Tales of Ordinary Madness

shhhhhh...

2006-12-19T15:07:00.000-08:00

Came across this rather elegant post today on words better left unspoken.

snow day!

2006-12-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

IMG_1577
Originally uploaded by Drunken Monkey Photography.

i may be grumpy when it snows in vancouver, but damn, it's beautiful...

how can you do what you do?

2006-11-26T23:54:00.000-08:00

To those who can't fathom why I do what I do, why I insist on defending those accused of heinous crimes, and continue to hold the presumption of innocence near and dear to my heart:

Yes, I'm a speed bump. But I'm a vital speed bump.

More thoughts to come after December exams.

Judge, Jury and Executioner

2006-09-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

To those who claim that I must muzzle my clients from taking the stand in their own defense, I present Rule 6 from Chapter 8 of the Law Society of BC's Professional Conduct Handbook:

Inconsistent statements or testimony

6. Mere inconsistency in a client's or witness's statements or testimony, or between two proffered defences, is insufficient to support the conclusion that the person will offer or has offered false testimony. However, the lawyer shall explore the inconsistency with the client or witness at the first available opportunity. If, based on that enquiry, the lawyer is certain that the client or witness intends to offer false testimony, then the lawyer shall comply with Rules 2 to 5. Otherwise, the lawyer is entitled to proceed, leaving it to the court or tribunal to assess the truth or otherwise of the client's or witness's statements or testimony.

The Price of Justice

2006-09-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

I conducted my first criminal trial last week.

7 Crown witnesses, 2 Defense witnesses.

A day and a half of trial, 13 months after the original incident.

Wildly conflicting Crown witness testimony, to the point where even their independent witness admitted that the accused may not have been the man who kicked the girl.

I know I'm not supposed to believe or disbelieve my client, that I'm just supposed to present the facts and try to raise a reasonable doubt on the Crown's evidence.

But I honestly believed that this guy was innocent, and that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong shirt with the wrong skin colour.

So clearly, I was more than a little pleased when my client was found not guilty, as there was a reasonable doubt that he hadn't assaulted the victim, based on the tainted eyewitness identification and his own testimony.

So why do I still feel crappy?

This man was the only one charged out of his 10 friends that night. He's lived for the past 13 months with the stigma of a criminal charge hanging over his head. He's developed a debilitating gastrointestinal disease as a result of the stress. He doesn't see his friends from that night anymore. It was like pulling teeth trying to track them down and to convince them to testify for him. He had to take time off from his two jobs to attend court multiple times. He had to tell his mother and two sisters, who'd only arrived here a month before the incident as his sponsored family after he'd lived here alone for 7 years, that he'd been charged with a criminal offence. He has to live the rest of his life knowing that he was charged with a crime that he didn't commit.

And now, we expect that the words "I find the accused not guilty" will erase all of that past misery.

Sigh. My sense of righteous indignation grows by leaps and bounds every day I spend in this job.

i'll drink to that!

2006-05-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

The SCC finally laid the spectre of social host liability to rest today.

Now why couldn't this judgment have come down before my 1st year Torts exam?!?

sweet naivete

2006-04-22T23:06:00.000-07:00

I wonder what my contracts prof would think if I turned in a blank exam on Monday?

arrr, ye matey

2006-04-18T22:04:00.000-07:00

If law school fails, I can always apply for a Letter of Marque and Reprisal and become....a privateer!

today, my head exploded.

2006-04-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

Truly. It was a mess. Right in the middle of the torts exam. My poor neighbour's exam booklet was covered with tiny flecks of gray matter while the remainder of my body ran from the room twitching from the stress of spotting the damned bunnies.

I wonder if I can sue my torts professor for intentional infliction of mental suffering?

These exams are like a frickin' marathon. After torts, I broke down in tears...from the stress, the 9 hour daily study sessions, the feeling of not-knowing-what-the-heck-I'm-doing, or perhaps just from the wild-eyed confusion at having to prepare a written opinion on a legal issue which the goddamned Supreme Court of Canada can't even figure out themselves. Stupid social host liability...

Who knew tort law could have such an effect on me?

3 exams down, 2 to go. The irony is that I felt pretty good about my first 2 exams - Legal I and Property. I might not have aced them, but at least I wrote with confidence, even if it ends up being misguided confidence. I miss the days (like last week) when exams were fun, and I could while away the 3+ hours displaying my brilliant (and slightly arrogant) knowledge of the law.

Thank the goddess my next exam is crim, my one saving grace. Nuisance and negligence - my 2 worst nightmares. But murder and manslaughter - now that I understand...

Diversion!

2006-04-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, I can't begin the exam period on a grumpy note. That's just bad karma.

Good news today - my LSLAP client's diversion request was approved! I'm really happy for him. He's the perfect candidate for diversion - young, employed full-time with a decent income, first time offender and so incredibly remorseful (and likely scared) after arrest (it was a simple possession charge) that he carted himself straight off to drug counselling. I love clients who get their lives back on track without my nagging.

I hope he does well. Hopefully, Community Corrections will recommend him to the DOJ for diversion. It was a nice case - cool client, simple charge, entertaining police report (the transcript with his dealer was like something out of Law and Order). I'm sure Alan will say that I should've taken it to trial and argued a Charter violation. But heck, I'll take a diversion anyday...

Intolerance: The Marginalized Value

2006-04-10T23:18:00.000-07:00

What on earth is wrong with people these days?

To Ruth Malhotra, I say: "That's the price you pay for living in a liberal democracy, honey. Suck it up".

It never ceases to astound me how the law can be twisted for any number of means.

Perhaps I'd have a more coherent rebuttal to Ms. Malhotra's crusade to have her right to be intolerant protected were it not for the fact that my 1st year law exams begin tomorrow. Let the games begin...with Legal Institutions. Maybe I'll be less grumpy after tearing into Chaoulli and the completely ridiculous decision that the Supreme Court of Canada reached on Quebec's private health insurance law for an hour or so.

celebration

2006-03-22T22:19:00.000-08:00

[warning: self-congratulatory moments ahead]

Today, I received two fabulous early birthday presents. First, I was one of four winners of the Pozer Awards, given to 1st year students in recognition of their outstanding contribution to LSLAP. Considering Lynn, Colin and James were the other 3 winners, I feel like I'm in pretty good company. Woot!

And *then* I was drawn 12th in the LSLAP Summer Job Draw. The job's not a shoe-in [they hire 10-15 students], but it's pretty damn close to a guarantee. I won't jinx it by saying it's for sure. But it's nice to have something on the horizon. And damn....LSLAP is my dream summer job.

Have I mentioned how much I *love* law school?!?

And hey - tomorrow's my birthday!

sadness

2006-03-09T22:24:00.000-08:00

I hope I never have to experience this.

My supervising lawyer and I shared a quiet moment today. One of my clients was charged with assault, but more to the point, he suffers from alcholism and depression.

Since the assault charge, he's been in the hospital innumerable times, most of them on life support in the ICU.

He was later charged with uttering threats during another alcohol-induced incident.

When I interviewed him and his wife, he presented as...well, as a sad, old man. No violence, just sadness.

Sigh. One day I'll figure out how to solve the world's problems...

moooooooot

2006-03-09T22:15:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, March 2, I mooted.

It was a fabulous experience, which I can only sum up in 6 words:

"I want to be a litigator."

More to come, but for now, let me revel in my law-school-geekery.

I am a Donut!

2006-02-22T21:14:00.000-08:00

You Are a Caramel Crunch Donut

You're a complex creature, and you're guilty of complicating things for fun.
You've been known to sit around pondering the meaning of life...
Or at times, pondering the meaning of your doughnut.
To frost or not to frost? To fill or not to fill? These are your eternal questions.

What Donut Are You?

Okay. I lied. One more post before settling into reality-TV-moot-oral-argument-induced hibernation. And how can you not love a "What Donut Are You?" quiz?

American Idolatry

2006-02-22T21:03:00.000-08:00

No blogging for a while. I've been consumed by the madness that is American Idol. Between that and my moot (March 2!), I'm going to be taking a break from the real world for a while.

lessons in law

2006-02-02T15:58:00.000-08:00

I was blindsided by my LSLAP client in my first ever settlement conference today.

Note to all potential claimants/plaintiffs/defendants/accused persons:

Your lawyer cannot represent you adequately if you are not completely honest with her. In fact, your lawyer will not represent you at all if you are not honest. I can't provide a full assessment of your case unless I know all the facts, and if you withhold facts from me, then I cannot fulfill my duty to you.

Meh. Looking like an idiot in front of a judge sucks.

At least I'm learning this now, instead of when I'm a 3 year call...

December

2005-12-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

December exams are an odd part of the 1st year law school experience. They don't count - unless you do better on them than on your April exams - but my OCD-like-nature won't let me relax regardless.

I have to say, though, that this is the most chill I've ever been during an exam period. Yes, I'm working my ass off to memorize the distinction between fixtures and chattels, but still, I'm oddly zen.

In any event, I've survived Perspectives, Crim and Contracts thus far. Torts tomorrow, then Property and Legal I.

Wednesday, we celebrate. Woot!

Now where did I put that magic wand?

2005-11-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

I can't wait for the day that I get to have one of these conversations with a client.

The Interpreter

2005-11-14T21:20:00.000-08:00

Survived my first court appearance today, and with a mohawk, no less. Who says you have to sell out in order to be a lawyer?

I managed to get my LSLAP client a conditional discharge, with a speak to sentence that I'd been rehearsing for days.

His mom was so happy that she hugged me outside in the hallway, and then proceeded to hug the Crown Counsel.

I love what I do. I love translating "law-speak" into plain English for my clients and their families, and then translating my clients' stories back into law-speak for the court.

It almost makes me want to follow in this public defender's footsteps.

finding my roots in food

2005-10-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

Had a "Chinese migration" moment last night over dinner at Phnom Penh, a Cambodian-Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. Though I often claim my Hong Kong Cantonese roots, my mom's Chiuchow heritage sometimes smacks me in the face - which it did while we perused the menu:

"Trieu Chau Fried Rice...that sounds tasty...Chinese sausage, eggs, onions...sounds a lot like my mom's fried rice....hey....how come I can understand that waiter? I don't speak Cambodian...or Vietnamese....wait a minute....she's speaking Cantonese....and now he's speaking...Chiuchow...I think...I wonder what would happen if I tried to order 'chiu chow chow fan'..."

Well, wonder of wonders, it worked.

Okay, so I'm a little slow at times. Despite a BA in Chinese migration and a rather recent teaching stint during which I heard Henry pontificate numerous times on Chinese migration from the Chiuchow region of Guangdong Province to Vietnam, it took me three visits to Phnom Penh to realize that I was just eating my mom's home cooking.

In any event, the deep fried spicy squid is to die for. You should all converge upon Phnom Penh for dinner tonight.

Identity 2.0

2005-09-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

It's a humbling moment when you realize even Lawrence Lessig doesn't feel like he's accomplished much.

I've mentioned before that Lawrence Lessig is one of my all-time heroes. I hope he takes to heart the following comment left on his blog:

little progress?! perhaps the view never changes while you are rolling the boulder up the mountain, but every time it rolls back down, well, it takes some of the mountain with it… Please sir, keep on rocking, keep on rolling…

In any event, this is just a sidetour to the real reason for this post: you should all watch Dick Hardt's OSCON keynote on Identity 2.0. It is HOT. And a good lesson in "using Powerpoint wisely" as well as being really damned funny and smart. And Dick Hardt is sort of cute, and he went to UBC.

tales from LSLAP

2005-09-28T17:44:00.000-07:00

I'm so impressed with Alan and Rosalyn's comments on my last few posts. Apparently, I'm not the only hyper-theoretical geek out there.

I should also mention here that Alan is the main reason I signed up for LSLAP in the first place. Oh - and he's well on his way to becoming a hotshot criminal defense lawyer, so if you're looking for representation, give him a ring...

Speaking of LSLAP, I had my first clinic last night. Things went well, although I'm still figuring out how to blog about my clinic experiences without breaching confidentiality while still maintaining some semblance of a narrative. In any event, I interviewed a client on my own (with a mishmash of Cantonese and English), opened a file for him and am meeting with the supervising lawyer on Friday to discuss next steps. I'll be back at the clinic on October 11.

I had a bit of an odd moment though when I realized that a client in the room had all the same mannerisms and quirkiness of my mother. It was, to say the least, weird.

Alan posted this advice from a public defender in his comment that I think y'all should read. Hooray for public interest law!

An Invisible Backpack (With Apologies to Peggy McIntosh)

2005-09-27T00:16:00.000-07:00

When I first went to the Learning Exchange, I carried with me a backpack of invisible assumptions and stereotypes. As I got to know the patrons, and heard their stories, my backpack grew lighter and lighter. These weren't unintelligent folks - they had university degrees, lengthy careers, and more insights on world politics than I would ever have. But for one reason or another, they'd ended up in "Vancouver's ghetto" (as one patron put it).

So how did they get there?

Perhaps for some, it was through some fault of their own - and perhaps for others, it was the result of bad advice, bad choices, or bad policies.

But 8 months hasn't given me the answer to that question. 8 years might not be enough to learn the answer.

But my backpack has gotten lighter.

And I move through the world with less assumptions about people's backgrounds - and less barriers between me and other human beings.

I've seen other people's backpacks too. Some are heavier, and some are lighter (and I wonder what experiences have caused this difference in weight for them). I've seen their backpacks manifested in bold statements on "those junkies, dealers and drunkards at Main and Hastings". I've seen their backpacks keep them from ever venturing to the DTES, mentally carving out a swath of Vancouver as a barricaded no-go zone.

I haven't figured out how to cure the ills that plague the DTES.

But if I can decrease the load of at least one person's backpack...

...well, maybe that's a start.

on chickens, eggs, colour & class

2005-09-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

A thought struck me as I sat in Perspectives today, listening to a lecture on the feminist critique of liberal assumptions of autonomy:

"Am I poor because I'm coloured, or am I coloured because I'm poor?"

Granted, this is a quasi-rhetorical question, since I'm admittedly not poor (being the daughter of capitalists will teach you that) and indeed, in some parts of the world, I'm not even coloured.

But it raises some interesting questions on the correlation between race & class (and other forms of marginalization). My usual assumption is that we're marginalized because of our status (as coloured, as female, as disabled, as poor, as queer, and so on and so on), and that it is our social characteristics that determine our standing in the world.

But what if we flipped it around? What if marginalization came first, and only as a result, produced these various social stratifications?

What came first - the identity or the marginalization?

I think I need to work on this theory a little more, but I welcome comments. Throw me some real life examples, since I think I'm being a little hyper-theoretical and not overly practical...

All Thanks to Brian Brinsmeade

2005-09-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

For the past 8 months, Rosemary and I have been spending one afternoon a week at the Learning Exchange at 121 Main Street. We started off just spending time with the drop-in patrons, and eventually gave a workshop on cross-cultural communication. For the past few months, we've redirected our energies into developing a poverty awareness workshop to be given to UBC students, which we would co-facilitate with the patrons (most of whom live in the Downtown Eastside in various housing situations).

Brian was the first patron I had the guts to talk to - and while he may disagree, I'd like to think that he's both my greatest cheerleader and greatest critiquer at the LE.

Yesterday, in between grilling me about law school and debating the existence of natural rights, Brian asked me why I was working on the poverty awareness workshop at all, given the overwhelming spate of problems troubling the DTES.

Firstly, I've had to overcome my belief that there aren't any problems on the DTES. In my blissfully-postmodernist-relativistic state, it would be too easy to assume that folks in the DTES *want* to be there. But, drug addiction sucks. Mental illness without a proper support structure sucks. Being cold, hungry, and homeless in the winter sucks, if that's not where you want to be in the first place.

That's not to say that the DTES sucks. In fact, far from it. Despite one colleague's description of the DTES as "a warzone", I still can't see it that way. It's a community - it's a collection of homes and dreams and (extra)ordinary citizens who may not have the white picket fences, but have a heck of a lot of tenacity.

Secondly, I've come to the realization that on my own, I may never end drug addiction. I may never cure mental illness. I may never come up with enough money or resources to feed, clothe and shelter all the homeless folks in the DTES.

So where does that leave me?

Perhaps the greatest strength I bring to the Learning Exchange is my connection with UBC. That is, my connection with UBC and other university-age students. I may not be able to solve all the problems in the DTES, but I can open up the minds of my fellow students so that maybe one day, they will solve the problems.

Now I just have to figure out how to convince them.

off to carnegie!

2005-09-21T19:43:00.000-07:00

I start volunteering with LSLAP next week. I've been assigned to the Carnegie Clinic, my first choice, which means that I'll be spending at least two days a week in the Downtown Eastside (Tuesday nights at the LSLAP clinic, Thursday afternoons at the Learning Exchange). I'm psyched, because I've become really attached to the folks in the DTES over the last 8 months, and feel like this is something tangible I can give back to the community, rather than just siphoning off their knowledge when I hang out at the Learning Exchange.

Yet, I'm perturbed by the number of people (at the law school or from elsewhere in my life) who've reacted to my clinic assignment with disdain, concern, or outright fear. Why is it that when I mention Main & Hastings, someone inevitably responds with a story of walking home from the clubs surrounded by "junkies and dealers and drunkards"?

What's sad is that the DTES always gets singled out for "miscreant behaviour" even though drug & alcohol ab/use seethes throughout the rest of the Lower Mainland. Just because you can't see it behind those white picket fences doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Sometimes when I walk down Hastings, I think that it has even more of a community feel than other Vancouver neighbourhoods - if only because there are people out and about on the street.

Sigh. In any event, I can't help but wonder why they call LSLAP a poverty law clinic. Why can't it just be a "law clinic"? Granted, it serves low-income folks (an individual client can't have more than a $20,000 gross annual income). But we assist clients with a wide range of problems (i.e. representing clients in criminal court or small claims court, depending on the matter; and doing limited solicitor's work). I suppose it's called poverty law because it's meant to serve poor people. But the problems that our clients present aren't necessarily those related to income (i.e. illegal search & seizure, drug possession, breach of contract, property problems) - though their problems may certainly be worsened by poverty.

Maybe I'm just quibbling over semantics.

In any event, I'm sure I'll have more insights after next Tuesday.

my mantra

2005-09-21T19:29:00.000-07:00

For all you grad school geeks out there, you'll be proud to here that I've coined my new academic mantra. Yes, Jenn has a new answer to that question we all know and love/hate - "Tell us what your research interests are".

[Usually, the question gets asked at the beginning of the term, upon arrival in your seminar. It's an odd time - filled with hyperinflated egos and made-up words and thoughts of god-these-people-are-all-so-much-smarter-than-me. Even so, I sort of like it in my usual masochistic way.]

So here are my thoughts, as I ponder how I'm going to link law school with everything else I've learned in my academic career:

How do we build intersectionality into youth advocacy programs? Having worked with the Equity Ambassadors, UMCP's Asian American Student Union, the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards Program, countless high school students and now Outlaws, I'm always struck by the struggle to incorporate an intersectional focus when fighting for social justice. Some programs are fabulous at it. Other programs need some work. But surely, we can develop an approach to ensuring the fundamental rights of all that recognizes & affirms the whole person - rather than just the components.

I haven't figured out how to get there yet. Maybe I never will. But at least I've set it down in print for now.

Hopefully, I'll pick up some useful hints over the next three years.

Law Library Lunacy

2005-09-20T21:53:00.000-07:00

I can only dream that cramming in the UBC Library will be as exciting as this story.

socrates must be spinning in his grave

2005-09-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

I volunteered a comment in my Perspectives on the Law class today. I don't think I was very articulate. In fact, I know I wasn't very articulate. I was so inarticulate to the point where even my professor was confused, and thought I was making some sweeping classist statement that business people should be able to consider their nannies as business expenses and therefore count them as tax deductions.

God, my class probably thinks I'm some raging anti-equality capitalist fascist now.

I need to stop talking in class.

I wish Symes v. Canada wasn't such a messy case. And I wish that we had free national daycare. And I wish that this article on the desires of the current Ivy League women to become stay-at-home moms had also looked at female college students who just can't afford to become stay-at-home moms.

In any event, I think this incident has inspired me to start blogging about my law school experiences on a more regular basis. Stay tuned!

peering through an alcoholic haze

2005-09-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

I realized on Friday that I was the only woman of colour in my small group.

Maybe it was the alcoholic haze that kept me from seeing it all week. Chris says I've been reeking of alcohol the last two days.

When Gerald handed me a glass of Apple Sidra yesterday (apple pop from T&T), the first thing I said was "This would taste really good with some rum in it."

God. 4 days in, and already alcohol is the first thing on my mind.

In other news, I managed to find the Outlaws (UBC's queer law student club) on the web. Going to have to be all charming-type-A-anal-retentive-ADD femme and kick their ass (and mine) into gear. ;)

Okay, off to the library to decipher Mill & Locke and the Criminal Code of Canada.

first day madness

2005-09-06T19:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I've survived my first day of law school.

There was a spider in my locker, but otherwise, I have emerged unscathed.

In other exciting news, I ran into one of my former MUGgles today (that's a first year student for all you non-UBC folk). She graduated last spring and has been working full-time in Student Services at Brock Hall for the past 4 weeks. The last time I saw her, she was a nervous-as-hell second year who was on the verge of dropping out of UBC. I'd like to think my sage advice and wisdom had something to do with her staying in school - but in any event, I'm so pleased that she stuck it out for the long haul. She seems happy for the moment, and that's the most important thing.

Gotta love that first-day-of-school excitement. :-)

praise for the press

2005-09-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

I have to say that the press has done a surprisingly good job of extracting and examining the complexities of Katrina - and how she has exposed the American Dream to be one huge, fat lie.

Perhaps that's just a result of the echo chamber quality of the Internet. But whatever its cause - this is the most coverage on the race & class disparities in the American South that I've seen in the mainstream and alternative press in a long time.

Heck, even Yahoo News posted an apology for the racial bias in the photos and captions they presented on Katrina. Even more astounding are the links they posted to other internet sites that have commented on / criticized the photo caption language.

From Transit-rider to Refugee

2005-09-02T23:30:00.000-07:00

My mom and brother spent 2 days in New Orleans a week before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. They flew back to Vancouver on Monday from Houston, just as New Orleans was sinking.

We had dinner tonight for the first time since their return. My mother - who is not the most racially tolerant person in the world - couldn't stop complaining about the "rude, black people on the buses" in New Orleans.

Yet, even my mother went silent when I mentioned off-hand that most of her fellow busriders were probably amongst those left in New Orleans post-evacuation. If my time in Los Angeles taught me anything, it's that the only the tourists and the lower classes ride public transit - and that if I were relegated to riding the bus full-time in the U.S., I sure as hell couldn't afford to leave my home with 24 hours notice.

So this article on the folks left behind in the Gulf Coast cities strikes a bit of a chord.

And so does this story, which asks why the heck reporters haven't asked each other, "Can you explain to our viewers, who by now have surely noticed, why 99 percent of the New Orleans evacuees we're seeing are African-American?"

goodbye Lingo

2005-08-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

My neighbourhood magazine store, Lingo, closed today for good.

Chris and I walked past the store in its last hour of business. As the owner taped paper to the windows, he explained that they were closing due to the lack of business.

I didn't know what to say - I felt bad for not having frequented the store more often, and Chris seemed to think it would be cruel to purchase a magazine then and there.

Jenn is sad.

I Speak English

2005-08-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

I broke out my new "I Speak English" t-shirt today for the first time. Three people commented on my shirt: a busker on Commercial Drive, the girls at M&M Meat Shop in Champlain Square, and the pesto guy at the Trout Lake Farmers' Market.

The pesto guy was particularly delighted with my shirt. When he found out that I got it in LA while teaching a history course on Chinese migration, he asked if I'd been on the CBC lately.

Turns out he'd heard Vicki and Joyce's interview on CBC Radio One!

Congrats for sounding more coherent & memorable than you thought you were. ;-)

flickr montager

2005-08-21T00:44:00.000-07:00

I am officially a geek.

Check out the cool images you can create on Flickr Montager. Just enter a search tag and up pops a mosaic based on Flickr images with that tag. Click on any of the thumbnails in the mosaic to change the "lead photo".

Go and play!

home sweet home

2005-08-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

Have arrived safely in Vancouver. Enjoyed a tasty Cambodian-Vietnamese meal with some CCHS friends at Phnom Penh in Chinatown. Vancouver foodies would approve.

Opened my apartment door tonight to a ringing phone:

"Hello? No, this isn't Swiss Chalet. Yes, you've dialed _______. Well, I'm sorry you've been waiting for 10 minutes, but this still isn't Swiss Chalet."

Who knew that my condo had started serving rotisserie chicken in my absence?

In other news, I stumbled across Mappr today while uploading more photos to Flickr. Mappr maps out photos from Flickr based on geographic location tags - so you can search for "Chinatown" and see a visual display of Chinatown-related photos pop up across North America. And then I found Geobloggers....god, my cartographically-addicted mind is boggled at the possibilities...

And finally, I discovered tonight that random strangers have been viewing, commenting on and "favoriting" my Flickr photos! I'm not sure what to make of this yet...

leaving los angeles

2005-08-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

It's my last day in LA. Decided to head home a few days early rather than couch-surf for the remainder of my stay.

There's a whole laundry list of tasks I need to do before I get on my 7pm flight:

1) Have breakfast with Henry
2) Eat empanadas with Jessica and Vicki
3) Visit the UCLA Law School
4) Go shopping at Fox Hills mall
5) Eat an In-n-Out burger

Of course, all this depends on whether I can actually finish my laundry in time!

Off I go on my final 10-hour adventure in Los Angeles...

tales of eminent domain, or why Antonin Scalia is my new best friend

2005-08-09T13:11:00.000-07:00

It's an odd day when I find myself agreeing with Justice Scalia and a whole host of libertarian property-rights activists.

But such was the case when I read about the recent Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain, which stated that local governments may force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, even if the property is not blighted and the new project's success is not guaranteed.

4 Justices dissented - O'Connor, Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas - most unlikely bedmates for I.

Yet, I have to agree with Justice Thomas's statement that eminent domain in the name of urban renewal "has historically resulted in displacement of minorities, the elderly and the poor".

Because when you think about it, whose definition of blight are we using? Is Vancouver's Chinatown blighted, and therefore a good candidate for urban renewal vis-a-vis the wholesale removal of residents and demolition of family homes? Or what about Watts or Little Tokyo or Boyle Heights or any of these other so-called "depressed communities"?

Is it really increasing the public good when the state orders the demolition of a family-owned corner store to make way for Walmart, no matter how much tax revenue Walmart might generate? (and given our discussions of Proposition 13, it's doubtful even the tax revenue would make up for the loss of community).

God, the more I learn about the law, the more depressed I get.

on celebrities and chicken

2005-08-07T03:26:00.000-07:00

After a night of clubbing in Hollywood, we ran into Brian McKnight at Roscoe's House of Chicken 'n' Waffles.

Going to bed now....will post more tomorrow about Koreatown, Venice Beach and Randy's Donuts.

on whiteness, women, and the wayward wishes of my mother

2005-08-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

Before I was born, my mother tells me she asked God for two things:

1) that her daughter's face be small (and not round like hers)

2) and that her feet be slim (and not wide like hers)

As if these conversations with some presence upstairs weren't disturbing enough for this agnostic daughter of hers, she went on to say that upon my birth, she raged with anger at this God who would deny her the most important characteristic of all.

For indeed, I emerged with a slender face and miniature feet. But horror of horrors, her daughter came into the world a hak mui - "a dark girl" - rather than the bak sik ("white") that my mother craved.

So I can relate to this recent story in the LA Times about Asian American women in Monterey Park, Irvine, Alhambra and other LA suburbs where the ideal of white skin is an easily bought commodity.

Like an Orientalist version of Fantasy Gardens

2005-08-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

From Downtown Los Angeles: A Walking Guide (City Vista Press, 1996):

"The most recognizable emblem of L.A.'s Chinatown is the gateway to the New Chinatown Central Plaza on the 900 block of N. Broadway. Its formal name is The Pailou of Maternal Virtue. The buildings in the plaza are highly ornamented in traditional pagoda styles to attract tourists.

The majority of Chinatown's other buildings are the ordinary, functional storefront structures like those found along any other commercial street in the city. But those in the Central Plaza are declaratively Oriental, with animal icons and pagoda-style tile roofs."

Oriental to who? A Hollywood set designer? George Lucas, while he's trying to envision the evil-Orientalist Trade Federation? Clearly, these folks have never been to Hong Kong, Saigon, Shanghai or any other major Asian city.

In other reflections, it was rather surreal to see a sun-drenched Chinatown with wide pedestrian-unfriendly avenues. I'm so used to Chinatowns - and downtown cores, really - being compact and "cluttered". Not cluttered in a messy sense, but cluttered in that "lived-in" look one might find in a comfortable home. LA's downtown just looks too new - as if the scorching sunshine was bleaching all and any history out of the area.

Heh. Speaking of bleaching history out of the area...wait until we get to LA's Tent City on Monday.

Tomorrow, we head to Monterey Park and San Gabriel, two of LA's eastern suburbs that are most reminiscent of Richmond. Jenn is uber-excited for the trip to 99 Ranch, the American equivalent of T&T (and perhaps not-so-coincidentally, owned by the same Taiwanese corporation).

P.S. For the non-Vancouver folk, Fantasy Gardens is this ...amusement park, I suppose, for lack of a better term. It's way out in East Richmond, formerly surrounded by farmland, but now in the middle of some seriously developed land. Fantasy Gardens was the brainchild of former BC Premier Bill Vander Zalm, who fell from office in a real estate scandal involving Fantasy Gardens, Faye Leung ("The Hat Lady") and Tan Yu (the Taiwanese billionaire who purchased Fantasy Gardens for $16 billion). Think Chinatownland, but with a Dutch twist.

the ground is shaking!

2005-08-01T22:31:00.000-07:00

It's taking me some time to get used to the ground continually shaking - not because of any random earthquake, but because of all the cars. It happened to me twice today: once on campus at lunch in the Bruin Cafe and again in the Borders after dinner. I had to doublecheck with the folks around me to ensure that 1) we weren't having an earthquake and 2) I wasn't going crazy.

Also, more evidence that LA could be bulldozed and rebuilt without any really noticing:

1) The cemetary just off Wellsworth and Westwood where Marilyn Monroe was buried has been completely torn up and razed.

2) A new public library in Westwood appeared sometime in the last month, while my prof was away in Vancouver.

3) It appears that most of the Persian restaurants in Westwood have been replaced by French restaurants (or other shops), despite Persian Jews having developed most of the Westside. Maybe the restaurant-owning generation has retired and moved on, while their kids have gone on to other things?

Of course, that last point might be incorrect, since we realized afterwards that we'd blown right by a Persian restaurant on the opposite side of the street. Guess that's what you get for trying to find dinner on an empty stomach.

racism in LA, or Jenn's version of Crash

2005-08-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

Scene 1:

While walking to a Persian restaurant in Westwood (the neighbourhood where UCLA is located, on the Westside of LA), we witnessed a car sideswipe a large white SUV. The SUV driver got out of her car, only to see the other driver (of indiscriminate Asian ethnicity) drive off. As he sped off, she yelled after him:

"Fucking Chinaman!"

Scene 2:

My prof's partner was walking their two babies during the fireworks. Their kids, Chloe and Mylo, are mixed, a blend of Chinese-Vietnamese-Dutch-Pennsylvania. Brandy and Henry are the biological parents (important for the story). A woman approaches her and asks Brandy:

"Where did you get those?"

It's times like these when you wish you had a very...large...brick.

No one walks in LA

2005-08-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

After hiking 5 blocks today in the scorching sunshine to catch the bus with nary a (white) person in sight, I can wholeheartedly vouch for this photo.

on shopping and signage

2005-07-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

Conversation between two of my students:

UBC Student: Hey, there's a banana on the ground!

UCLA Student: Yeah, that happens a lot.

A summation of my past two and a half days in LA:

Stores visited so far: Target (West Hollywood and Culver City), Albertsons (Palms and Marina Del Rey), Trader Joes (Palms), Ralphs (Westwood) and Costco (Marina Del Rey).

Number of Donut-Croissant shops seen so far: Too many to count. We even saw one that claimed to offer "Donuts-Croissants-Bagel" - and yes, that's Bagel in the singular. Henry says they're mostly run by Chinese-Cambodians. Reminds me of the Chinese Food-Hamburgers-Pizza-Fried Chicken-Subs spots we'd see in DC that were also mostly run by Chinese from some indiscriminate location in the diaspora.

Number of times my ethnicity has come into question: 2.

Highlight of the trip so far: telling a recently paroled inmate that I was just a tanned Swede rather than the Asian he'd assumed me to be.

Also, within walking/bussing distance of my apartment (in Mar Vista, about a mile from my friend Jill's house and just down Venice Boulevard from Venice Beach) are the following culinary establishments:

1) Tito's Tacos (at Washington / Sepulveda): tasty tacos, with a ridiculously long line-up even at 8:30pm on a Sunday evening
2) Mitsuwa (at Centinela / Venice): the former Yaohan supermarket
3) Zankou's Chicken (Sepulveda / Santa Monica) : rotisserie chicken, accompanied by what my prof's partner Brandy calls "garlic lard"
4) Versailles (Venice / Motor): best Cuban restaurant in town. Named as such because the space formerly housed a French restaurant, and the Cuban owner-operators never bothered to change the signage.
5) Cafe Brasil (somewhere along Venice, just west of Versailles):
6) Howard's Famous Avocado and Bacon Burgers (also along Venice)
7) Empanada's Place (Venice / Sawtelle): empanadas filled with every imaginable filling, only 2 blocks from my apartment
7) Guelaguetza (Sepulveda / Palms): a Oaxacan Mexican restaurant, serving incredible mole (according to my prof, Henry) and also acting as a remittance service and community centre for the Oaxacan community in LA.

luggage has arrived!

2005-07-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

21 hours after my flight lands in LA, my luggage decides to show up.

Jenn is going to go shower now.

arriving in LA

2005-07-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

A quick and dirty post, because I'm too tired to pontificate:

1) I managed to make my 11am flight with 2 minutes to spare, due to my leaving my passport at home and a horrendously long line-up through Customs. My bags, however, decided that they weren't quite ready to leave Vancouver until the 5pm flight. It is 11:57pm and I am still waiting for them to arrive at my apartment.

2) There are very few trees in LA.

3) There is a Fatburger 2 blocks away from my apartment

4) Upon arrival at LAX, I was asked by a Filipino baggage handler if I was Japanese.

5) There is always traffic on the 405, even (especially?) at 8:30pm on a Friday night.

6) The Peking Duck Pizza at California Pizza Kitchen is not quite as tasty as the ones I remember ingesting in my youth.

Will post more tomorrow, after I drive Jessica to her film shoot at USC and I get a decent amount of sleep.

off to the market!

2005-07-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

From these two photos, you never would've guessed that the Richmond Night Market started out as a predominantly Chinese-oriented commercial endeavour.

Forget self-tanner, or exotic culinary experiences! Now you can buy your "ethnicity" at the Richmond Night Market!

Ahhhh....gotta love consumer capitalism.

And one day, we'll photoshop Rosalyn into this group. :-)

Holy gentrification!

2005-07-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

strathconahouse-2
Originally uploaded by UCLA UBC Summer Course 2005.

This is a 4-plex on Union St in Strathcona. One of the units - 511 Union St - is selling for $489,900. Unreal - for a historically low-income immigrant neighbourhood, I find it hard to believe that one renovated heritage house could go for $2 million total.

At this rate, even yuppie scum like myself aren't going to be able to afford Strathcona.

off-topic: photography

2005-07-19T10:10:00.000-07:00

I love taking photos of kids.

wiki me this, wiki me that

2005-07-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

While driving my partner to the airport at the godforsaken hour of 6am (he works for the UBC Registrar's Office, and goes up to UBC Okanagan every now and then for meetings), we came across the prettiest view of Mount Baker.

Didn't have my camera with me, but here's the closest approximation I could find on Google.

In other news:

Came across the Wikipedia entry for "Chinese Canadian" last night. Even more fascinating was the discussion. If you've never encountered Wikipedia, "it's a free-content encyclopedia, written collaboratively by people from around the world". Plain English: it's an online encyclopedia that everyone with an internet connection can edit, discuss and participate in. The Chinese Canadian entry has only been around since July 2003 (check out the history) and over 500 people have contributed to the page so far.

So if one of us wanted to edit the Chinese Canadian entry, you could go right ahead (heck, you're probably better informed than most of the people currently editing...). Or perhaps you'd like to edit the Richmond entry. Or the UCLA entry. Or the bubble tea entry.

Speaking of which, here's my favourite piece of trivia from the bubble tea entry:

"In September 2004, defending a US$18 billion weapon purchase plan, the ROC Ministry of National Defense used bubble tea as an example of the overall cost of the proposed purchase. The Ministry stated that the total cost of the weapons systems would be equivalent to the money saved if all Taiwanese drank one less pearl milk tea per week for a period of twenty years."

food and foodies

2005-07-13T21:37:00.000-07:00

In her blog, Joyce mentioned the review that the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority does each year of restaurants in the area. Here is the list in all its rat-infested glory. Don't say we didn't warn you!

A friend recommended LA.foodblogging: a collective blog about Los Angeles food, by Los Angeles eaters. Some well-written blogs, and interesting reviews of Chinese restaurants in LA. I laughed when I read about the Empress Pavillion running out of dim sum - who knew such a thing could occur???

Here's the Vancouver equivalent at egullet, with a corresponding link to their Chinese restaurants in Vancouver discussion.

And to finish off, a food-related article from the Atlantic Monthly on the impact of Chinese migration on San Gabriel Valley and Monterey Park.

Jenn likes her food! :-)

returning to richmond

2005-07-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

I suppose it's only "returning to Richmond" if you've been there before - or if like me, you grew up there.

Like Rosalyn, I can remember the rolling farmlands of Richmond (i.e. the ALR, or Agricultural Land Reserve). There was a great farmers' market on Steveston Highway, across the street from my piano teacher's neighbourhood. Many a piano lesson ended with my mom and I buying bok choy from the proprietors...

I also remember arriving in Richmond at Diefenbaker Elementary for grade 1 to find that I was one of 3 non-white kids. This, after my first 5 years of life in Coquitlam, where I was one of 5 non-white kids in my kindergarten class. I believe I was unimpressed when my 1st grade teacher tried to have me placed in the ESL stream upon her first sighting - this after being told that I was reading (English, that is) far above my grade level in kindergarten!

How things have changed.

So we wandered around this "new Chinatown" for a few hours today. Joyce has quite the detailed account of our day.

(I've started to post my photos at Henry's group Flickr page, since I've reached my upload limit for the month).

Learned all about negligence and tort law from Leon Lam at Pacific Plaza. Here's a taste of his legal difficulties.

In other legal news, the bootleg guy at Admiralty Centre was arrested last night.

Rosalyn theorizes about the significance of Richmond.

Yesterday's Vancouver Vocabulary: Counterflow

stuck in the elevator!

2005-07-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

stuck in the elevator!
Originally uploaded by Jennlau.

Of all the places to end up today - who would've thought we'd end up stuck in the elevator at the Asian Library with the Head Librarian?!?

Suzanne, Raymond, Vicki and I were having a rather lovely tour of the Asian Library with Eleanor Yuen, the head librarian, when she decided to take us from 2nd floor to the basement via the elevator.

Maybe it was a bad sign that we were only going 2 floors via elevator. In any event, we descended - and waited for the doors to open

and waited

and waited...

By this point, I was seriously wondering whether Eleanor was just punishing us for not reading Chinese.

In any event, here's the view from the elevator after Plant Ops finally pried the door open. Eleanor is the stylish woman standing slightly to the left, having been the first one to escape.

Best of all was the disdain the campus cowboy expressed when I took too long to capture the moment...

off-topic: free culture, free history

2005-07-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

This has nothing to do with Chinese migration, but where would historians be without open access to archives and documents? So let me introduce you to the Free Culture Movement (that's "free" as in free speech, and not free bzzr).

Let's start off with Lawrence Lessig. Professor Lessig is my idol. His baby, Creative Commons, is a super-nifty organization that offers creators a "some rights reserved" model - thus letting other creative types continue to "rip, mix & burn" their way to a world filled with culture.

(Sidenote: Lessig isn't just an IP law geek. He also takes the time to stand up for the other causes he believes in.)

Also, maybe we should take advantage of the free storage/sharing at OurMedia for this program's projects.

city of glass

2005-07-11T18:53:00.000-07:00

Kits Beach
Originally uploaded by Jennlau.

Where, oh, where has the summer sunshine gone?!?

Highlights so far:

Kicked off the Chinese Migration summer course last night with a rousing meal at Hon's Wun Tun House. I must say, Hon's makes some damn tasty potstickers.
Drove recklessly through Kits, trying to avoid the Tall Ships crowds
Discovered a whole new set of Vancouver vocabulary upon conversing with the 3 American students:

Grow-op
Vancouver Special
Smarties
Toque/Tuque (damn that French-Canadian spelling!)