The ThunderBlogs

The imagery observed during a stroll to the South West Marine Drive locality can tentatively counter any previous impression of Vancouver as a prosperous city, where the wealthiest share streets with the underprivileged.

The sight of beautiful houses with high-clipped hedges and expensive cars parked in garages dominated the scene around Dunbar’s narrow and noiseless street. One could sense an air of affluence in the surroundings.

Within a few blocks from this attractive spectacle, the scenario drastically changed when “Musqueam Nation” signs hanging from light poles emerged.

At just meters from well-off houses, untidy mobile homes with plastic fences came into view. A feeling of abandonment became evident to the eye in the streets composing the nation.

Some domiciles appeared to be heavily neglected, with wrecked vehicles parked in their backyards. More than ten pairs of rubber boots lying outside some residences were apparent at times, and they all seemed to belong to different persons living in the same households.

Right in front of the impoverished homes at the nation, a golf course was visible: The Musqueam Golf Course and Learning Academy.

Aboriginal residents of different ages (mostly children) affably interacted on the streets along 51st Avenue, breaking the silence felt minutes before on the richer side.

“There are around 600 hundred people currently living in this nation, but around 1,500 Musqueams inhabit the greater Vancouver area,” said K. Louis Point, director and board member at the Native Education College and a resident of this neighborhood. Many community members caringly greeted Point as she passed by, showing great affection and respect towards her. “Everybody knows me around here, as you can see, because I have lived here since I was 14 years old and I am active in the community,” she said.

A connection between the Aboriginal Adult Learning Centre at the nation and the University of British Columbia seemed to be a source of pride for the community. “ At our institution, you can study various languages and receive 6 credits from UBC,” Point said. “The reserve manages the Musqueam Golf Course and a Native Adult Learning Centre,” she said.

Likewise, according to Point, some divisions of the Musqueam reserve have been leased out to the government, and tax money collected from these residences returns to the reserve’s management council.

She eagerly extended an invitation to an upcoming aboriginal welcoming ceremony at the Native Education College, which can possibly foster a better understanding of the contrasting realities citizens experience around the South West Marine Drive area.

“Pphhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeoooooo…” men and women gathered at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House collectively released their lower lips and their inhibitions as they dropped their limp torsos over their feet. Anna Baignoche, the ring leader made small humming sounds and instructed them to slowly lift themselves into a standing position. “Aaaaaooooaaaaaaaooooooaaaaaooommmm…” the room resounded with the sound of their humming. Their eyes, now open, glimmered with satisfaction and expectation. The warm up complete, it was time to get down to business.

Local Vocals reconvened for their fall season this Monday. Led by Baignoche, the community choir meet once a week to sing songs from all over the world: Bluegrass, Afro-Cuban, Jazz, Samba Bulgarian, Japanese. They don’t sing for a concert or a show, but rather for the sheer joy of it. Singing with the choir requires no formal training or experience. If you can talk, you can sing, it says on their handout.

Sawn-you may-oo, Vay doosh kar keng.” Hand-written, phonetic, lyrics were posted on a wall for everyone to see. The group divided itself into Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Base sections, and Baignoche gave everyone their parts. Their vocal chords limber from the somewhat unusual vocal warm up, the mixed choir of first timers and experts delivered flawless harmonies, singing in languages they didn’t understand, making sounds that many of them had probably never made before. They started the evening with some old favourites like “Oh when the saints” and quickly moved on to a song from South Africa. They followed it with a Brazilian Samba song in Portugese and finished off with a traditional Scottish lyric that brought tears to some of the singers eyes.

After an hour and a half of singing, dancing, sharing stories and information, the group made their way out of the neighbourhood house, past walls with posters and banners for Immigrant and refugee health services, Citizen Preparation Workshops, Job shops for immigrants, and an English Corner to practice speaking the language. Outside, the aroma from an Ethiopian restaurant mingled with the smell of Kentucky fried chicken. A Bangladeshi-run meat shop (directly opposite the Sri Lankan-run grocery store) advertised halal meat and Bengali cuisine. “(After) all that singing I need a second dinner,” said a grey haired soprano as she walked to her car.  The choir split into smaller groups, and samosa seekers and Subway supporters spread out into the multicultural experience of East Van.

Yaletown has miniature dogs and boutique shopping.

Kitsilano has maternity stores and yoga studios.

East Vancouver has an 18-metre tall gang sign lit up in white neon.

It’s not your average district.

Installed in January 2010 in anticipation of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver artist Ken Lum’s Monument for East Vancouver is an irreverent homage to the colourful roots of its host.

The brash and imposing neon crucifix is a former local gang symbol that takes its shape by intercrossing the letters ‘V-A-N’ with ‘E-A-S-T’. Like a soldier posted to sentry duty, it stands atop one of East Vancouver’s tallest hills, staring down residents and would-be visitors who reside in the trendier, more upscale sister districts to the west.

“It (makes) me smile,” said local restaurateur Flavio Testani. “We’ve got this thing here that screams… ‘don’t mess with East Van.’”

The message just might be appropriate, given the community’s notorious history. “I remember it being a seriously hard neighbourhood,” said resident Geoff Bowers. “It was a full-on zoo.”

The district’s ill-gotten reputation seemed to speak for itself. “There was no such thing as Vancouver east of Main Street. You never went east of (there) because you’d either get beaten up or whatever,” said Guy Babineau, who grew up in Vancouver’s Westside, but now resides near Commercial Drive.

So does Lum’s nod to East Van’s grittier side reflect the current state of the neighbourhood, or is East Vancouver shifting away from its infamous roots?

“I think it’s a good place to live,” said Rob King, rolling a cigarette outside his home north of Hastings. “It’s not like it used to be.”

“The neighbourhood’s come up so much,” said Bowers.

Joanne Whiteman, who has lived in the community for the past six years, is not so certain all that much has changed. It’s “not very safe,” she said. “It makes me watch my back every time I’m walking down the street.”

It’s a reminder that although East Vancouver is in transition, it may yet possess a touch of the same hardened spirit that inspired Lum’s installation.

Monument for East Vancouver, located at the corner of Clark Drive and East Sixth Avenue, can be safely viewed from kilometres away. For those who want to risk a closer look, be forewarned – you’ll be treading on East Van turf.

The hiss of discharged air from beneath the tour bus punctuated the low hum of traffic as vehicles traversed the dull grey Granville Street Bridge high above. Tourists stepped onto the brick and rail-lined street and gazed up at the Ocean Construction Limited concrete factory.  A tall glass case outside the factory, surrounded on three sides by an elbow-high blue fence, drew pointed fingers and aimed cameras in spite of the reds and yellow of the nearby studios, restaurants and market.

A network of wires inside the case shuttled a red ping pong sized ball through a system of grooves, pullies, levers, drops and chutes. Onlookers craned their necks while pointing and pressing their hands against the thick glass as they followed the ball’s spiraling downward path into a miniature mixing truck. A chorus of muddled accents and dialects worked to grasp the exhibit’s metaphor: the mixing of cement, gravel and water to form concrete.

With its six silos blocking out the towers on the south side of False Creek, the concrete factory’s collection of uniformly grey buildings broke with Granville Island’s more colourful buildings. A cris-crossing network of three conveyor belts links the silos with a tall, narrow building to the front, and a shorter structure to the right. The company’s slogan – “concrete solutions for a sustainable world” –  branded an off white tower to the east of the silos. A nearby sign tells that despite appearances, the factory was one of the Island’s oldest tenants.

Rather than immediately walk past what appears to be a functionally industrial corner of the Island, visitors were drawn to the factory and its exhibit. Stroller-bound children pointed towards the factory’s exhibit while being shuttled by parents up Old Bridge Street. Elderly tourists crossed the street and took in the factory’s tall, grey landscape. Twenty-something couples held hands and slowly circulated the exhibit’s glass case. A few feet to the west, the open and unattended security gates encouraged three adventurous tourists to sneak into the parking lot for a quick picture with one of the mixing trucks.

The latest busload of tourists doddled along from the factory towards the electronic guitars and synthesizers of nearby buskers as another tour bus pulled up in front of the factory. Within seconds, the migration towards to factory began again: another group beginning their day at Granville Island with a bit of industry and history.

‘For Rent’ signs were displayed in front of many stores, while a few stores were empty at Punjabi Market or the Little India of Vancouver along the Main Street.

What could be the reason? Madan Dhingra, a fabric shop owner, said no new people want to open a shop here anymore because of high rents while those who occupied the space in the past have moved to Surrey where a bigger South Asian population has settled.

There were not many people in the market that the shop owners said saw a boom in 80s and 90s. The market located in between 48th and 51st avenues, where many immigrants from South Asia and mainly Punjab (India) have settled, was a shopping hub in the past, Dhingra said.

Sarabjit Chandan, who owns a Sabji Mandi or a vegetable store, said business started falling some four years ago when people (traders) started moving to Surrey to cater to a bigger South Asian immigrant population there.

“This year was worst (in terms of business),” Chandan, who moved to Canada from Jammu and Kashmir state of India and who is in business at the Main Street for the last six years, said.

Though his “business is sustaining”, Chandan said high rents and lack of parking spaces have aggravated the problem for the businessmen in this little town.

The rents were high when the business was at peak. They have not been brought down even when the business started falling, Chandan said. “Nobody wants to open a shop because of high rents. That is why you see many stores empty or displaying ‘For Rent’ signs,” he said.

Unlike in Fraser Street, the Main Street stores do not have parking spaces behind them. “Parking is a big problem here. There should be parking space behind each shop,” he said.

Jeffrey Smith, whose wife has been running a coffee shop for eight years and he looks after the business at times (mostly in the evening) when she is busy, also said business has seen a fall in this area. He said the hike in HST has also aggravated the problem. “Business goes drastically down especially during the summer,” he said.

But for some traders, business is as usual. Carlos Montana, who is originally from the Philippines and running a grocery store, said he has not felt the heat.

Likewise, businessmen at the nearby Fraser Street market, which has a bigger size of businessmen from Punjab than at the Main Street, said they are doing well.

Dinesh Sharma who owns a grocery at 52^nd and Fraser said business is good there. “May be there is a fall (in business) at the Main Street. I have not felt so here.”

While apartments and townhouses are in the process of being built, homeless individuals in the area of Marpole struggle to find a place of refuge.

“Rezoning Application”, said a glaring yellow sign stood in front of the large Safeway parking lot on Granville Street. At 3pm in the afternoon on Saturday, September 11th, a homeless man in a black hoodie laid underneath this bright-coloured board. He glanced up briefly to look at others passing by or reading the sign, and then quickly went back to sleep.

The Marpole Safeway is a locus for activity. It is the only large chain grocery store in the area. Families shop here for groceries. The homeless often beg for change in front of its entrance and hang out in the parking lot.

According to the sign, there are plans for the Marpole Safeway to be re-developed. This project is being conducted by the City of Vancouver Planning Department Rezoning Centre. According to the website displayed on the sign, this project involves “redevelop[ing] the site with four major building elements which includes replacement of the Safeway grocery store on Granville Street, a 24-storey rental tower, a 14 storey market condominium tower, and a 9-storey slab building consisting of townhouses at street level and condominium units above.” This project is considered under the Short Term Incentives for Rental Program, which responds to low vacancy rates and the lack of new purpose-built rental housing.

A few months ago, the ATM machines inside the Bank of Montreal branch at Granville Street and 67th Avenue were removed and replaced by a machine outside the building. A customer service representative said that there was a problem with homeless people sleeping inside the bank in front of the machines, and customers could not get access them.

Laura Poon, Manager of Customer Service at the HSBC branch a block away, said that they do sometimes discover homeless people sleeping inside the bank in front of the ATM, especially when the weather is cold.

Rick Hofs, the homeless man on 70th and Granville said there had been trouble in the past with the Royal Bank branch in the neighbourhood, as “guys from downtown” would sleep in there. An employee inside this branch, Stephanie Merinuk, said this problem happened a few years ago, and they no longer had this problem.

Hofs said he usually sleeps behind the stores on Granville Street in his blue sleeping bag.

A film panel presentation focussing on the plight of marginalized Latin American communities shed light yesterday on urban development issues, while simultaneously casting doubt on the effectiveness of footage in helping resolve them.

The omniscient voice of a Canadian narrator rippled intermittently from in-ceiling speakers. Beneath them sat roughly 100 local audience members sporting thick-rimmed glasses, silk-embossed scarves and Gucci handbags. They watched as a 66-year-old Brazilian fruit vendor pushed his cart across the screen, silently churning up dust in his wake.

“Having a camera just creates a different fabric, a different way of engaging,” said Jonathan Frantz, participatory filmmaker and adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. “Through video we’re trying to frame some of that and share it to instigate social change.”

Participatory Filmmaking: Activism or Art comprised just one slice of the eighth annual Vancouver Latin American Film Festival. Its workshops, seminars and 59 short films and features draw on the varied experiences of people from over a dozen countries well south of the 49th parallel.

On this cool Wednesday evening inside the performance hall of Yaletown’s Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre, an impoverished hillside community was clinging to the patchwork outskirts of São Paulo.

Unregistered bairro residents, depicted on a retractable projector screen, sought decent roads and electricity, clean water and government recognition. Documentary footage told “their story through their own voice, in their own words,” Frantz said.

In between video clips, four 20- and 30-somethings including Frantz pontificated over the hardships of deprived communities in Brazil, Cuba and El Salvador, as well as the purpose of capturing their situation on film.

“It’s about hearing those whose voices might not usually be heard,” said Sarah Shamash, a UBC Film Production graduate. “You know, because perception is dynamic depending on our position in time and space.”

Sitting in red-cushioned chairs, the other panellists nodded their heads as Frantz said that “if collaborative films are going to be used as a political tool, like ours, they have to be done artistically.”

In response one grey-haired audience member asked what concrete effect their artistic work had on the communities portrayed. “It’s hard for me to track the impact of these videos,” said Frantz. “Very little tangibly, I guess.”

“I’ll show a documentary to politicians, planners or engineers,” he said. “But the funders like the government have to be aware that they may end up with a piece that is more artistic in nature. They have to appreciate that we might just be spreading awareness.”

An extended applause followed the panel presentation. Further discussion surrounding post-production contact with the communities, donation options or government aid was overshadowed by other topics.

“My participatory filming doesn’t seem to fit the mould of information presentation,” said Frantz. “And you just sort of lose touch with how the video ends up working.”

More information on VLAFF, which runs September 2-12, is available at vlaff.org.

Looking for something interesting to do on the corner of Fraser and Kingsway, it is easy to gravitate towards the dainty French bistro, Les Faux Bourgeois. But the sound of boisterous laughter and beer bottles chiming across the street was more intriguing, even though it appeared as just another thank-goodness-it’s-Friday student party.  Having asked a cheerful stander-by smoking, it turns out the event was a record release of a local musician, and the unlabelled beer they were sipping was home brewed and cost 3 bucks.

The pencilled-in text on the door of 648 Kingsway speaks for itself of the penny pinching nature of the place, which reads, “Toast: Fine Arts and Portrait Studio.”  The space was decorated with mounted film photographs and withering red velvet couches nestled in the corners.  About a dozen of 20-somethings sprawled across the room.  One of them, Charlie Latimer, is the founder of the Toast Collective, a non-profit arts collective who runs DIY (do it yourself) workshops and provides space to local emerging artists.

Latimer, a tenant who lives above the space, said the initiative was borne out of a weariness from the place constantly changing to different businesses.  “First, it was a vintage boutique, then a dollar store, then at some point it was a church,” he recalled.  A UBC student in Global Resource Systems, Latimer is an art enthusiast who had several artist friends who were willing to pool their money together and indeed, “make something good of the space.”

The capacity building is obviously working, as the photograph installation of the night was for The Dark Room Co-op, just beside Toast, on 652 Kingsway.  The collaborative exhibit, entitled Agent Silver, was officially launched Saturday.   The work of 12 film photographers who are themselves members of the co-op were featured.  The live musicians had to pay a small fee, but founder Tamara Lee did not collect any commissions from the profits made from sales of the photographs, a rare agreement for an art studio.

Seeing the contrast between Friday’s casual CD launch with homemade beer and Saturday’s photo exhibition with white wine goes to show how two spaces can be transformed and linking with your neighbour proves a more effective business strategy than competing with each other.  Membership for the Toast is $25 annually and as low as $48 per month for the Dark Room Co-op , rates that rival their industries’ exuberant prices.  But the two collectives manage to make rent every month.   If only other businesses would apply the same self-sustaining, communal strategy to combat gentrification, Vancouver might not always have the dual nature of extremely rich or filthy poor.

The West End of Vancouver is an area of tremendous contrast. It is an area where within minutes one is able to walk directly from an elderly populated diner to Pumpjack Pub, a gay bar only three blocks away.

Yet while initially these unusual images evoke the thought of “contrast,” if one walked through the Davie Village the contrast of the situation quickly fades, and the terms “convergence” and “acceptance” possess more significance.

At closer observation, an elderly gay couple strut contentedly holding hands smiling at a young straight gay couple waiting at the bus stop.

In the heart of the Davie Village, sitting on a bench while acknowledging everyone that walked by sat a 75-year-old man, Gary Resdin. Resdin has lived and retired in Vancouver’s West End with his boyfriend of many years.

“Everyone blends in here: the transgendered, the young and even the homeless,” said Resdin.

When asked about the relationship between the gay and elderly communities he said, “there is a nice flow here. It really does feel safe and civil.”

Elderly gay and lesbian communities such as Gary Resdin have been a demographic group that have been virtually ignored. Programs and events for the gay and lesbian community are fairly common in today’s modern environment but are not often targeted at senior citizens.

Fortunately, Qmunity, the West End’s LGTB Resource Centre, seeks to support older gays and lesbians through a variety of intergenerational activities, illuminating the sexual liberation of the area itself.

Out of an immense schedule outlining a series of activities and workshops held by Qmunity was a weekly knitting club, or as they more enjoyably like to refer to themselves as “The Knotty Knitters.”

The Knotty Knitters are a Sunday knitting club with an overarching goal to advocate support and acceptance for the elderly gay community and generate generational assimilation. As everyone passed around varying colors of yarn while complementing the oatmeal cookies in which one woman had brought in, the atmosphere remained pleasant.

Ranging from the elderly gay man from Nova Scotia to a first-time young Asian knitter, the conversation then flooded with interesting personal anecdotes lasting until the late afternoon.

While the generationally diverse group of knitters sat peacefully knitting and teaching others, the ambience and outlook of the West End’s population became clear: it is not about how old you are, but how you experience your age.

Team Leader and mom Helen Spaxman had the best view of the action Saturday as over 200 volunteers gathered to build a new playground at Britannia Elementary Community School. Her station overlooked a sea of volunteers in red, and U2’s Beautiful Day blasted from speakers out over the crowd.

On top of a mountain of mulch, a small girl whose T-shirt fell to her ankles used a rake twice her size to move the wood chips at her feet onto a tarp so they could be hauled to the playground site. A blond boy handed screws, one by one, to a man who drilled them into the wood planks of an outdoor stage as two smaller children hovered over the action. The brightly painted play structure reflected the colours of the day: red shirts, yellow sun, blue sky.

Spaxman wore a red sequin visor and a purple jersey as she prepared wooden cut-outs of flowers, bees, butterflies and leaves to be painted by the children. The art was to be mounted on a fence overlooking the playground. The mural will tie into a larger conversation about the importance of bees and pollination. This lesson could be taught in the school’s new outdoor classroom, complete with blackboard, also erected yesterday. Students might also get the chance to care for a colony of live, kid-friendly mason bees in outdoor bee boxes.

In the planning stage, students were invited to draw their perfect playground. Many of their drawings included tire swings, so a tire swing was added to the design. As Spaxman explained, “we are literally building the playground of the students’ dreams.”

The view at Britannia Elementary has not always been so bright. Because of the proportion of students coming from poor families, the school has “inner city” designation. 60% of the students at the school are aboriginal. Parent Advisory Council  Chair Roxanne Gray, who is part aboriginal, said, “some aboriginal parents don’t even want to come in the building.”

But Gray is hopeful. She sees herself as a bridge between aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities at the school. For her, the new playground represents a turning point towards a brighter future. Gray’s eyes lit up as she spoke. “Come back and talk to me at the end of the school year. You are going to see big changes. You are going to see more parent participation, and happy, healthy, enthusiastic children. I’m really positive about this. I’m going to do everything I can to make it happen.”