Hist 482 Journal #3

This week we started working on our project as a group. It was really exciting to be able to schedule a lot of our interviews this week as it was our last week in Vancouver. Our group had a very busy schedule. Good thing that most interviews would only need between 3-4 people so that we could pick and choose ones that we could go to. I contacted people I knew in the education network in Vancouver, including ones I’ve met through S.U.C.C.E.S.S. such as Maggie Ip and Christine Brodie. Then, because Alyssa and I had gone to a private school and one of our math teachers attended St. George’s in the 80s, we wanted to interview him to ask him about the differences between the private schooling system as well as the student body then compared to now. (We were very intrigued by what Henry had said in class about private schools being for people who couldn’t do well or focus in public schools. That makes sense! That would be why you would need to pay tuition!) And lastly, we found our main characters, the Yip family. The Yip family has known my family for a long time and I remember when they had first moved to Vancouver 10 years ago. At first I had only tried to ask Phyllis or Fiona, the daughters, for an interview. But it became clear that to have the full story, it would be best to interview as many members of the family as possible. Thankfully, my mom helped to convince Mrs. Yip, and Phyllis helped me set up an interview with her dad, who was luckily in town because of Fiona’s recent graduation.

 

As a class, we also had a field trip on Monday. We met at the McDonald’s in Kerrisdale, when they happened to have some sort of one hour closure, which stuck us inside for a bit. After hearing about the neighbourhood’s history from Henry and Jessica, we took a tour along 41st Avenue and saw buildings which had fake heritage wall murals and established dates of 1993 in an old-looking font and style. It was also surprising to notice the fake steam clock in Kerrisdale, in front of Shoppers Drug Mart, which I would normally just pass by without a glance. I never realized it was trying to resemble a steam clock, but knowing that it fooled Ewout and Sven made me laugh. The level of effort it seems that Kerrisdale’s planners or community tried to put into making the area seem important to Vancouver’s history was comedic. Maybe it would be more desirable to live in the community if it was a so-called heritage site? It was true that most buildings had an old English feeling (or as Henry would call it, Ye Oldy Englishy) to them. After the field trip, everyone came to my house to watch the Chungking Express. Because it was Katrina’s birthday, our group went to pick up two cakes from Kerrisdale cake shops and sneaked them into my house. My mom also picked up lunch for us and it was fun to eat with everyone again. The movie was disjointed for me because I ran in and out of the room multiple times, but it was a very homegrown movie out of Hong Kong. Many of the movie stars are superstars now, and it was cool to recognize Tony Leung and Faye Wong. I had never been to Chungking Mnasion before, but there was a sense that such an efficient operation (the drug smuggling plan) would only be possible in Hong Kong – at least at the time. the Hong Kong Chinese are known for their ability to find where money can be made, and accomplish just that.

 

While we had interviews in UBC, Chinatown, people’s houses, and LFA this week, our group also spent a day doing b-roll (facilitation training day) in Vancouver. I needed to attend a facilitation training workshop at S.U.C.C.E.S.S. but I heard from Alyssa and the rest of my group that they had a lot of fun and some pretty nice weather while filming around UBC, Burrard Inlet, and Stanley Park. They even went to the aquarium, because we all knew Calvin wanted to visit it.

 

I’m really excited to go to Hong Kong tomorrow! Alyssa, Alan, and I are on the same flight.