5. Protest Space

Solidarity Rally for Hong Kong at the Vancouver Art Gallery
September 27, 2014

Needless to say, I have been more than preoccupied with the events in Hong Kong for the last two weeks. It is both inspiring and eye-opening to see the persistence, courage, and creativity of the protestors, many of whom are young students with little experience of large scale protests. If the Occupy Central movement was flailing before, the students' non-violent, umbrella-wielding response to the police's tear gas and pepper spray on September 26 single-handedly revived the movement and shaped it into what it is today. As global solidarity rallies spring up in support of Hong Kong protestors, it is no surprise that Vancouver joins in, as the city has over 80,000 residents with roots in Hong Kong. It is also no surprise that a couple of these rallies are held in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery, which seems to have become the de facto "people's square" or protest space in the city. On any give day, the art gallery is surrounded by a variety of groups each pleading for their causes. The space has also been home to larger-scale gatherings from Occupy Vancouver to the annual Cannabis Day. Every city needs it protest square. Even in Singapore, where a gathering of more than five people in a public space is considered "unlawful," the government permits the Speaker's Corner in Hong Lim Park to be used by citizens as a "venting" space. As Beijing ominously declared Occupy Central - or now more often called the Umbrella Movement - an "illegal assembly," one of the many reasons there is such passion on the street still is precisely the need to protect the very possibility of staging such protests on the streets. Should "Occupy Central" one day sound as impossible as "Occupy Tiananmen Square" then we will have lost everything. That's why: 香港， 加油！

4. The Commute

On the Millennium Line to Surrey

I have to commute to Surrey every month to attend a meeting. It takes 50 minutes on the skytrain from Downtown to Surrey Central. Funnily enough, I feel most like I am living in a big city while on this commute! As the train speeds past East Vancouver, through the suburban landscapes of Burnaby and New Westminister and, at the spectacular sight of the Pattulo Bridge, crosses the Fraser River into the city of Surrey, I am always reminded of the equally labourious  commutes I had on the subway in London or the MTR in Hong Kong. I can't say I look forward to the journey exactly but somehow I enjoy this illusion of being in the "big city" and the metropolitan memories it conjures in its wake.

3. The Garden in the Village

East Hastings @ Kamploops & Penticton

In recent years, a lot of business areas in the city have been engaging in rebranding efforts. If you happen to walk or drive across a block where the sidewalks are flanked by little colourful flags with quirky logos flying high and gleaming in the sun, you have arrived in a BIA (Business Improvement District). Some of these, like the West End or Chinatown, are old brands that are simply being updated. Others, like South Granville, are new identities bestowed on a neighbourhood so changed it really does need a new designation. Yet others, like the Punjabi Market on Main Street, is trying to fight against irrelevance as its original constituents have migrated to more suburban pastures and the promised renewal (such as the much, much delayed building of the India Gate) has not yet materialized. One of the more controversial, yet also apparently rather successful, rebranding is the "East Village," a renamed section in the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood. Inhabitants who are proud of being a Hastings Street resident scoff at the removal of the street name from the area's brand, while others smirk at the faux New York reference, as if (they say) this area is in any way like its more well-known Manhattan namesake. What for me most sums up the spirit of this area is the vast vacant lot between Kamloops and Penticton that has been turned into the "Hastings North Temporary Community Garden." It is "temporary" because the garden is made up of mobile garden beds and can be relocated instantly if the lease of the lot is not renewed or if the neighbourhood changes and no longer seems desirable for the garden. From Hastings Street you can't really see the garden as it is fenced off by a large wooden wall, decorated with flowery doodles, a hand-painted website address scrawled across, and little holes through which you can peer through, and discover an urban oasis tugged just inches away. A lot of people have said that unless you reduce the traffic on Hastings, the "East Village" would never really feel like a village where you can linger and enjoy. I feel that this not-so-secret garden really represents the potential of the "village." It's flourishing with communal spirit, lively colours, and spaces of leisure, but it's fenced off and protected from the car-controlled streets, toying with our attention and ready to intrigue ... but also to disappear overnight if needs be.

2. The Last Hurrah

Labour Day always signals the end of summer for me. First, a big, festive weekend where parties, sales, festivals occupy the downtown core's every nook and cranny. By Monday, everyone looks a bit tired and sad, resigned to leaving summer behind. The final curtain on this last hurrah falls when the Urban Reef in the pedestrian zone on Robson Square is dismantled. The award-winning sittable sculpture turns the busiest intersection in the city into a living room, inviting pedestrians to sit around and enjoy a lazy afternoon, observing the commotion around. The area was first made into a car-free zone during the winter Olympics in 2010 and later allowed to continue seasonally as an experiment. There is still a lively debate going on over whether it should be made permanently car-free. It seems to be a no brainer to me but apparently some commuters are unhappy that their cars have to be re-routed and others argue no one will use the space during rainy winter.  Meanwhile, as I watch the deconstruction crew take down the Urban Reef, I swear I feel the first chill of fall beginning to pervade the as yet sultry air.

Robson @ Hornby & Howe
Pedestrian Zone (No More)

Party's Over

Documenting After Dismantling

Goodbye, Urban Reef

1. Pas de deux

Glen Drive @ 8th Ave

The same friend who called for the removal of tossed shoes in his neighbourhood tipped me to these newly tossed shoes on a leafy street in East Van. I didn't ask him how he came across them. Is there a group of people tracking tossed shoes on wire in the city? He did once mention to me a Reddit discussion thread on the phenomenon in Vancouver. According to some, shoes are tossed to mark gang territory. I don't know if that's just an urban legend, but there's something very West Side Story about these ones. I hope they stay!

0. Street Level

New Project! Street Level will assemble 49 snapshots of/in the city’s different neighbourhoods. The project has many sources of inspiration: Douglas Coupland’s City of Glass, an idiosyncratic A to Z directory to his Vancouver; the alternative guide Vancouver: The Unknown City which documents the city's secret histories, urban legends, fun factoids, and its many nooks and crannies; 49 is an homage to my friend Chow Yiu Fai’s beautiful book 7749 where he offers 7x7=49 creative exercises just because he likes how the four numbers look on the page; the title came from a conversation I had long time ago with a friend, an American in Canada, who said he can’t think about nation and identity but was finally beginning to figure out his street after almost a decade. Mostly, the project is for me, to find out more about the city, investigate for myself friends' anecdotes and what I learnt in books or saw on the news or recognized from movies. Besides, I  live in a high rise, and seem to be perennially filled with heady thoughts and skyward visions. Coming back down to street level is a blessing, a life line, a necessity.

Z: Zany & Zen

The statue captures how I feel at the end of the project ... When I started, I thought it would take me 24 days but it ended up taking two years. Good intentions often take unexpected turns. I hope I will always remember to face such turns in precisely this posture.

Y: Yellow

X: X

I was discussing the meaning of the festival's logo with a friend the other night and we could not come up with a plausible interpretation. Only when I was searching for an X-shaped object to photograph for this entry that I came to the conclusion that two hearts entangled make for an excellent X: a kiss to remember, a cross to bear, a path with no exit, a steamy XXX encounter ...

Vancouver Queer Film Festival 2014

W: Wire

 

Somewhere in a dream I am performing a high wire act ...