Musings of a university student – undecided everything.
We started the week off with a welcoming breakfast at the Go Global Lounge (which was a stunning circular theatre with beautiful a beautiful wooden ceiling and doors), meeting the HKU students Katrina and Calvin over a very Canadian Tim Hortons breakfast. It was nice to meet the two HKU students and I was really excited to learn that they were studying such different but interesting disciplines (Landscape Architecture, and Translation). After the breakfast, we met in the board room to talk about possible topics and themes for our group documentary projects. Ones I remember being interested in were Dora’s suggestion of the citizenship of money (why and when would it matter?) and the cultural clash of the real estate investors and “normal, everyday” Hong Kong immigrants who came and sought after large lot sizes in Vancouver’s west side. Especially because I read Chinese newspaper and magazines often, I was intrigued to do more unveiling research and interviewing in the real estate field; Li Ka Shing and Lee Shau Kee are household names in my family, especially because Li Ka Shing is of Teochow descent, which is where my mom’s side of the family is from.
Afterwards, we all went to Tinseltown (International Village) for our Chinatown/Gastown/Japantown/Strathcona tour. Unfortunately it was drizzling that morning, so we did not get to go to Japantown and didn’t have enough time to go to Strathcona. Strathcona was a neighbourhood I was looking forward to touring most because of my childhood memories in Chinese school there, but there will always be opportunities for me to visit on my own. Instead, after walking down Keefer street and talking about the westernized Chinatown establishments such as Baobei and The Keefer, we all went to Phnom Penh on Georgia Street. I’m so glad we went because I have been craving food from that restaurant for a while. We also managed to drop in while it wasn’t busy, almost at 4pm. It was a funny moment walking into the restaurant and telling the server “16 people please”…
For the next two days, we discussed observations from the Chinatown tour and compared to readings from class. The topics also came up again and we found two areas of focus within our course title of “Identity in a Comparative Context”, looking at both Vancouver and Hong Kong’s cultural identity. Heritage as an abstract and undefined, as well as subjective, term was one major focus, and factors such as education which affect the migration patterns of the Hong Kong Chinese people was another interest of the class. We somehow split into two even groups, with Sven and Ewout splitting up (if they were both in one group, it would have been too stacked!) because of their level of film editing experience. Education was the group that I wanted to learn more about because it was something I witnessed in so many of my friends’ families. I wanted to find out what motivated people to move their family and wealth across a Pacific ocean and in some cases, maintain split families and then have a re-migration back to Hong Kong after children graduate from university overseas (a term coined 回流 in Cantonese). My other group members were the two HKU students, Calvin and Katrina, as well as Alyssa, Peggy, Ewout and Alan.
Our second field trip this week was to Richmond on Friday. I don’t think I’ve ever been inside Aberdeen so early (10am!) but after everyone gathered, we walked over to Parker Place and had delicious and cheap breakfast food. That was another first for me, I was surprised how busy the food court was at that time of day, and the people there weren’t only seniors, there were workers, young couples, and even families. Afterwards, we walked along No. 3 Road to Yaohan Centre. I noticed that much of the mall was still making an effort to retain the original Japanese ‘feel’, with T&T not renaming Osaka, and small Japanese painting shops. It was sad to find that the manga/bookstore was closed though! I remember looking at Doraemon comic books in there when I was much younger. I couldn’t shrug off the phantom emptiness of the mall, I kept wondering how stores were surviving while walking through the upper level retail. Overall, from visting the malls, I could see how Richmond housed a different Chinese crowd than Chinatown. It was a Benz and Lexus filled neighbourhood, with a much younger customer demographic. In a way though, it was more Chinese because many of Chinatown’s streets have been ‘invaded’, so to speak, by the young and hip Vancouver crowd. I visited Pender Street’s Fortune Soundclub recently and it holds a monthly hip hop karaoke event. DJs from Vancouver’s radio stations and many art and cultural geeks flock to the popular event. There is nothing in the club that reminds me that I’m in Chinatown.
Looking forward to more field trips!