Issue No. 2 – August 2017
CON T E N TS
Cover Vera Chen Layout and Design Alessandro Recchia, Heather Vivian, James Goo, Vera Chen Photography Alessandro Recchia, Heather Vivian, James Goo, Vera Chen Editing Heather Vivian Printing Made In Print Supported By Lasalle College Vancouver
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FILM
Thoughts on the Artistic Choices in “ You Won’t Get Another Life” by Zoya Akhtar
FOOD
A Guide to the best Asian restaurants in Vancouver
MONEY
Cassie De Pecol Took a Trip Around the World - Find Out How She Paid for It
SCIENCE
7 Ways That Experiences Trump Material Objects
PHOTOGRAPHY
This World is a Beautiful Place
YOU WON’T
GET ANOTHER
LIFE zindagi Na Milegi Dobara Title: Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara Production year: 2011 Country: India Runtime: 153 minutes Directors: Zoya Akhtar Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Abhay Deol, Farhan Akhtar, Katrina Kaif, Kalki Koechlin Movie Review by Vera Chen
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You Won’t Get Another Life (2011) by Zoya Akhtar depicts an amazing trip with friendship, passion, and love. Three good friends, Arjun (Hrithik Roshan), Kabir (Abhay Deol), Imraan (Farhan Akhtar) have a deal to do a road trip with one rule: each one needs to pick one ultimate sport and the other two have to do it together. Though the three bachelors’ journey may remind the audience of another movie, The Hangover (2009), this story is much more than a crazy adventure of men. The trip is going to change them forever. They learn, they grow and they are reborn. It enlightens the audience’s mind with inspiration of life involving freedom, true happiness, hope, and courage. With perfect arrangement of lyrics, music, views, and sensitive narration, this movie takes the audience on a journey of inspiration alongside the characters. The profound meaning transmitted by the movie is one of the significant reasons that make this movie so great. This movie combines several inspiring life issues. The three main characters all have their own problems. The journey with the new people they meet and the new experiences they have surprisingly saves them from their struggles and lead them to the answer they are looking for. The whole setting of the story has deep meaning, even small objects carry implied
meanings for audience to explore. For instance, “Mrs. Luxury handbag” has an ironic meaning of the value of money. The characters changing their SUV to a roadster to enjoy their trip represents a transformation of their philosophy of life. The ultimate sports they do open a new world to them. Diving, the tranquil meditation-like sport, causes them to feel every breath, every heart beat and teaches them to fully experience every moment. Along with diving, the three friends also go parachuting, join a tomato festival and join a bull running festival. All experiences give them some inspiration in some way and change them for good. The audience can relate to the problems that the characters face and they are inspired by seeing how the characters overcome their grief, fear, and uncertainty. Various life issues are addressed in the movie- not losing oneself in a job, the promise of marriage, the courage of facing fear, the right attitude of living, the beauty of forgiveness, the preciousness of freedom, the purity of happiness, and so on. However, the movie depicts these in an exquisite way, not overwhelming or heavy. It’s a relaxing mental treatment and powerful enlightening lecture. Good song lyrics help to bring out the profound meaning this movie tries to transmit. Several POLYGON | AUGUST 2017 5
songs in the movie are specifically written for it. Therefore, the lyrics help reinforce the point that the director wants to make and even let out the inner voice of the characters and spirit of the scenes. For instance, the background song at the beginning of the movie, “Dil Dhadakne Do”, says, “let the heart beat in its own rhythm. Let all the desires of the heart be awake. Let’s heed to the talks of our hearts. Let’s choose that path on which no one walks. Let there be some carelessness and some intoxication, baby.” This helps to deliver the main point of the movie. The song, “Khaabon Ke Parinday” states Arjun’s change “I am lost somewhere, there are new things happening, so intoxicated I seem to be, it has so happened that hearts have melted, in a moment I have changed.” He became more open-minded after he met Lyla in the journey, “In the open sky, fly the birds of dreams. O, who knows, where they go. Now that the wings are open, the sight says. It seems we have woken up now…… Life is flowing in the winds. Life is saying this to us, now, whatever happens, let it be.” The lyrics of the song perfectly match the transformation of the character and what he learned, “Now I have learnt to live. Heart says go that way only wherever your wish takes
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you.” The ending music “Sooraj Ki Baahon” Mein concludes the move perfectly. “As the tempo of the heart has changed, I just thought of this. We get only one chance to live. Then why shouldn’t we love it (life) openly (greatly)? What are we waiting for?” Combining the musical dance style of Indian movies and the setting of the movie in Spain together provides a perfect match for the spirit of the movie. Because of the traditional background, India makes lots of musical films to increase the entertaining effects. This movie also combines parts of it. To some audiences, Indian musical dancing form seems a little abrupt but in this movie it’s very natural and actually adds points for the whole movie. Except its entertaining purpose, the dances do an excellent job of provoking the idea of living life to the fullest. The classic Spanish song “Senorita”- that the characters have fun dance to- fully describes the passionate and bright life atmosphere. The application of the dance performances enables the audience to enjoy this movie as an exquisite musical feast. It highlighs the energy of life and to adds splendor. The music that acompanies the dances match the scenes perfectly. “Ik Junoon (Paint It Red)” brings out the joyful scene of the tomato festival.
Spain, a passionate country with a merry atmosphere, is where this story unfolds. Flamenco, the tomato festival, the bull running festival enable the audience to enjoy with the characters and experience the exciting and vivid side of life. All the laughing, dancing, yelling, and running help to highlight the core spirt of the movie- enjoying the beauty of life and living in the moment. The choice of music and views are both brilliant. The voice-overs of the play are beautiful and arouse echo in the audiences’ hearts and increase sensitivity to the movie. What makes this movie even more special is that it uses several poems to strengthen the illuminating inspirations and the deep emotions of the characters. Imraan works as an ad copywriter whose works are popular and shallow. However, through the movie, the audiences could know his inner world by the voice-overs of his poems which he never read to others. They are sensitive and dedicated with profound meanings. Through the poems, audiences know he grows and finds himself from what he wrote. The voice-over can strike a chord in hearts. “If you are moving with an eagerness in your heart, then you are alive. If you’re moving with the sparks of dreams in your eyes, then you’re alive.
Learn to live freely like the gusts of wind, Learn to flow in waves, like a river does. Meet every moment with your arms open. Every moment these eyes should watch a new weather.” Even though the three main characters all have their troubles in life, there is always hope. Pain, sadness, fear, and loneliness are emotions that people share as human beings. While, “every moment can be a new life”. “Why do you let them pass you by?” Accepting what life gives them with an open mind could surprise people with what they can receive. This movie is full of inspiring messages. With the voice-overs, audience gets a feeling of understanding, consulting and relief. It’s one of the bright spots of the movie. You Won’t Get Another Life is a beautiful work with music, dance, poetry, and amazing views. The wise choices of music, location, lyrics and narration all help to bring out the inspiration and profound meaning of the movie. It has a power that can stimulate people’s minds and confer people’s restlessness about life. The answers for confusing problems that people are looking for can be found in this movie. It is a ray of light that leads you when you are in the darkness.
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EXPLORE THE FLAVOURS OF ASIA
Go on a culinary tour through Asia without ever having to leave the city. – James Goo
8 Food
Taiwan Beef Noodle Soup
牛肉麵(niu rou mian)Beef Noodle Soup is a famous Taiwanese food. It made using toppings such as spices, bok choy, beef brisket and stomach and sliced green onion. Beef Noodle Soup is internationally reputed for its unique taste and is adored by tourists from around the world. It’s notability matches with Japanese Ramen. Big Bowl Rice 505 Dunsmuir St Open 10am to 7:30pm (Closed Sunday)
Japan Ramen
Ramen (ラーメン) is a Japanese dish that basically consists of Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a meat and bone broth, flavoured with soy(shoyu), miso(soy bean) or salt(shio) and uses toppings such as sliced pork (チャーシュー chāshū), dried seaweed (海苔 nori), bamboo shoot (メンマ menma), and green onions (葱 negi). Nearly every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen, from the Tonkotsu (pork bone broth) Ramen of Kyushu to the Miso Ramen of Hokkaido. Hokkaido Ramen Santouka 1690 Robson St Open 11am to11pm Everyday www.santouka.co.jp/en
Vietnam Pho
Pho(Vietnamese Noodle Soup) is a cheap street food in Vietnam. After the Vietnam War, a large number of Vietnamese people immigrated to western countries and opened Vietnamese restaurants where this food was viewed as fancier. It often comes with toppings such as beef brisket, raw beef, basil leaves, onions, chilli peppers, bean sprouts and lime with Hoisin and Sriracha sauce for dipping. Joyeaux Café & Restaurant 551 Howe St Open Mon- Fri 7am to 9pm, Sat- Sun 7am to 8pm www.joyeaux-cafe-restaurant.com
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Korea Korean Fried Chicken
Fried Chicken is not a traditional food, it’s actually from America. After the Korean War, the United States Forces remained in South Korea. On Thanksgiving Day they couldn’t find turkeys in Korea, so they had American Style Fried chicken instead of turkey. Koreans adapted the food and now Fried Chicken is localized and is flavoured with spicy and sweet, garlic, soy, etc. Korean Fried Chicken is a famous food that most people love to eat with beer. Zabu Chicken 1635 Robson St Open Sun to Thurs: 3pm to 1am, Fri to Sat: utill 2 AM www.zabuchicken.com
Indonesia Nasi Goreng
Nasi goreng is a common food in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei Southeast Asia is hot and humid, therefore, foods are easy to spoil so they wanted to prevent that situation Nasi(Rice) and Mi(Noodle) goreng became a typical preserved food Nasi goreng, literally meaning “fried rice” and noodle version is Mi goreng typically spiced with Kecap Manis(sweet soy sauce) Sambal, shallot, garlic, ground shrimp paste, tamarind and chilli and accompanied by other ingredients, particularly egg, chicken and prawns Banana Leaf on Denman 1096 Denman St Open Sun to Thurs:11:30am-10pm, Fri to Sat: 11:30am to 10:30pm www.bananaleaf-vancouver.com
Korea Korean Traditional Food
A Typical Korean style meal table is with a bunch of side dishes if you want to try it I can recommend “Set Course SU” they serve lots of dishes on your table Sura Korean Royal Cuisine Restauran 1518 Robson St Open 11am to 3:30pm and 5pm to10:30pm www.surakoreancuisine.com
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HOW MANY COUNTRIES HAVE YOU VISITED?
This 27-Year-Old Is the Fastest Woman to Visit Every Country in the World. Here’s How She Paid for It. - Veronica Quezada
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Cassie De Pecol
It’s everyone’s dream to travel the world and get paid to do it. It sounds like a fun experience until you run out of savings midway through. After a year and a half of planning, Cassie De Pecol, a 27-year-old from Connecticut, embarked on a journey to become the fastest person to visit every single country in the world. The trip, which cost $111,000 total, took her 18 months to complete. She was almost derailed when she ran out of funding halfway through the trip, but in the end she saw all 196 sovereign countries and broke two Guinness World Records. Her two records didn’t come cheap and De Pecol had to get creative to pay for the trip. She told MONEY in a Facebook Live interview that she saved $10,000 from two babysitting jobs and using athletes like Michael Phelps as her model networked to find sponsors and investors to fund the rest of her trip. “I pretty much had to give up my social life. No going out, no going out for lunches or anything,” De Pecol said. After raising the funds she needed, she set out on her journey. But even after all her preparation, she encountered a huge obstacle along her way: Money. Less than halfway through De Pecol’s trip, she ran out of savings. “The money I had saved was gone. The only sponsorship funding I had obtained was gone and I embarrassingly had to just come back home,” she said. POLYGON | AUGUST 2017 13
De Pecol found herself in a tricky situation. In order to qualify for a Guinness World Record, she couldn’t stay in any one country more than 14 days, which meant that she had two weeks to fundraise the rest of her trip back in the U.S. De Pecol was so embarrassed that she didn’t even tell her closest friends she had returned home. She pushed through those weeks and raised enough funds to finish her travels. This time around, she made better preparations for the financial journey ahead. “I had an Excel spreadsheet after that experience,” she said. “I was like I really have to keep on top of this cause I don’t want to be back in that position again.” That spreadsheet helped her keep track of everything, including how much she was allowed to spend per week. “I’m not a money person,” De Pecol admitted. “I’ve never been great at keeping up with my finances, but on this trip I really learned to have to do that because I was the only one that was in control of it.
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It was up to me whether I failed or succeeded.” And she did succeed. De Pecol now holds two Guinness World Records and is starting a nonprofit next year to help others fund their own passion projects. For anyone that dreams of traveling the world but doesn’t know how to afford it, De Pecol has some advice. “It’s really important to save 10% of every paycheck,” De Pecol said. “It’s important to have a cushion with money. I mean I’ve had nothing, and it’s a really terrible situation to not even be able to afford a meal when you’re hungry.” In addition to a portion of every paycheck, she encouraged aspiring travelers to create a weekly budget. She noted that it’s important to also give yourself a little bit of freedom with your money for when cool adventures or opportunities come up that you didn’t plan for. And we think that’s pretty good advice. So go travel the world, but have fun, be safe, and don’t forget to budget!
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7 reasons why you should pay for the
– James Wallman
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Your big travel plans might seem like a waste of money. What will you come back with, besides some photos on your phone and a few memories. If you bought a TV with that money instead, you’d watch it every day. While that might seem more valuable, it’s been determined way beyond reasonable doubt that experiences are more likely than material goods
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WE SEE THE WORLD THROUGH ROSE-TINTED GLASSES
Experiences are better than material goods because of something psychologists call ‘positive reinterpretation,” and what you or I would call “looking through rose-tinted glasses.” If you buy a bad material good, like shoes that hurt or trousers that make you look fat, you’re stuck with the fact you made a bad choice. Those shoes will always hurt. But with experiences it’s not like that. You can make them seem better in your mind. To test this, psychologists found some people going on a cycling holiday in California and some others going to Disneyland. Of the cyclists, they found that even the ones who’d had a bad experience–a day of cycling in the rain–had a great time. When asked later, instead of thinking of that rainy day as unpleasant,
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to lead to happiness. Since this new truth was first unearthed back in 2003 by psychologists Tom Gilovich and Leaf Van Boven, pioneering researchers have been joining the dots of previous work and conducting new studies to work out why: why are experiences so much better than material goods at making us happy? Here are seven key reasons they’ve identified.
even though it was at the time, they re-interpreted it as rewarding. It was similar with the Disney visitors. Mitchell and his colleagues recorded their feelings before, during, and after the trip. It probably won’t surprise you to hear that it turns out the before and the after are more pleasurable. What we imagine we’ll be doing is similar to what we remember: the rides, meeting Mickey, quality time with family. But when we’re actually there, the reality is that we spend far more time coping with the crowds, waiting in line, and moody kids. With experiences, our memories bring the best bits to the front and give them a rosy glow—and the annoying, tiresome parts fade into the forgotten background.
WE GET BORED OF STUFF EASILY
Material possessions aren’t as good at making us happy because of something called hedonic adaptation. This happens to anything new. At first, it’s exciting—think of a new cell phone—but we adapt and get used to it, and it becomes less likely to bring us joy. “You could argue,” says Tom Gilovich, “that adaptation is sort of an enemy of happiness.” But hedonic adaptation, the research shows, affects objects far more than experiences. We adapt to them far quicker. In one study to test this theory, researchers ran a lab experiment with 355 participants. Each had to choose between either an experience—playing a game, watching a video, or listening to a song—or a
material good—a deck of cards, for instance, or a ruler, or a keychain, or a picture frame. The researchers then tracked the happiness that people associated with these choices after a few minutes, a day, two days, a week, and, finally, two weeks. Now you’re asking: who gets happiness from a ruler? But think back to school days a minute, and the fun you could have flicking stuff, hitting people and, er, drawing straight lines. Also bear in mind there were other options, and the outcome of the research was clear: the happiness from ruler, the cards, the keychain, and picture frame fell far more steadily than happiness for the game, the video, and the song.
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IT’S HARDER TO COMPARE EXPERIENCES
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THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF FLOW
Choosing between different cars or computers or handbags is not so far from comparing apples with apples. Weighing up experiences is far more subjective. Since it’s harder to compare experiences, you’re less likely to worry whether you’re making the best choice or not, less likely to regret your choice afterwards, and less likely to think about the status implications of your choice. That means experiences are less likely to stress you out, and more conducive for happiness. Gilovich and a colleague at Cornell, Travis Carter, used pens and potato chips to test this theory. When people turned up to take part in another study, they were offered either a pen or bag of chips by way of thank you. For some, those two options were all they saw. For others, Carter and Gilovich had placed other, better, more expensive gifts nearby: a mug and a bar of gourmet chocolate. At the end, when the participants were asked to rate their gift, they rated the chips the same whether
Flow is a mental state, first identified by a psychologist called Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, that you get into when you are effortlessly engaged in whatever it is you are doing. This is what athletes mean when they say they’re “in the zone.” It is what spiritual gurus like Eckhart Tolle mean by “in the present.” No matter what you call it, flow is essential for happiness. In the research that led to this theory, Csikszentmihalyi gave beepers (this was back in the 1980s) to 75 teenagers and then used the beepers at random times to contact them and ask what they were doing and how they felt. Most of the time
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they ate them in the presence of the chocolate or not. It wasn’t like that with the pen though. When people knew there was something better they could have had– that lovely mug–they didn’t like the pen nearly as much. This supports the theory that people tend to evaluate experiential gifts, in this case, eating chips, on their own terms—but that they compare material objects with other material objects. Gilovich explains this well. “Imagine you buy a flat panel TV. You come to my house, and I have a bigger, clearer picture than yours. You’re bummed out,” he says. “But suppose you go on a vacation to the Caribbean. You find out I’ve done the same, and mine sounds better than yours. It might bother you a little bit, but not nearly to the same degree because you have your memories; it’s your idiosyncratic connection to the Caribbean that makes it your vacation. That makes it less comparable to mine, hence your enjoyment isn’t undermined as much.”
their responses were typical teenage answers: they were bored and moody a lot of the time. But when Csikszentmihalyi looked closely at the data, he found that the teens were happier when they were taking on challenging tasks, like trying to solve a problem or playing sport. To see for yourself why experiences are better than material goods for achieving flow, and therefore happiness, consider this comparison: Would you find it easier to focus on a chair or a pair of shoes, or to concentrate when you are playing tennis, singing in a choir, or reeling in a 10-foot shark?
TO WAIT (FOR AN EXPERIENCE) IS GREAT
Experiences are better than material goods because they somehow magically provide free anticipatory pleasure. With material goods, waiting really gets on people’s nerves—which is why social commentators like me can use terms like “instant gratification” and why we’re all prepared to pay more for same day delivery. With experiences it isn’t like that. Instead, waiting 18 Science
for an experience can provide a significant amount of happiness. To test this idea, Gilovich and a few colleagues, Amit Kumar and Matthew Killingsworth, contacted 2,266 participants who had downloaded an app called TrackYourHappiness (help science—download it now!). Next, at random intervals, they asked the participants
five questions. One, were they happy? Two, were they were thinking of buying something? Three, was that thing a material good or an experience? Four, was waiting for that thing pleasant? Five, did waiting feel more like excitement or impatience? After analysing the results, they found that people found the waiting more
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EXPERIENCES MAKE THE MAN (AND THE WOMAN)
Experiences are better than material goods because we are more likely to think of them as contributing to, and part of, who we are. This truth was brilliantly brought to life in the 2004 movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet try to delete all the memories they have of each other. Inspired by the movie, Carter and Gilovich got people to take part in a thought-experiment where they thought about deleting all memories of something they’d owned or something they’d done. More often than not, people thought that losing the memory of an experience would be far worse for their sense of identity. In another experiment, Carter and Gilovich asked people to do two things. One, to write a list of significant experiential and material purchases they had made. And, two, to write a short story about who
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pleasant, and they were more excited and happier, when they were waiting for an experience. This is why you should book your summer vacation now, today, as soon as possible—to max out the free happiness that comes from looking forward to it.
they are and how they became the person they are today. Carter and Gilovich said they should include at least one thing from the lists they’d written in their stories. As expected, people were far more likely to include their experiences in their narratives than their possessions. Try this thought experiment for yourself. Think of the last time you did something—like went to a concert or yoga class or a costume party. Hasn’t each experience contributed to who you are in some way—more than the last things you bought? And if you had to give up a thing or an experience, which would you be more likely to let go? Would you rather wipe the memory of a bachelor party or a wedding, or would you prefer to give away the clothes you wore on the bachelor party, or the dress you wore to the wedding?
WE’RE PEOPLE PEOPLE
Humans are social animals. We like hugs. We like to be listened to. And we like to feel as if we belong. We are, you could say, people people. This means experiences are more likely to make us happy than material goods, because they bring us closer to other people. One of the reasons for this is that experiences make better conversation than material goods. You’re more likely to be happier, and I’m more likely to listen, when you talk about what you’ve been up to rather than what you own. In a study to test this hypothesis, Van Boven, Gilovich, and another psychologist called Margaret Campbell, ran a sort of speed-dating, “get acquainted” experiment— with specific rules. Some were told they could only talk about recent material purchases. Others that they could
only talk about recent experiential purchases. After, they were all asked, in private, how much they liked the conversation and the other person. They reported liking both the conversation and the person more if the other person talked about experiences. Again, think about this yourself: would you rather hear me tell you about the chair I’m sitting on as I write this, or what I did last weekend? (By the way: if you’re on Tindr or Match.com or dating in any sort of capacity, this is a hot tip.) So, next time you face a choice of spending money, don’t buy stuff. Buy an experience. Every one comes with all sorts of free magic that’s backed by science: it’ll give you a stronger sense of who you are, it’ll bring you closer to others, and it’ll make you happier.
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PHOTO GALLERY
It’s about reacting to what you see, hopefully without preconception. You can find pictures anywhere. It’s simply a matter of noticing things and organising them. You just have to care about what’s around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy.”– Elliot Erwitt
Photo by James Goo
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Photo by Alessandro Recchia
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Photo by James Goo
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Photo by James Goo
Photo by James Goo
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Photo by Heather Vivian
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Photo by James Goo
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Photo byBC Heather Vivian Whistler, - Photo by James Goo
Photo by Heather Vivian
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Photo by Alessandro Recchia
Photo by Vera Chen
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Sloca Photo Park, by Vancouver, Alessandro BC Recchia - Photo by Vera Chen
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Photo by Vera Chen
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