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| Wreck Beach on Thursday night |
Tuesday was ‘Imagine Day’ starting at 8.30am…I’m in a
‘squad’ (it felt hilarious running around saying ‘where’s my squad’) which is
called Dunbar Street for some reason. About half the people were British, which
is a fairly solid representation of our presence here on exchange. Lads abound, and rest assured they’re protecting the
reputation of the English abroad.
After some awkward get-to-know-you activities (I went red and chose
‘bookworm’ as the adjective to describe myself before I remembered that’s not
an adjective) our squad leader gave us a campus tour. He walked at the back
of the group most of the time so we didn’t really know where we were going, and
didn’t take us to very many places. In the library we were standing around for
about 15 minutes without anything going on, and nobody knew why were hovering
like eejits. Several times he admitted he wasn’t sure what he was talking about
and asked us if we knew the answers.
Then we had to sit through talks which lasted about 3 hours informing us of things we could easily find out online. It was really
good that they had a decent section on mental wellbeing though. Then there was
free lunch which wasn’t too shabby, then back in for more coma-inducing talks.
Afterwards Ellen and I checked out the
club fair. I signed up for many things as per (we’ll see which ones I
actually stick with.) The women’s club looks good – they have a safe space in
the AMS Nest (Alma Mater Society – like a Student Union building) where you can
go for tea and a chat, but they also organise things like self-defense classes
and protests. It was ironic that they were two desks down from the pro-lifers
with their plastic models of foetuses in wombs.
The Democrats were also there collecting signatures against
Bill C-51, which is an ‘anti-terror’ bill recently passed which infringes
massively on individual freedoms. There’s a significant body of resistance to
Harper’s right-wing government, which makes me happy. I’m hoping to get more
involved in and aware of Canadian politics whilst here.
I also want to join the Agape club who go downtown and
provide company and food etc. for homeless people. Downtown Eastside has been dubbed
‘Canada’s poorest postal code’, with huge levels of homelessness, drug abuse,
and horribly high levels of missing and murdered Aboriginal women. So, they
need all the practical, material help that can be offered.
On the other hand I’m going to join the tea society!
Lessons started on Tuesday with Spanish 101 at 9am. I
remembered how much I dislike learning languages in a classroom and felt a bit
deflated afterwards. It’s all good though because I’ve decided to take Gender and
Indigeneity in Canada instead – may as well take interesting topics which are
unique to this place.
My next class was Indigenous Literature and I love it. It’s
hard-going but our professor is fantastic. I didn’t realise UBC – and all of Vancouver – is built on unceded Musqueam territory. The huge
international airport where you’re greeted by a totem pole was plonked right
next to the reserve, which is a ridiculously small area of land. UBC campus
used to be a huge dense forest, and many of the beaches here used to provide a
large part of the diet – shellfish – for the Musqueam people before they were
cleared and topped with sand to make them picturesque. The trampling of
Indigenous peoples’ rights is ongoing here and the more I learn the more
my skin crawls. The Indian Act still exists – an Act on which South African
Apartheid was partly modelled. As my teacher said, ‘postcolonialism is not what
we are studying here, because this is still very much a colonial society.’ I
can tell that my classes are going to be hard-hitting, but I really feel that it’s
worth going through the anger so I can learn more about the experiences of
people who do not have my social privilege.
After this was my Modernism class. Our professor is great –
very enthusiastic. He’s an energetic skinny guy of about 60 who always wears
very neat double-breasted suits and writes on the blackboard in a way I can
only describe as Mr. Bean-ish. He told us he has hypergraphia to such an extent
that he’s known by the Vancouver Police Department, after writing at a traffic
light for so long that a tonne of traffic was backed up behind him after the
light went green. He encourages us all to write as much and as often as we can,
and to not even worry about how good a first draft is – the skill is in the
editing, he says. I think that Modernism is also going to be challenging, but
not in an emotionally raw way like my other modules – it’s a fourth year
literature class so there’ll be lots of high-powered analysis going on, which
I’m rather happy to get my teeth stuck into.
My last class on a Wednesday is Intersectional Approaches to
Thinking Gender. It’s a three hour class which runs until 9pm which is tricky.
I’m excited about it though – our teacher said she wants us to get involved not
only through academia but through activism, because academia alone does little
to change immediate material circumstances. She encouraged us to follow the
news and said we’re at a very interesting, crucial time in history, a time at
which the world could move in any of a multitude of directions. She’s going to
keep us posted on active ways to live our politics.
That night I felt the need to blow off steam and luckily
there were plans to head to the pub. There’s an Irish pub on campus which is
really nice. It’s got a bit of a cosy feel and all the English is subtitled in
Irish. It’s strange getting table service for ordering drinks though, I think I
prefer lounging at the bar as it’s more sociable – though you can obviously do
that too. They also serve a schooner here which is smaller than a pint (although
I think pint glasses are still available).
Lo and behold we met a load more English people. I irritated
someone when I told them I had no interest in going to a party dressed as a Mexican.
Thursday night we went to Wreck Beach, which is just off
campus. We arrived just as the sun had gone down, and all around the bay were
mountains which were silhouetted against this fierce orange afterglow thrown
upwards by the sun. It was stunning. We climbed the billion steps back up
through the forest onto campus, to be greeted by a police officer asking if
we’d seen anyone passed out. We said no, he asked more people, and then more
police cars and a couple of fire engines pulled up.
We went across the road and ogled for a little bit. A guy in
a fedora who seemed to be on shrooms was standing near us with his partner and
kid. He filmed the fire engines and was like ‘Here I am with a group of the
finest women in Vancouver’ then turned to us and said ‘All that beauty, what ya
gonna do?’ After this he handed me a business card and said ‘You ever need a
rug, give me a call’ (the card advertised a public relations business). He
stood in front of us and said ‘give me your colours, I need your room colours,
I’m thinking teal and blue…’ Then the three of them went off in a taxi. I
was told later this is standard behaviour in Vancouver.
In the meantime the firefighters were all congregating
around the top of the steps as people came up off the beach. Two ambulances
pulled up and as we started to think something really horrible might have
happened, the results of which we didn’t want to see, we left - and haven’t
heard anything since about what happened down there.
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| Gastown |
Friday night we explored Gastown, which is a swanky neighbourhood
not unlike Shoreditch. We got an amazing curry there (I swear the curries here
are better than in England) then went for a drink at Bambudda, which does
Chinese food and amazing cocktails. I had the Corpse Raiser #2 which was
delicious and tequila-y. After this we went along to a club which was fun but a bit
dead. It was in Downtown Eastside and we saw full-on the shocking levels of
homelessness in this city. I hope Agape starts up soon, if not I’m going to
volunteer for a local organisation instead.
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| Football friends |
Saturday we went to the homecoming football game. I had
absolutely no idea what was going on in terms of the actual game but the
hotdogs were tasty and there was a brass band and the atmosphere was fun.
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| Saturday Night Lights! |
On Sunday we went to Richmond Night Market, which is apparently
one of the largest Chinese markets in North America. It’s mainly Asian food
stalls but they had a few anomalies like a deep-fried Mars Bar van. I always find those kind of places a bit discombobulating with all the fluorescent lights and strange karaoke tunes and loud adverts booming out on loop. We stuffed
ourselves pretty well. I had some kind of Indian-Chinese fusion salmon wrap and salt & pepper calamari and we shared some delicious Japanese crispy buns on sticks. Then I bought ten pairs of socks. The madness of life.
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| Salmon thing |
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| Richmond Night Market |
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