Instagram Hunt

Chris Wong has photographed celebrity staircases such as the Tulip Stairs of the Queen’s House in Greenwich to humbler subjects such as the turquoise curves of Royal City Centre in New Westminster. Staircases are Wong’s thing. Fibonaccian spirals, half landings, double winders — he loves them all.

Sometimes he shoots them from the bottom up; sometimes he shoots them from the top down. If they’re from the top down, “you can’t take the elevator,” he said. “I always walk to the top.”

Wong, in his early-50s, is @wongski on Instagram, where you can find his staircase photographs along with shots of his other urban interests. He’s got 41,100 followers and counting, but is humble about his work. Wong is also a moderator of @stairwalkers, an Instagram account that curates photos of staircases from around the world, and as the account’s name suggests, staircases must have someone walking them.

Those unfamiliar with Instagram, which now boasts 700 million users, might be surprised by the niche obsession. But staircases are only one of many specific urban moments documented and categorized in a Darwinian manner by Instagrammers around the world. There’s #puddlegram and #puddleporn, for street and cityscapes doubled in a puddle. There’s #strideby and #peoplewalkingpastwalls, for individuals in profile strolling past an interesting background. There’s #soloparking and #asundaycarpic, for vintage cars, bonus points for shots with nostalgic architecture behind.

“That’s the beauty of it,” said Wong. “Anything that you’re into, any style or situation, you can find it. And you can try it yourself.”

Capturing and sharing these quiet moments might seem like a solo activity, but Wong will tell you it’s anything but. Instagram has launched him into the global community of urban scavenger hunts for the perfect shot.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

The Salon in the Sky

Longtime Richmondites like Ed and Betty Hoyland are often at Julie Ghassemian’s salon, talking everything from politics to gas prices to the old days of a flatter Richmond.

“We used to call it Ditchmond,” said Ed, a retired engineer, who came to Richmond from England in 1973 with his wife.

Ghassemian, who came from Montreal in 1988, also remembers days with more ditches.

“My son used to grab frogs from them and put them in his pocket!” she said.

You might imagine these conversations, always over tea, taking place in a salon on some neighbourly high street. But G G Hair Salon is very, very hidden.

Ghassemian used to work in salons at busy Richmond locations – Woodward’s, Richmond Centre, Broadmoor Village on No. 3 Road, a medical building across from Richmond Hospital – but her current salon of over a decade is the opposite of convenience.

“There’s no way new customers can know where I am,” said Ghassemian.

Read the full story in Metro here.

A Tale of Two Cobblers

It was late-August and Henry Ng was tidying up his store on Main Street at the edge of Punjabi Market. He was cleaning an ice green Adler sewing machine when a woman walked in with a pair of tan wedges. She would be one of the last customers of his half-century career.

“The soles are coming off,” said the woman.

Ng — who says he’s 88, but his wife tells people he’s 90 and should’ve retired a long time ago — took the wedges from her and lifted the curling soles with his fingers.

“I can fix it,” said Ng. “I need to use nails.”

“Nails?” said the woman. “Can’t you just use glue?”

“They would come off again,” said Ng.

The woman resisted for a while, but Ng reassured her.

“I’ve been doing this for 50 years,” he said with a laugh.

At that, she surrendered them. He handed her a small piece of cardboard with a piece of green tape on it as a receipt — Ng’s regular patrons know that if you lose this, good luck getting your shoes back.

Ng said goodbye to his profession, goodbye to his shop and goodbye to 12-hour, seven-day workweeks on Sept. 1. He was a unique cobbler, mending not only shoes, but everything from handbags to baseball gloves. Ng’s training as a tailor in southern China, where he’s from, gave him extra craftiness as a cobbler. Mending hockey pads and sharpening skates were specialties of Ng’s, sent his way from Cyclone Taylor Sports on Oak Street. Cynthia Taylor said her father, Fred Taylor Jr., “always used Henry because he was the best.”

The Sunset neighbourhood lost a rare, veteran tradesman with Ng’s retirement, but chance is bringing someone new to his old workshop.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

The Tale of Beer Island

You might not notice the island, even though it’s in plain sight.

But once you do, it beckons you, whether it’s your first time or your 10th. There’s a path across False Creek that leads you to it, and you can’t help but feel a thrill of discovery. The trees, shrubs, water and dead ends make you feel a sense of privacy, even with condo towers all around. It’s like being in a treetop clubhouse in Vancouver’s urban backyard.

Once when I visited, a man in a latex horse mask sprang from the shrubs to scare me. On another evening, a quartet of three guitars and a ukulele sang “Folsom Prison Blues” on the island’s rocky edge. As the sun set, a man in tweed with a tie and his sweetheart in a dress clinked wine glasses. They sat on a picnic blanket in the grass, and brought a basket with a board of charcuterie and cheese.

This is Habitat Island. It’s a small thing off Olympic Village, though more of a miniature peninsula than an island. (Then again, Granville Island isn’t an island either, nor is False Creek a creek, so let’s just call it an island for this story.)

The island has joined the ranks of other mythic Vancouver landmarks, such as Dude Chilling Park or the East Van Cross. You might know it better as Beer Island, as the island’s become a favourite secluded spot to enjoy a cold one in the urban outdoors.

Eric Ly, 29, lives near the island and likes to drink Pabst Blue Ribbon there; he calls himself a “cheap hipster” for it. Ly moved from Ottawa, home to a patio beer culture. No Beer Islands there.

“It feels like one of those last undiscovered spots tucked away in the middle of the city,” said Ly. Sometimes, he’ll even visit for a “super, ultra-rare date with a lady friend.”

The island feels organic, from how it looks to how its fame spread by word of mouth and Internet circles. But the island is a new addition to the water, only eight years old. It’s also human-made, which raises the question, how do you make a new island that feels organic and welcoming?

“We just put the bones in. Really strong bones,” said one of its creators. The rest is up to the public.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

How the West End Was Won

Lydia Cotic-Ehn’s urban life started when she was born in the family condo. She was the youngest of three siblings, and their family of five shared a unit with two bedrooms and a den.

Growing up, there was a time when she wanted a backyard.

“My parents would tell me, ‘But you do have a backyard. You have Stanley Park, you have the beach, and you have downtown.’”

Cotic-Ehn grew up in the West End, one of Vancouver’s densest neighbourhoods. The West End is 1.7 per cent of the city’s land, but about seven per cent of the city lives here. It’s an iconic part of Vancouver, with its highrises on the downtown peninsula.

However, are downtowns good places to raise kids? There are still some planners and politicians who will say no, citing dangers, such as traffic, and challenges, such as space, which Cotic-Ehn sometimes felt having to share a bunk bed with her sister.

Some believe that cities’ urban cores are for singles, seniors, and even young couples, but not families.

Today, Cotic-Ehn is 18 and would disagree with anyone who thinks that an urban childhood is lesser than growing up somewhere more suburban. She knew her neighbours just the same (even helped babysit in her building), trick-or-treated just the same (apartment lobbies welcomed kids with open doors) and biked around the neighbourhood just the same (rides along the beach and the seawall).

It’s so convenient in the West End that not only is a car unnecessary to get around, but Cotic-Ehn rarely takes transit.

“I walk everywhere,” she says. Friends, shops, restaurants and school are minutes on foot.

Even the challenges, like bunking with her sister, have upsides. Cotic-Ehn says it brought them closer.

But before you use these anecdotes as examples of urban living to advocate for more density or sell condos in Vancouver, you need to realize community doesn’t simply happen when you pack more people together.

There’s a lot that’s special about the West End that makes it work, from its diversity to the fabric of its streets, and you can see and feel it immediately when you go for a walk in the neighbourhood.

As development continues in the city, there’s a lot that can be learned from the West End on how to build for people.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

Corner Restored

When Karen Hamill’s daughter learned to walk, the mom-and-pop shops of MacKenzie and West 33rd were her first destination.

“You come here to meet people,” said Hamill, who lives 15 minutes away. “[Eventually], everyone knows your name. They speak with my children, they ask for life updates… You don’t get that from chain stores.”

There’s Christos Kaskamanidis, the 79-year-old neighbourhood barber who gives haircuts and plays you the accordion.

There’s Earl Morris, the neighbourhood baker, who set up here with his sister after they ran Kerrisdale’s beloved Red Onion restaurant for 26 years.

There’s Jessica Clark, the neighbourhood florist, who always knows what you’d like. Maybe it helps that her middle name is Blossom.

And there’s India Daykin, 23, the newest on the block, who runs a beauty store on the corner. She’s very excited to be here.

There’s something unusual about this hub. There aren’t many places like it in Vancouver for one reason: in every direction are houses, houses, houses.

It’s hard to find commercial spaces in residential neighbourhoods because city planners for decades have tried to keep them out. The dozen businesses here at MacKenzie Heights were zoned in before planners decided it was inappropriate to have them near homes.

And yet today, the new businesses that have taken over grandfathered commercial space in residential neighbourhoods are gaining popularity. They bring convenience, but also community.

In early March, the mayor gave a speech about bringing “gentle density” to single-family home neighbourhoods. But when that happens, what about the amenities?

A glimpse of a vibrant future for Vancouver’s neighbourhoods can be seen in residential communities like MacKenzie Heights, thanks to the mom-and-pops from the past that are making a comeback.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

Kingsgate Mall

Kingsgate Mall has been called wonderful, but also weird. Charming, but also creepy. It’s been advertised as “Vancouver’s secret retail jewel,” but also, by one Yelp reviewer, “1990s depression recast as a mall.”

Kingsgate has become a Vancouver landmark over the years. Some bus drivers of the 99 B-Line even like to announce its presence to riders. Local artists and musicians have used it in their works.

If you’re new to the city, you might wonder why a humble mall — with a Buy-Low Foods, a Shoppers Drug Mart, a Payless Shoes, a barber and a florist — attained local stardom.

Perhaps it’s surprises like the Bitcoin machine or the kiosk that sells lobster products. Perhaps it’s the nostalgic retro trappings, like the Noah’s Ark you can ride for a dollar or the hand-painted mural of hill country by the washrooms.

“And I thought West Edmonton Mall was amazing,” wrote one reviewer on Facebook. “This place has defied physics and made time stand still.”

It’s not completely inaccurate. The neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant is ever changing, with rising rents and longtime businesses closing. A sleek tower, the Independent, is going up across the street. Kingsgate, built in 1974, is living testament of an older Vancouver.

Amid the change, an unofficial Twitter account popped up in 2013 to archive mall happenings and deals. Tongue-in-cheek, @kingsgatemall tweeted urgent calls to buy velour tracksuits, expiring ground beef and giant $200 ceramic Santa heads.

The account was amusing to many — with about 8,000 followers — but the young woman behind it takes gentrification in Mount Pleasant personally. Because while many insist that time stands still at Kingsgate, its days may be numbered if development has its way.

Read full story at the Vancouver Courier here.

To Manila with Love

Something important is always inside the 18-by-18-by-29-inch boxes that Liza Padrones sends to her family in the Philippines: shampoos, hand lotions, clothes and sponges.

“And any snacks that I can find on sale,” said Padrones. Sometimes she sends treats like Pringles, Oreos and jars of Nutella.

It’s a tradition she started after leaving home.

Padrones was working at an office in the Philippines until she left for Hong Kong in 2002 to see the world. She was 36. Padrones cared for three families there before coming to Canada in 2008 under the live-in caregiver program.

When Christmas came, she and other caregivers got together for a party, and she won an interesting prize: a balikbayan box.

“And that’s how it all started,” said Padrones. “From then on, I sent one every year.”

Balikbayan is a Tagalog word that means to return (balik) home (bayan). Filipinos overseas send the boxes to family and friends, filled to the brim with local items from the place they’re living, mostly everyday things. Last year, Padrones sent her mother cooking oil.

“It’s important because we take a lot of our day-to-day things for granted, but they see this stuff as gold,” said Alanna Hunter, 24, a Vancouver-native whose family sends boxes to relatives in the Philippines. Hunter’s mother likes to include school supplies.

Ten million Filipinos live outside their homeland. Jobs are scarce in the Philippines, and many send money back home to their families. But the boxes from overseas offer a different kind of joy: a taste of the lives of loved ones who have left the islands.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here. 

Fifteen Brides

It’s Oct. 15, 2016 and there’s a storm warning. The remnants of Typhoon Songda have made their way to southern B.C. But friends and family dressed in their finest braved the weather and made their way to East Vancouver to attend a mass wedding of 15 couples.

In the sanctuary of St. Mary’s Parish, Father Pierre LeBlond stands in front of 28 more brides and grooms than he’s used to. “I’ve never done this before,” he said.

Apparently, neither has the city. Fifteen couples is a record, according to Vancouver’s archdiocese. Though in the Philippines, where many of the couples are originally from, mass weddings are common. Two thousand couples got married there on Valentine’s Day in 2012.

The 15 couples at St. Mary’s have been married before in civil ceremonies and some even have children. However, they haven’t been married in a church. As Catholics, they wanted to tie the knot with God’s blessing.

“It was the only thing missing for us,” said Sherly Heck, a former caregiver who got married 18 years ago in front of her employer’s fireplace.

Today, she’s even wearing the same dress. It fits perfectly.

It’s raining outside, but no one’s bothered. Fifteen love stories are about to reach a new chapter, stories like a factory encounter in Taiwan, a bar friendship in Burnaby and an office romance in the Philippines government.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

The Joy of Choi

Michaelina Teo has grown produce for many years, from mangoes in Brunei to the Swiss chard at her Renfrew home, but last year was the first time she ever won a prize for the sexiest squash.

The prize was awarded to her by Collingwood Neighbourhood House for its harvest festival. But for the 72-year-old, who likes to be called Mee Mee, the fruits of her labour were always their own reward.

“I’m a very casual gardener,” she said, although she’s known in the neighbourhood for her green thumb.

Mee Mee waters the goodies in her backyard everyday, always wearing one of her many colourful bucket hats. Chinese celery and Chinese mustard. Green beans and green onions. Potatoes and tomatoes. Strawberries and Swiss chard (her favourite). She even has goji berries, which her young grandchildren love to pick with their little hands.

Mee Mee insists she’s not an expert. She worked as a technical drawer for Brunei Shell, nothing to do with growing things. The mangoes she once grew in Brunei were for fun. When she moved to Vancouver in 1988, she started her garden very casually: throwing seeds randomly into her backyard.

“If it grew, then it grew,” she said, with a cheerful shrug.

Mee Mee’s not the only one with a casual but hardworking attitude towards urban farming. Walk down an East Vancouver street or alley and you’ll eventually come across yards taken over by impressive amounts of produce.

Chayote squash and calabash. Cucumber and kale. Fuzzy gourds and bitter melons.

It’s a mix of eastern and western crops, and you’ll notice that many of the gardeners tending lovingly to their produce everyday are immigrant Asian seniors from a variety of backgrounds. A common East Van scene, one you seldom see on the West Side, with many seniors working hard because...

Well, just because.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

The Dictator, the Doughnut King, and a Shop Called Duffin's

When you walk into Duffin’s Donuts for a box of half-a-dozen treats or post-party fast food, you might wonder: why does this 24/7 joint sell everything?

There’s your usual assortment of sugar-glazed, creams and jellies, but then you notice the Mexican tortas and tamales. And Salvadoran pupusas. And southern fried chicken. And Vietnamese banh mi submarine sandwiches. And your typical diner burgers and breakfasts. They even sold American Chinese food for many years.

“I can’t really describe this place,” wrote one food blogger. A “drunken person’s paradise,” wrote another. Also, a “curiosity.” Scout Magazine called it “an anchor of East Van” as much as Clark Drive’s iconic cross.

Could the mosaic of a menu simply be that the owners for many years, Tony Chhuon and Paula Sim, had varied tastes?

The answer is one you might not expect from this 1980s-vibe mainstay at Knight and 41st. The story is part history, part fairytale. It spans an ocean and involves a murderous dictator and the rise of California’s doughnut king.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

Model Citizens

Once, Sharon Xie built a house with her hands. It was a Georgian style house on the University of B.C. campus with more than 10,000 square feet of floor space.

She assembled every window frame and laid every shingle. She cut every strip of wood by hand. After two weeks working 14 hours a day, the model house was complete.

“The client was so happy,” said Xie. “I asked him, when you finish building the house, can I buy it back? And he said, ‘No Sharon, I want to put it in my living room. This is a piece of art.’”

Xie runs AB Scale Model in Mount Pleasant with her husband, Ming Yang. Both love the magic of making small, intricate works. Xie grew up doing calligraphy, and Yang grew up making tiny furniture.

They started the business in 1990, not long after Expo 86, the time many consider the moment when Vancouver stepped onto the world stage.

Xie can name all the big developments they modeled since then: the hub at Marine Gateway, the mid-rises on the Cambie Corridor, the Olympic Village, the towers of Mount Pleasant and the entire community popping up at Southeast Marine Drive’s River District.

It’s no surprise that the business of city building in Vancouver is booming. While the key decision makers might be the urban planners, developers, architects and active citizens, the model company offers a small, tangible glimpse at the big dreams that will soon dot Vancouver’s skyline.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

Church and Real Estate

For Valerie Weinert, life happened at church.

She remembers learning about God in the gym during Sunday school. She remembers saying her wedding vows at the front of the stained-glassed sanctuary. She remembers longtime friends who have passed away.

Weinert was born in 1948. She attended Oakridge United Church growing up, six blocks east from her family’s duplex on Cambie and 46th. But development is coming to the site, and the church building of nearly seven decades will be demolished.

“It’s like any family home,” said Weinert. “You lose a family home and you remember all the good times you’ve had. Even when you’ve got all the memories, it’s still a sad thing.”

Full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

A Binner’s Life

There’s a sticky smell of old pop near the recycling depot on Industrial Avenue. Towers of crushed cans wait at the loading bay. Gulls circle above.

A metallic rattling announces Carol Strickland. She walked the five minutes here from Main Street with a shopping cart. It’s filled with cans. Two rubber tubs balance on top, holding wine bottles. Around the cart hang eight garbage bags with more cans inside, along with a large Adidas duffel bag.

For 52-year-old Strickland, bottles and cans are a way to make some money in addition to welfare. She’s been at it for more than six years. Her biggest haul was $280 during the 2010 Olympics, but on average, she makes about $45 a trip.

“It’s better than sitting on your butt panhandling,” said Strickland.

Read full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

A Tale of Two Indias

At Himalaya Restaurant in Vancouver’s Punjabi Market, the smell of hot curry and spices rises from the long buffet table.

Rivalling it in length is the impressive sweet case, covered with colourful treats such as gulab jamun (deep fried orbs of dried milk dipped in honey), jalebi (chewy, pretzel-shaped, bright orange from saffron) and berfe (snowy bars of dense milk topped with nuts).

If you’re planning an Indian wedding today, there are a number of places across Greater Vancouver you could find the traditional sweets for your guests. After all, the strip of Main Street called Punjabi Market or Little India isn’t the only Little India around. A neighbourhood in Surrey has also earned that name among locals.

But the treats were hard to come by 40 years ago, and for restaurateur Kewal Pabla, his sweets had a special role to play for his business, his family and the local South Asian community.

Read full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

A Century on the Corner

For the Benedettis, the family Strathcona corner store is where life happened.

Italian-born Alfonso Benedetti opened Benny’s Market in 1917. About two years later, he met his wife here, who lived across the street and would come over to buy candy. While her teachers didn’t approve due to the large age gap, her mother told her, “You marry Alfonso. He’s got a grocery store. You’ll never go hungry.”

Alfonso’s son Ramon Sr., 87 today, grew up sleeping in a bedroom where the deli is now.

Years later, Ramon Sr. goes into cardiac arrest at Benny’s Market. The firefighters next door are over instantly and Ramon Sr. says he owes his life to them. They know the man well and gave extra care — they’ve eaten many a Benny burger, the classic with cheese and mortadella.

Benny’s sold Italian goods in the early days — pasta, flour and the like — along with treats such as ice cream, soda, chocolate and tobacco. Ramon Sr. started importing and distributing European dry goods in the ’50s, a tradition that continues today with the family’s wholesale business run by son Ramon Jr. and his wife.

Today, Benny's is still very much a family affair.

Read full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

The Iron Safe, Sun Yat-sen and a History Shared

Almost every day at noon, Wu Xia Ru arrives by bus to open the headquarters and clubhouse of the Ing Suey Sun Tong Association at the corner of Hastings and Dunlevy. He is the association’s secretary, but he shakes off the title, performing all odd jobs that come up during the day.

Members trickle in to chat, read the newspaper, play mahjong or fix a cup of coffee.

A Chinese florist occupies the street level with barred windows. An outer wall seals off the clubhouse yard and main entrance. Barbed wire sits on top of a shorter wall. Just in case of the Downtown Eastside’s unpredictability.

Wu, 83, left Guangzhou, China 20 years ago and connected with the association because, very simply, everybody with the last name shared by the club knew about it. Association branches existed in many major cities. The Ing surname has been anglicized with variants like Ang, Eng, Ng, Ong and Wu. For a hundred years through discrimination and immigration, the association helped members of the Ing clan adjust to their new lives in Canada.

It wasn’t long before Wu noticed the safe.

It was made of iron, 18 by 18 by 23 inches, with the fading name of the association printed in English. It sat conspicuously in the corner of the main floor’s hallway.

“Every single person said there was nothing inside,” Wu told the Courier in Cantonese.

Wu asked if there was money in the safe but members scoffed at him. They told him old Chinese immigrants always kept their money in banks.

Wu kept asking and was given a new answer.

“They told me garbage was inside,” said Wu. “Useless stuff from old times. People they named who would know about it were all dead and presidents change very fast. I knew there had to be a key somewhere.”

The safe’s contents were a mystery lost in the turnover of members and positions. And it taunted Wu from its corner over the years. He did not think the contents were garbage simply because they were old. Wu is passionate about immigrant history and collects artifacts as a hobby. Some he finds in Chinatown. Other sources he keeps to himself.

“If I see it and can afford it, I always buy it,” said Wu. He is upset when old furniture from the clubhouse is thrown away.

In 2007, he told a Chinatown locksmith about the safe. The locksmith quoted a price of $240 and required the safe to be brought down to his shop. Wu declined.

Five years later, in June 2012, Wu unlocked the clubhouse at noon as usual. Members slowly appeared and Wu ranted about the safe.

Then a member spoke up: Wu Yue Zhong, 82, a retired farmer from Taishan, China. He came to Vancouver in 1989 and visits the clubhouse to indulge in mahjong.

Yue Zhong offered to open the safe. “Paying the locksmith over a hundred dollars?” he told the Courier in Cantonese. “Forget it.”

Wu telephoned the association’s president immediately. The president left the decision to Wu because many trusted him. His faithful volunteer service did not go unnoticed; Wu was often mistaken for the president himself.

With the approval, Yue Zhong went to work on the safe.

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.

The Mayor of West 18th

When new neighbours moved into the 3800-block of West 18th, William “Bill” Davies was always the first person they met.

He remembered everyone’s names. He mowed lawns for people who worked or who were retired. He went on walks with pockets stuffed with dog treats. He had keys to everyone’s houses, either to tend to their homes during vacations or if someone forgot their own keys.

And though Davies passed away July 25 at 81, his legacy of being a good neighbour lives on.

Bill and his wife Shirley moved into Dunbar in 1957 on the day of their second wedding anniversary.

“We were the youngsters and our neighbourhood was filled with old people,” said Shirley.

Caring for neighbours was a year-round affair for the family, recalled daughter Debbie DeWolff.

“My brother and I were always expected to look after the old people on the block,” said DeWolff. “So when it snowed, we were expected to shovel their sidewalks and in the fall we were expected to rake the leaves. In the spring, we were expected to bring fresh cookies down and have tea with the elderly people... It was just something we grew up to believe that you did anyway, and as the years went on, my mom and dad were kind of a source of neighbourhood activity.”

The Davies house is fittingly at the centre of the block, the hub of anticipated block parties visited even by police, firefighters with their trucks, former neighbours and the curious of the 3900-block.

“That’s where the cookies were,” said DeWolff. “That’s where the swing set was, by the little swimming pool. It was a place to kick the can.”

Read the full story in the Vancouver Courier here.