walkers and backing up traffic. I see young people out desperate for a fun night but all they get it something they don’t remember. It’s the continuous talk about the weather, cold or hot. Smell of coffee in the morning commute and the yoga mats. You’d see a lower income neighbourhood slowly breathing into a hipster quarter.
But about five years later, I started to see this city from its different corners. In 2011 when I volunteered at an inner city elementary schools, I got to see Strathcona and its historical marks, the Chinese culture that has cultivated this city, built this city and transformed it. Another inner city school was near Commercial Drive, so I got to meet children whose parents are not here, or are movie directors, or are too busy making a living. How different, I realized, are the lives of the people in this city. I followed a blog by a Vancouver Police who works in the Downtown Eastside and through his lens I saw the city in its darkest hours and darkest corners. I bike, walk, drive, take transit. I have seen Vancouver when she is angry and pissed off at work, then merrily drinking her life away over posh cocktails in Yaletown. It’s so different everywhere, every time. Coming back from New York City after a 3-day vacation there, I noticed for the first time the First National art pieces at YVR, and thought about how I am on unceded territory, and how this city is struggling so much to acknowledge this.
Being at a job that relates to urban planning, I get to see the behind the scenes of how the ‘hardware’ of Vancouver changes. If it takes me years to finally appreciate a city, how am I going to do that in 4 months?
