The Georgia Straight - The Taiwan Model - September 3, 2020 by The Georgia Straight

SEPTEMBER 3 – 10 / 2020 | FREE

Volume 54 | Number 2745

EXIT RAMP

CAN CANNABIS REPLACE OPIOIDS?

2 RIVERS REMIX

INDIGENOUS MUSIC THRIVES

THE

TAIWAN MODEL

On the eve of TAIWANfest, it's worth asking if China could ever follow Taiwan's lead and abandon authoritarian rule in favour of democracy

E S P O R T S C H E AT I N G • L A B O U R DAY • AS I A N A R T • CY B E R B U L LY I N G

HEALTH

Cyberbullying may fly under the radar during pandemic

CONTENTS 6

Decades ago, Taiwan abandoned authoritarian rule for democracy. On the eve of TAIWANfest, it’s worth asking if this transformation could happen in China.

by Craig Takeuchi

s schools prepare to start, most parents, teachers, and students may be preoccupied with COVID-19 issues. However, there’s something else that SFU education professor Wanda Cassidy is “quite worried about”. With stressed-out parents, overwhelmed teachers, and anxious students, Cassidy said by phone that she’s concerned that attention to cyberbullying may “fall between the cracks”. Although she said she knows cyberbullying will happen—whether students receive education in class or online—she fears that pandemic-related stress may compound things. “Society as a whole is on edge, and that’s going to fi lter down to kids,” she said. As cyberbullying is one of her main areas of study, she said it usually starts, she explained, in adolescence, “when young people are trying to position themselves in a group” and are experiencing heightened insecurity. Research reveals, she said, that about one-third of students participate in or are victims of cyberbullying. Contrary to stereotypes, she said, anyone can be a bully or victim, including those who are popular. She said international research has shown that females participate more often in relationship aggression or cyberbullying—which, she said, is about power and control within friendship groups—than males, who tend to bully more physically or in person. For instance, she said if one girl aspires to be a group’s leader, “she has to mobilize the other students in that group to target one or two of those members”, such as excluding the target from online exchanges or posting something unflattering about the victim on social media. However, she said that bullies “don’t come out unscathed”, as their own self-regard may lower after hurting someone—or roles may reverse if a victim retaliates. UBC psychology professor Amori Mikami, who researches peer relationships, said by phone that it’s untrue that all online interactions are a “shallow or poor substitute for face to face” presence. She said with techsavvy teens, there’s “a lot that can happen in the online world that is extremely meaningful and consequently can either be very fulfilling or—on the downside, with things like cyberbullying—extremely hurtful”. In fact, she said that cyberbullying can be more hurtful than in-person bullying because “it’s on display for this wide audience instantly”. She explained that there are a “shocking number of similarities between a person’s online and offline interactions”. Interacting with the same social circle in person and online can be fine for those with positive relationships, she said, but cyberbullying victims may experience a “double 2

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

COVER

September 3-10 / 2020

By Charlie Smith

CANNABIS

Cover illustration by Edward Juan

New studies by B.C. researcher M-J Milloy and others suggest cannabis can be a useful harm-reduction tool for opioid users. By John Lucas

ARTS

At the Polygon Gallery, Third Realm spotlights art by a wave of Asian artists grappling with massive social and economic change. By Janet Smith

UBC psychology professor Amori Mikami says youths’ online relationships can be powerful.

whammy” of online and offline attacks. And although she said she suspects that those with strong relationships are finding social fulfillment during the pandemic through online and other means with peers, teachers, and parents—which can help them keep what happens online in perspective— youth who don’t have those connections may be having a “tough and lonely time”. Yet some youth can also find peer relationships in chatrooms or online video games. Mikami said that studies her lab conducted about alternate-reality video games found that friendships between players “can have positive contributions to players’ mood and well-being”. Because cyberbullying is a relational issue, SFU’s Cassidy said that if peers say it’s unacceptable, teens are more likely to listen to them than an adult, in order to maintain friendships or else risk losing power and prestige. “Empowering bystanders seems to be one of the most effective ways to curtail bullying and cyberbullying,” she said. Both Cassidy and Mikami also recommend that adults—from parents to teachers—should consider the community they’re creating. For Mikami, it’s the everyday interactions that principals and teachers have with each other and students—creating a model to follow, cultivating a “climate of inclusivity and respect”, and showing that “they genuinely care about students”—that she thinks can be “very powerful” and that she said Lower Mainland teachers are very skilled at. Cassidy said ongoing discussions—such as about whether students feel a sense of belonging or what to do when feelings are hurt—are important to ensure that students feel their voices are heard and are part of decision-making and leadership processes. One other thing that Cassidy recommends to counter cyberbullying can be expressed by paraphrasing a certain provincial health officer: “Be cyberkind, be calm, be safe”. g

SEPTEMBER 3 – 10 / 2020

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PUBLISHER Brian Kalish FOUNDING PUBLISHER Dan McLeod EDITOR Charlie Smith SECTION EDITORS Janet Smith (Arts/Entertainment/Style) Brian Lynch (Books) Mike Usinger (eSports/Liquor/Music) SENIOR EDITOR Martin Dunphy ASSOCIATE EDITORS Gail Johnson (Health/Food/Wine) John Lucas (Cannabis) STAFF WRITERS Carlito Pablo (Real Estate) Craig Takeuchi SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT Jeff Li GRAPHIC DESIGNER Miguel Hernandez PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR Mike Correia SALES DIRECTOR Tara Lalanne ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Glenn Cohen, Catherine Tickle, Robyn Marsh, Manon Paradis, David Pearlman

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Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com.

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Vancouver produce store in Little India put up for sale for $199,000. COVID-19 in B.C.: Back-toschool ad controversy and second-wave questions. West Vancouver luxury home assessed at $6.6 million sold for $9.5 million. Victoria drag queen Jimbo on hypersexualized shows and eating on-air. Sportswriter Jason Botchford died of accidental overdose. @GeorgiaStraight

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CANNABIS

THC and CBD are potent tools for harm reduction A growing body of research suggests that cannabis can help users who are addicted to opioids by John Lucas

Research scientists, including M-J Milloy, say cannabis could help save lives that would otherwise be lost to the opioid-overdose crisis. Photo by Darwin Brandis/iStock/Getty Images Plus.

here’s no cure for pain. And sometimes the substances we turn to, the pills and powders meant to take that pain away, end up doing us more harm than good. We can see this clearly enough in the streets of our cities, where powerful opioids contribute to an ongoing overdose crisis. What if there existed not a cure for pain but something that could help assuage it without the deadly risk? A growing body of research seems to point to cannabis as a means by which opioid users can decrease their dependence on more harmful drugs. M-J Milloy is a research scientist at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use. He is also the Canopy Growth professor of cannabis science at University of British Columbia (UBC). He tells the Georgia Straight that the main focus of his research is trying to determine what beneficial role cannabis might play in the overdose crisis. B.C. continues to have record numbers of overdoses in 2020, with deaths hitting 177 in June and 175 in July according to the BC Coroners Service. “The overdose crisis is driven by illicit opioid use,” Milloy says, “which is often a reaction to pain, to unaddressed trauma, to depression and anxiety, and indeed to dependence itself.” Milloy has co-authored several studies on the relationship between illicit opioid addiction and cannabis use. The American Journal of Public Health published the most recent of these on August 20. Milloy’s team interviewed 2,459 subjects every six months between 2005 and 4

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

2018. The researchers found that, during periods when subjects were using cannabis every day, they were 24 percent more likely to have stopped injecting opioids during that same period. “And this is consistent with some other work that we’ve done looking at the relationship between illicit opioid use and cannabis use among people in those studies, looking at pain,” Milloy says. “Again, we found there was a strong negative relationship; again, the more people were using cannabis, the less likely they were using illicit opioids. “Similarly, in a study of people who were at risk of beginning to inject drugs, we found that if they were using cannabis every day, they were far less likely in that six-month period to initiate injectiondrug use. This is very consistent with other studies, and indeed qualitative studies, in which people tell us, ‘Yeah, I turn to cannabis as a way to try to moderate or modulate or control my other drug use.’ ” Milloy co-authored a study (published by the online journal PLOS One) looking at how street-involved young people use cannabis as a method of harm reduction. Researchers interviewed 56 young people in Vancouver between 2017 and 2019, the majority of whom engaged in “daily, intensive cannabis use”. During the same period, they cycled on and off alcohol, fentanyl, heroin, and other substances perceived as more harmful. Participants framed cannabis use as a form of mental-health and substance-abuse treatment. The authors write that their findings demonstrate what one could refer to as

SEPTEMBER 3 – 10 / 2020

a “reverse gateway effect”. Among some street-entrenched youth, “cannabis use was associated with the intermittent reduction, elimination or prevention of more harmful forms of drug use such as meth and opioid use.” “Certainly in the Downtown Eastside there are people who tell us that they do employ cannabis as a sort of harm-reduction intervention,” Milloy confirms. “So what we’ve been trying to do is, quite simply, learn more about this so that we can try and run experimental trials to really provide better evidence about whether this is an effective strategy, and what the risks and benefits might be.” Where pain relief is concerned, doctors prescribe opioids in mass quantities because they work better than anything else. Or at least that’s the conventional wisdom. There is a body of research suggesting that substances found in cannabis—including THC and CBD—have analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties. Cannabis use, moreover, does not carry the side effects or the inherent risks that opioid use does. “As we all know, it’s quite easy to overdose on opioids,” Milloy says. “It happens, of course, in our community and many others every day. With cannabis, with THC, we pretty much think that that’s impossible. The parts of our brain that control our breathing and such are pretty well segregated from the parts of the brain that cannabis interacts with, unlike opioids.” Why, then, is there not even more research being done into cannabis as a means of pain relief? Milloy says that, in part, it’s because there are “severe regulatory barriers” in place

that make things difficult for scientists. “Health Canada wants those of us who want to do this sort of research to provide background safety data on the types of cannabis that we would like to use,” he says. “We would argue that it’s a bit of a weird position, because at the same time Health Canada has approved these very same substances for adult use in the recreational market. So we’re saying, ‘Look, guys, you’re saying that it’s okay for someone to walk into a shop and buy this. Yet in a very controlled, safe, medical environment, we need to provide all sorts of background pharmacokinetic safety data for us to be able to do something that Canadians are already doing.’ ” Milloy remains hopeful that the science will get done, though. It must. As he said upon the publication of his team’s most recent study, it’s about saving people’s lives. “Our policymakers should make sure they are facilitating access to cannabis as harm reduction by, for example, reducing barriers to legal cannabis or supporting community groups distributing cannabis to people at risk of overdose,” he said at the time. “Our findings suggest using cannabis for harm reduction has the potential to save lives.” g

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REAL ESTATE

Notaries public have a legal duty to be honest

by Carlito Pablo

ancouver notary public David Watts likens a home purchase to a relay race. “In the beginning of the process, the buyer spends time with a mortgage broker to secure their financing and figure out how much money they can afford,” Watts told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. Then comes the second lap. “Once they know what they can afford, the baton is passed to the realtor and the realtor goes shopping with the client and they figure out, ‘Okay, this is what our budget is. What can we buy?’ ” Watts explained. The third and final lap follows after the conclusion of a contract to purchase. “With the subjects removed on the property and the mortgage commitment in place, the baton is passed to the notary,” Watts noted. What proceeds is a series of steps, starting with the notary’s review of the title of the property. The final step involves the delivery of a copy of what is called a “state of title certificate” to the buyer, now the new registered owner of the property. In between the start and finish, notaries check whether or not a seller has any outstanding financial obligations to settle, like liens. Also, funds involved in the home purchase get transferred into a notary’s trust account. “We’re the only ones involved in paying out money in the transaction, so our role is critical in confirming the amounts are paid out and the parties who are owing in a transaction receive their funds,” Watts said. These payouts include commissions

As legal professionals, notaries public perform a wide range of services, including residentialproperty transfers and spotting dirty money. Photo by Feverpitched/iStock/Getty Images Plus.

for realtors. “We complete the deal with the clients and bring them to the finish line,” Watts said, completing his relay-race analogy. Notaries are legal professionals, except they do not go to court. Watts belongs to the board of the Society of Notaries Public of B.C. On its website, the society identifies him as its vice president. Notaries provide a broad range of legal services. In addition to residential-property transfers, they also prepare wills and certify true copies of documents, among other functions. The B.C. Notaries Association describes these as “non-contentious services” or, simply, “happy law”. In a home transaction, the buyer and seller will each have their own notary. “A Member should not ordinarily advise or represent both sides of a transaction,” the

association’s code of conduct states. Notaries also play a role in preventing dirty money from entering the property market. The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Regulations (PCMLTFR) covers these legal professionals. Under federal rules, notaries are required to verify the identity of their clients. They have to report suspicious transactions to the country’s financial intelligence unit, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC). Lawyers are not subject to FINTRAC reporting, Watts said. “We’re not protected by solicitor-client privilege the way lawyers are.” Watts confirmed what many economists and real-estate associations have reported about how the property market behaved this

year, particularly in light of COVID-19. According to Watts, the year started strong but turned quiet in April amid the pandemic lockdowns. The market started to pick up in May and continued through the months of June, July, and August. “Right now, our volumes are quite strong,” he said. On August 13 this year, the B.C. Real Estate Association (BCREA) reported that 10,090 homes were sold across the province in July, an increase of 26.6 percent from July 2019. Year to date, B.C. residential sales totalled $32.5 billion, up 8.4 percent compared with the same period in 2019. According to Watts, there were a lot of concerns during the early days of the pandemic, which caused the market to slow down. Low interest rates helped buoy the market. In March, the Bank of Canada successively slashed the key lending rate down to its lowest level, 0.25 percent. “People took advantage of that to get into the market, and so we saw a lot of activity in the lower part of the market because people were able to borrow more or have lower payments,” Watts said. Like most businesses, Watts’s office adopted new practices because of the pandemic. “We insist that everybody who comes into our office wears a mask,” he noted. His office now features transparent barriers. Clients can also sign documents inside their cars while Watts and his staff witness the process from outside the vehicle. Watts started as a notary in 2006. He said he likes the work, especially with firsttime home buyers who are thrilled about fulfilling the goal of homeownership. “What I really enjoy is sharing in that excitement,” Watts said. g

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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

TAIWANfest

Taiwan Model shows how democracy can triumph Can this point the way to a better future for countries like China that are in the grip of a dictatorship? by Charlie Smith

Former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui’s death drew attention to Taiwan’s transition from martial law to democracy, ultimately leading to this year’s reelection of President Tsai Ing-wen (left and right).

owadays, in the midst of a pandemic, it’s common to see people in public wearing masks. But that certainly wasn’t the case in 1980 when about 50 Taiwanese Canadians drove from Vancouver to Seattle to hold a demonstration outside a Taiwan government office. They were incensed over a brazen attack on family members of one of the leaders in Taiwan’s pro-democracy movement, Lin Yi-hsiung, who had been arrested and charged with sedition. As Lin was being detained in jail, an unknown assailant broke into his home and stabbed his mother and two of his daughters to death. A third daughter survived. Lin’s wife also survived because she happened to be visiting him in prison when the hit man arrived at their home. Vancouver accountant James H.T. Chou and the other protesters—including PangLiang Chang, Chian-Li Hsu, Dr. Charles Yang, Shing-Kuo Shig, Chung-Yi Lee, and their spouses—believed that the dictatorial Kuomintang (KMT) government was responsible for the slaughter. “We all wore masks covering our face,” Chou recalled in an interview with the Straight. That was because they didn’t want their families back in Taiwan facing any consequences. 6

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

The KMT was led by Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who brought many of his supporters from mainland China after losing the Chinese Civil War to Mao Zedong’s forces. The Vancouver activists were well aware of the KMT’s long history of repression, including a notorious massacre of about 10,000 demonstrators on February 28, 1947. When a Seattle reporter declared that he wouldn’t interview people in masks, Dr. Yang removed his face covering. “He ended up as the speaker leading the protest,” Chou said. “We were all chanting and walking.” The diaspora reacted again in 1984 when a Taiwanese-American reporter, Henry Liu, was murdered in the San Francisco suburb of Daly City after writing a biography criticizing Chiang Kai-shek’s son, then Taiwan president Chiang Ching-kuo. Overseas Taiwanese accused the KMT of ordering the hit. Despite the long-running government crackdown, Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party was formed in 1986. The repression continued until 1987 when martial law was finally lifted and the first democratic presidential election occurred in 1996. Chou said that many in the diaspora tasted freedom for the first time after moving to Canada and the United States to attend school.

SEPTEMBER 3 – 10 / 2020

“I can only humbly suggest that all our efforts put tremendous pressure on the local political institutions [in Taiwan],” he noted.

It only took one generation to dismantle a broken system… – Alicia Chen, Toronto campaign manager for Tsai Ing-wen

The story of Taiwan’s transformation from dictatorship into a vibrant democracy is one of many topics that will be addressed at this year’s TAIWANfest, which begins on Friday (September 5). Under this “Taiwan Model”, authoritarian rule has been replaced by fair elections, free-speaking media, vibrant arts and culture, a thriving indie music community, a world-class health-care system, an energized student movement, and greater respect for Indigenous people and the environment. Taiwan has managed to grow its economy in recent years while

curbing greenhouse gas emissions, and its technological prowess helped prevent any major outbreaks of COVID-19. It’s timely to examine Taiwan’s transition from dictatorship to democracy in light of the rise of authoritarian rule in many other countries. Even in so-called democracies—such as Turkey, India, Hungary, Brazil, and Russia—voters have elected strongman leaders who are clamping down on fundamental freedoms. But perhaps nowhere is the repression greater than in the People’s Republic of China, where more than a million Uyghurs are reportedly confined in camps, Hong Kong faces a clampdown, and Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor are still imprisoned. It’s not out of the question that one day, Taiwan could provide a road map for those seeking the eventual democratization of China. Chou and other Taiwanese nationalists emphasize that a great deal of credit for the island nation’s success in the 21st century should be traced back to former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui, who ruled with the KMT from 1988 to 2000. Lee, who died on July 30, ushered in the first democratic presidential election. “He was really a statesman,” Chou said. “He was so smart. He could see far, far away, setting a goal and knowing how see next page

to get there—with all kinds of twists and turns rather than going in a straight line. I admired him so much.” The current president, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party, was reelected earlier this year to her second term. There’s a Canadian connection to Lee’s rise. One of the first Canadians to live in Taiwan was a Presbyterian missionary, George Leslie Mackay, who was born in Oxford County and took theological training at Knox College in Toronto. He married a Taiwanese woman, learned how to speak Taiwanese fluently, and established health-care facilities and schools, including Tamkang Middle School. According to Taiwanese Canadian Association of Toronto vice president Y-s Columbus Leo, former president Lee attended Tamkang before later obtaining a PhD in agricultural economics at Cornell University. These educational experiences influenced Lee’s values and shaped his appreciation for democracy. Even though the KMT controlled the country from the late 1940s through the 1980s, the government needed Taiwaneseborn technocrats like Lee to run the administration, facilitating his rise to power. “He was among those who just worked hard and was very smart,” Leo said. Leo’s Toronto group is part of an umbrella organization, the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations, which was very active promoting democracy and free speech in Taiwan in the 1980s. According to Leo, the federation bravely decided to hold its

Dr. Bob Tsai and I were tear-gassed, beaten up, and deported. – Taiwanese nationalist Y-s Columbus Leo

international convention in Taiwan in 1988, one year after martial law had been lifted. In its place was a national security law similar to what now exists in Hong Kong. “Many other people said ‘You are nuts. There’s a blacklist. Many of you can’t go back,’” Leo recalled. But they did go back, though some weren’t allowed into the country, including the federation’s president. And Leo spoke in front of a rally of 40,000 people after the conference ended as the acting leader. The following year, the federation returned to Taiwan again. That was the same year as the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, fuelling Taiwanese desires for greater political freedom in their country. Things didn’t go quite as well this time for Leo and an American friend from Houston, Bob Tsai, when they were surrounded by about 400 police officers. “Dr. Bob Tsai and I were tear-gassed, beaten up, and deported,” Leo said.

T AIWANfest KICKS OFF

festival’s “artist talks”, reflecting on his experience as the only Taiwanese member of the famed acrobatic troupe. Charismatic Vancouver conductor Ken Hsieh is scheduled to discuss what goes on in his mind and heart as he leads an orchestra. Other speakers include PuSh Festival founder Norman Armour, children’s musician Ginalina, and 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad artistic director Robert Kerr. The Asian-Canadian Special Events Association, which organizes the festival, has also lined up a series of “hope talks”. Among the presenters will be UBC department of Asian studies professor Bruce Rusk and scientist Tse-Yi Wang.

Virus of Unintended Aggression by Lady Hao Hao is one of the artworks featured.

VANCOUVER’S ANNUAL EXPLORATION of Taiwanese identity,

TAIWANfest, has gone virtual this year, with a smorgasbord of video presentations delving into arts, culture, food, film, literature, and current affairs. It begins on Saturday (September 5) and runs through to September 27. Former Cirque du Soleil member Hsing-Ho Chen will deliver one of the

In addition, conductor Nicholas Urquhart will lead Vancouver’s Harmonia orchestra, which will be joined Taiwan’s Indigenous Chin-Ai String Orchestra in a digital premiere that reaches across the Pacific Ocean. It will all be available on the TAIWANfest YouTube and Facebook pages. For more information—and to view visual arts by Lady Hao Hao, Mina Lu, and Tong Zhou— visit VancouverTAIWANfest.ca. g by Charlie Smith

Vancouver accountant James H.T. Chou was part of the diaspora that fought martial law.

Later that year, Leo returned to Taiwan, where he was again arrested, beaten, and imprisoned. He was charged under the national security law and sedition for advocating Taiwan’s independence. TAIWANfest will feature videos showcasing three bookstores in Taiwan, including one that played a pivotal role in helping the country on its road to freedom. The Tonsan Bookstore in Taipei was established by Chen Lung-hao in 1982, providing the city’s intellectuals with what they needed to know to advance the cause of democracy. “The owner is actually Hakka,” TAIWANfest organizer Charlie Wu told the Straight. “He’s by nature very conservative, trying to do his business. But at the same time, he knows what people want.” Wu added that Tonsan was kind of messy in the 1980s, enabling the store to “disguise its secrets” from the authorities. In addition, TAIWANfest will present videos of two other bookstores in Taiwan, the hypermodern Duzu and Causeway Bay Books, which is operated by a Hong Kong bookseller in exile after being arrested and then released in China. “We talk to the store owners [in the videos] so people can get a feel of the bookstore culture—the literary arts community in Taiwan—and how that has played a role in Taiwanese democratization over the years,” Wu said. He emphasized that the term “Taiwan Model” does not just refer to politics. It also reflects artistic and cultural freedom. “People are free to express,” Wu declared. “People are free to create. And you can see that by what is coming out of Taiwan.” Toronto artist and curator Alicia Chen decided in 2014 to devote her life to enhancing Taiwanese democracy. This year, she became Tsai’s Toronto campaign manager, organizing more than 400 people to attend a fundraising event. Chen has been particularly impressed by Tsai’s strong support for

same-sex marriage, which she followed up with groundbreaking legislation. “It only took one generation to dismantle a broken system and grant the Taiwanese people their inalienable human rights,” Chen told the Straight. “With the reelection of a female leader, it provides concrete hope for women seeking their chance to break the glass ceiling.” However, there remains a great deal of concern among Taiwanese people that China’s president, Xi Jinping, is intent on absorbing the independent island nation into the People’s Republic of China. That would restore the boundaries of China before the first Opium War from 1839 to 1842, which resulted in Hong Kong being ceded to Britain. Taiwanese nationalists like the recently deceased historian Su Beng, on the other hand, insist that their country was never truly part of China—it was simply colonized by the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as by Chiang Kai-shek. Moreover, the Dutch, Spanish, and Japanese also colonized Taiwan at different times in its history, but it’s now an independent nation with its own national assembly that answers to no one but the people living on the island. So could the Taiwan Model ever come to fruition in mainland China, which is currently under the thumb of dictatorial rule? While Xi has changed the rules to enable him to govern the country for the rest of his life, some cracks are beginning to show. For example, a former teacher at China’s elite Central Party School, Cai Xia, recently declared that Xi has “killed the party” by seizing all power. According to her, that’s leading to huge mistakes, including the COVID-19 pandemic, that’s causing countries around the world to look upon China as an enemy. “China is bound to go through political transformation, toward democracy, political freedom, rule of law, and constitutionalism,” Xia recently told the Guardian. “This is the inevitable trend of modern human political civilization. China will enter this stage sooner or later.” Leo also shares this belief. He said it’s human nature to continue to search for something better. “In China, many people live in fear,” Leo pointed out. “They’re not really happy. It’s not enough if people are well fed, they can do all kinds of shopping, and they can go on tours. If there are restrictions on your movement, restrictions on your thought, there will always be resistance. There will always be a quest for changes.” James H.T. Chou, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as optimistic. He believes that the Chinese Communist Party has brainwashed two generations since the Cultural Revolution into believing that Taiwan is part of China, notwithstanding its history. “Anything that Taiwan did, or continued to do, with a Taiwan-centred identity would be very, very, very difficult for Chinese people to embrace,” Chou said. “I don’t know how many generations it would take.” g

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TAIWANfest

I’m a Taiwanese Canadian, not a Chinese Canadian On the eve of TAIWANfest, the organizer explains why he’s not willing to be pigeonholed about his identity

by Charlie Wu

all me Taiwanese, please! In 2006, I was named as one of the top 100 influential Chinese Canadians in B.C. by the Vancouver Sun. Then-premier Gordon Campbell sent me a letter of congratulation. Would I prefer to be on a top Taiwanese-Canadian list? Absolutely. The term Chinese Canadian was so loosely used and often very generalized that there was no choice to say “no” at the time, and I wasn’t brave enough to do so. The reality is that when one is referred to by an identity with which one isn’t comfortable, it shouldn’t be used at all. Fast forward to 2020. There was a campaign launched against anti-Chinese sentiment in B.C., and I was asked to endorse it. I asked the organizer if it would be okay if I could sign as a Taiwanese Canadian; I was respectfully declined. This time, I felt so true to myself. I thought a campaign to raise the awareness of discrimination should actually address the hidden or rarely discussed discrimination within the Chinese-speaking community. After a few years of “Dialogue with Asia” at TAIWANfest—where I have had plenty of opportunities to speak with other Asian communities such as Hong Kongers, Japanese, Filipinos, and Vietnamese—I think it is time for me to really stick with my Taiwanese label. Continuing to tolerate the generalization is simply wrong after learning the problem isn’t just for Taiwanese only. Before I go further, do I have any problems if people wish to call themselves Chinese or Chinese Canadian? Absolutely not. I respect their right to choose their own identity. I often see people add pronouns to their names. Most people don’t get to choose their names when they are born, but they

First, be mindful of your own stereotypes toward anything Chinese. – Charlie Wu

Charlie Wu, managing director of the Asian-Canadian Special Events Association, has no problem with others calling themselves Chinese Canadians. It’s just not a label that he wants to wear.

should be able to decide how they want to be referred to. The complexity of an identity is always an emotional and sometimes political issue. It is so hard to tell people a life story every time one is introducing themselves; it is also really hard to correct people when their references make you uncomfortable and the focus of the discussion isn’t about identity. The public has little time to learn about these complexities, or most don’t care to make the differentiation. However, should

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the very people who are advocating for harmony in diversity or protecting people from hatred—such as governments, institutions, charitable organizations, or media outlets— continue to be naive about this issue? What’s wrong with being called Chinese Canadian? For some, this is almost the same as a Canadian being called British or French. Other than the language I speak, I just don’t identify with the Chinese label, or China. It is even harder for me to identify as Chinese when most people accept China’s version of what Taiwan is, despite the constant military threats China is making against Taiwan. Moreover, many Chinese Canadians would even argue in the same way as the Chinese government: forcing Taiwanese to call themselves Chinese. I know that Taiwanese people share some customs and traditions deemed Chinese, but so do Koreans, Vietnamese, or Japanese. Taiwanese people love many Chinese art forms, including calligraphy and food, but so do Koreans, Vietnamese, and Japanese. Beyond those traditions, Taiwanese people also celebrate their Indigenous heritage just like Canada. Taiwan, as a thriving democratic society, has seen wave after wave of doers, thinkers, and leaders who are inspired to

be different from Chinese. I have nothing against Chinese culture or Chinese people, just like many Canadians. In this year’s TAIWANfest, we have worked with Chinese-born and Toronto-based artist Tong Zhou on his new work, (Un) Being Chinese, an interesting perspective for anyone who wants to dive further into defining the meaning of being Chinese. We visited scientists and scholars who would help us see perspectives on Taiwan and China, people whose views would be prohibited in China. Lastly, we invited speakers who could actually see the “Taiwan model” as a path for China, a provocative thought that should be discussed more frequently. If there is a year for people interested to know why the Taiwanese deserve a separate mention from the Chinese, this is it. I am proud to be part of a movement that aims to carve out a space for the Taiwanese people in the world. There are two things you could really do to help this movement. First, be mindful of your own stereotypes toward anything Chinese. Ask more questions and have more discussions before making up your mind. Second, if you must make a general reference, refer to the Chinese community as the “Chinese-speaking community”, because the community is too complex and consists of people from far too many places. The only thing they have in common is probably the languages used in the community. I trust most of my fellow Canadians are very supportive of allowing people to determine their identities. I hope this iteration of TAIWANfest makes those decisions easier. g Charlie Wu is managing director of the AsianCanadian Special Events Association, which organizes the annual TAIWANfest in Vancouver. Many of this year’s events take place from Saturday to Monday (September 5 to 7), but other presentations will continue to September 27 on the TAIWANfest Facebook and YouTube channels. For more information, visit vancouvertaiwanfest.ca.

TAIWANfest

Classic Taiwanese dish gets Canadian twist

by Charlie Smith

long with the rise of democracy in Taiwan, there has been an increase in environmental consciousness. According to a 2015 Brookings Institution paper, one of the main tenets of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party from its inception has been environmental protection. And although the government’s record has been far from perfect, President Tsai Ing-wen has pledged to close down nuclear power plants and pursue sustainable alternatives, turning the country into Asia’s “green-energy hub”. This environmental ethic will also be on display at TAIWANfest, which begins in Vancouver on Saturday (September 5). And it will be centred in the kitchen, thanks to a local blogger. Felicia, a young Canadian-born woman with Taiwanese parents, doesn’t divulge her surname on her Feliciasfabfoodz, preferring to only use her given name. Her blog includes dozens of recipes for colourful creations suited to anyone with a hankering for healthy foods. “I don’t really like to label my diet, but I do eat mostly plant-based,” Felicia told the Straight by phone. “I also eat mostly gluten-free and refined sugar–free.” For TAIWANfest, she is creating an

Three-cup chicken has been converted into three-cup tofu poutine in time for TAIWANfest.

alternative to a traditional Taiwanese dish known as three-cup chicken. She’s going to replace the meat with tofu for a famous Canadian creation, poutine, in a form of food fusion that’s never been tried before. “I thought that this three-cup chicken— or tofu—would go really well on top of fries,” Felicia said. “I want to show people how versatile tofu is and how there are so many different things you can do with it. A lot of people tend to think it’s bland or just boring.” Felicia is a ballet dancer, and she readily conceded that she hasn’t always had a

healthy relationship with food. “I always like to order the weirdest thing on the menu,” she declared. “I guess I just had to work really hard on trying to find a balance by eating foods that I know have more nutritional value and will make me and my body feel better while tasting as good as the real stuff.” This isn’t the only healthy-food component of TAIWANfest. In addition to Felicia’s presentations, the festival will broadcast the story of a Taiwanese “soy sauce engineer”, Kuo Pin Wu, who uses no additives in the brewing process. His family has been making Wan Feng Soy Sauce for three generations; according to the festival, he kept black beans by his bedside, caring for them like a girlfriend. Perhaps this explains the title of his presentation: “I have a date with soy sauce”. “He developed his own programs to meticulously record bacteria growth and the fermentation process,” the TAIWANfest website states. “His programs also allowed him to precisely control the water quality, humidity, and temperature to create the perfect environment for the soy sauce. He insists on the traditional method of fermenting soy sauce, as it is good for the body and environment.” g

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DRINKS

Red Bull gives your carbonated cocktails a jolt

by Mike Usinger

hen it comes to polarizing the public, few beverages do a more effective job than energy drinks. Typically, generational divides factor in big time. And that’s perfectly understandable. Loosely speaking, those 40 and older rely on pick-me-ups that have endured over the ages, major ones being coffee, chocolate, B12 vitamins, cigarettes, and giant piles of Scarface-brand blow. Strangely, those who’ll argue that God wouldn’t have put all those things on the planet Earth if she didn’t want us hoovering them are often the first to get on their high horses about energy drinks. For some reason older generations often see energy drinks as Lucifer’s liquid, Succubus’s soda, or Philatanus’s pop. As for the rest of us, the reality is that energy drinks have become something to embrace. Consider them go-go juice for getting over the 3 p.m. hump during the Monday-to-Friday grind. And perfect for launching one’s own living-room party at 2 a.m., the shotgunning of three cans followed by pushing back the sofa and cranking up “Fuck ’Em All” by the Geto Boys. Anyhow... Energy drinks. There are plenty of them out there. But for this Liquor Nerd,

Red Bull comes in many flavours, making it a particularly versatile mixer for liquor nerds.

there’s only one brand in the fridge: Red Bull. And while those might sound like the words of someone who’s being paid to say that: wrong. Over the years Red Bull has been the go-to drink before pick-up ice hockey games, late-night writing sessions, and bring-on-the-sunset bangers. But we’re supposed to be talking liquor here, so let’s bring things around to that. Popular opinion is that the ’70s marked the death of cocktail culture as it had existed for decades. Blame disco for a couple of reasons. When your great-great grandpar-

ents hit Studio 54 to spend the night ripping it up on the dancefloor, they wanted something to cool them down. As for the bartenders of the era, given that the lineups for drinks stretched back to New Jersey, quick and efficient was key—which is to say that a rum and Coke or vodka and 7-Up was far easier to execute than a Ramos Gin Fizz or a Commonwealth Cocktail with Namibian prickly pear fruit, wild Scottish strawberries, and 69 other ingredients. Like 7-Up, Coke, tonic water, and club soda, Red Bull is all about the carbonation. And that makes it an easy way to put a twist on your favourite cocktail. That Red Bull comes in a rainbow of flavours these days adds additional ammunition to your arsenal. Red Bull and Vodka is the standard in clubs from Iowa to Ibiza. Looking for a slightly more summery way to celebrate? Go with a light Bacardi and Red Bull Peach-Nectarine or Watermelon. A healthy splash of Appleton Estate with Red Bull Coconut Berry or Red Bull Tropical, meanwhile, is like being on the beaches of Jamaica, only without having to worry about getting sand in your crack or COVID-19 at the buffet table. Why Red Bull and liquor? Well, unless you’re a U.K. soccer hooligan, alcohol can

sometimes make you sleepy. Because it gives you wings—it must be the taurine (an amino sulfonic acid)—Red Bull gives you a bit of get-up-and-go when your energy has got up and gone. Kind of like a trip to Starbucks, only you don’t end up with downing three ounces of whipped cream because the barista was incapable of following simple goddamn instructions. Here’s a drink that you can make with Red Bull. With roots in Saint Patrick’s day, it’s also perfect for embracing your inner soccer hooligan. IRISH TRASH CAN

1/2 oz gin 1/2 oz light rum 1/2 oz vodka 1/2 oz Blue Curacao 1/2 oz triple sec 1/2 oz peach schnapps 1 can Red Bull classic Pour all liquor into a glass full of ice. Slowly add full can of Red Bull so it seeps down the side. Position empty can at an angle in the top of the glass. g Mike Usinger is not a professional bartender. He does, however, spend most of his waking hours sitting on barstools.

Wines to put some joy in the sad end of summer

by Gail Johnson

and other pleasing green fruits. This no-vintage sparkling wine from the Okanagan Falls winery features Chardonnay Musque, an aromatic and floral Chardonnay clone. Serve it with sushi, tapenade and crackers, burrata-andtomato salad, or sunshine. Okanagan Crush Pad’s Bizou + Yukon pretty-in-palepink sparkler, BEE-zoo Bubbles 2018 ($24.90), is vibrant and medium-bodied and best served with shellfish of all kinds.

o some, Labour Day signals the end of summer, which is, frankly, a bit of a bummer, especially since fall doesn’t officially start until September 22. We see it as an opportunity to celebrate and discover some new British Columbia wines. Here are a few suggestions to help you make the most of the long weekend. TAKE YOUR TIME

Fondly remembered as the godfather of B.C.’s modern wine industry, the late Harry McWatters was the CEO and president of Penticton’s Time Winery, Evolve Cellars, and McWatters Collection. He was also the founding chair of several notable organizations you might have heard of, like VQA Canada and the British Columbia Hospitality Foundation. While his daughters Christa-Lee and Darrien remain actively involved in operations, Five Vines Cellars recently took over ownership of the three brands. And McWatters’s legacy lives on. He launched his namesake label in 2011 with two wines—a Chardonnay and a red Meritage blend—made with premium grapes picked at peak ripeness and aged in small French oak casks. Production remains limited, at fewer than 1,000 cases per year. The 2017 McWatters Meritage ($34.99) consists of 50 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 35 percent Merlot, and 15 percent Cabernet Franc. It’s big, bold, smooth, and evocative of all the wild blackberries you can still pick if you have the tenacity. Grilled peppers, eggplant, asparagus, and hanger steak would go quite nicely with this handsome red. 12

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NUMEROUS SHADES OF NOIR

McWatters Meritage is made from grapes picked at their peak ripeness and then carefully aged in small French oak casks.

SPARKLING PERSONALITIES

Why not break out the bubbles to toast the long weekend? Evolve Cellars’ Effervescence ($19.99) is light, fresh, and a smidge sweet, made of 70 percent Pinot Blanc and 30 percent Chardonnay. Hester Creek has just launched its first vintage of a Prosecco-style sparkling wine, the 2019 Ti Amo ($19.99). With a limited production of just 300 cases, it’s made primarily of Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer, along with a teeny bit of Semillon, the estate-grown grapes picked by hand early to maintain their acidity. Slightly sweet, it makes for easy pairings: try it with olives or a lemony prawn pasta. Liquidity Wines’ Bubbly ($23) is refreshingly tasty and slightly off-dry, bringing to mind pears and honeydew

Pinot Noir is becoming increasingly popular in B.C., and several wineries are winning people over with their masterful handling of the fruit known as the heartbreak grape. La Frenz 2018 Reserve Pinot Noir ($34.70) won double gold in the 2020 All Canadian Wine Championships, and no wonder with its gorgeous texture and deep, earthy flavours. Blue Mountain Vineyard and Cellars’ Pinot Noir program comprises three single-vineyard releases and two blends. Slightly smoky and oh so elegant, the Reserve Cuvée Pinot Noir 2018 ($45) is made of grapes from vines at least 25 years old from the Okanagan Falls winery’s three key Pinot Noir vineyards. Township 7 Vineyards and Winery is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and is on its third vintage of Pinot Noir. The 2018 is proving to be juicy, complex, and redolent of cherries. Finally, Kelowna’s Cedar Creek Estate Winery’s 2018 Home Block Platinum Pinot Noir Clonal Set ($135) comprises a trio of wines made of clones that were developed in Dijon and date back to the 1950s. g

FaZe family lands the spawn of NBA royalty with “Bronny” James

ESPORTS

Canada named a cheating hotbed for ESports by John Lucas

by John Lucas

ESports fans will cheat the system. Photo by Sergey Nazarov/iStock/Getty Images Plus.

LeBron James Jr. is not only a basketball player but also a gamer. Photo by FaZe Clan.

ost high-school basketball players don’t have their own Wikipedia entries, but then most high-school basketball players aren’t LeBron Raymone “Bronny” James Jr. In case his name didn’t give it away, James is the son of NBA superstar LeBron James. Moreover, you probably won’t be shocked to learn that Bronny is already, at the age of 15, a shit-hot basketball player. His dad has been keeping college scouts at bay since the kid was 10. Given that he’s a teenager in 2020, it’s even less shocking that Bronny enjoys video games. In fact, he has his own Twitch channel, with some 330,000 followers. He also has 4.3 million followers on Donald Trump’s favourite app, TikTok. On August 30, via Twitter, FaZe Clan cemented Bronny’s connection to the gaming world when it introduced him as its newest member. James’s precise role within the professional ESports organization remains to be seen. SI.com speculates that “James has streamed Fortnite, Warzone and NBA 2K and could create content for FaZe Clan on those titles and others.” Bronny isn’t the first basketballer to join the FaZe family. This news comes hot on the heels of an announcement that Philadelphia 76er Ben “Simmo” Simmons had joined FaZe Clan as an investor. “Gaming is an important part of my life, and so it was a natural progression to personally invest in this industry,” Simmons said in a statement. “FaZe Clan represents the pinnacle of the gaming culture, and I am really looking forward to connecting with new fans around the globe.” In June of last year, then Portland Trail Blazers centre Meyers Leonard joined FaZe Clan as an investor and content creator. Leonard currently plays for the Miami Heat. g

ongratulations, Canada! When it comes to League of Legends, you came out on top. The top of the list of cheating countries, that is. Actually, that’s not quite fair. According to Cheating Countries—a study of cheating in ESports—gamers in Brazil, Greece, and Bulgaria are the most likely to cheat in LoL. The True North Strong and Free, however, has the distinction of being the country with the highest use of cheat codes. The Internet gambling portal Ruby Fortune collected data on about a dozen popular online multiplayer games. These include such titles as LoL, Minecraft, World of Tanks, Overwatch, and Rocket League. THE TOP 10

As it turns out, Canadians shouldn’t feel too bad. Canada sits at 43rd in the overall ranking of countries most likely to cheat. According to Ruby Fortune, these 10 countries have the highest density of cheaters: 1. Brazil 2. Georgia 3. Iraq 4. Pakistan 5. Portugal 6. Greece 7. Bulgaria 8. Algeria 9. Romania 10. Azerbaijan Gamers are most likely to cheat while playing Minecraft, according to the study, followed by League of Legends, Fortnite, Roblox, and Apex Legends. As it has with everything else in the world of ESports, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people cheat. Ruby Fortune reports that the likelihood of gamers cheating rose exponentially during lockdown. Search-engine queries for videogame bots rose by 104 percent between February and June of this year. Searches for hacks went up by 40 percent, while cheatcode searches rose 22.3 percent. Wondering how Ruby Fortune arrived at these conclusions? It’s a relevant question, given that one of the defining

characteristics of a cheater is inherent dishonesty. So you can’t just survey gamers and expect the full, undiluted truth. As it turns out, they googled it. “Cheating Countries analyses search trend and search volume data to reveal where in the world is most likely to cheat while playing online multiplayer video games,” says the Ruby Fortune website. “The report looks at the frequency of search engine queries for the most-played video games and measures them against searches for related cheat codes, hacks and bots, to show which country has the highest density of cheaters, and which cheat categories are the most popular in each location.

Scan to conffess

“Countries featured are the 100 biggest based on population size and are adjusted according to data availability. Games featured are the most played online multiplayer titles over the last year, and are also adjusted based on data availability. Data is gathered from ahrefs and Google Trends and looks at the most recent figures available.” g

MORE ESPORTS ONLINE AT ECENTRALSPORTS.COM

The Georgia Straight Confessions, an outlet for submitting revelations about your private lives—or for the voyeurs among us who want to read what other people have disclosed.

Smuggy McSmuggypants I smile and nod when you people are virtually screaming your smugness into my face, but inside I’m barely restraining myself from slapping you silly. If I have to listen to one more self-congratulatory rant about how incredibly positive and strong and happy and basically perfect you think you are, I may just start screaming and not stop. What blows my mind about the people that I know who keep doing this is that they freely admit that they don’t deal with many of the problems that the people they feel so superior to, have to deal with. One person hasn’t had depression, and they assume that anyone who does is just a slacker, or they’re lazy. Another person has never had to cope with a weight problem. They’re smugly talking about how fit they are and that they can eat whatever they like, assuming that anyone who does have a weight problem is just a lazy slacker again. They give no thought at all to the various complexities of health, and to the fact that they don’t know everything about anyone else’s situation. ...(con’t @straight.com)

Crossroads It’s not often I come to them and have seemingly good options in all directions. Not from luck, but from paying attention the last few months. Introverting and sleeping, not trying to make a summer happen and pissing money away. Cautiously optimistic for winter. That’s a first. I feel young.

Watering Dead Plants That’s what online dating feels like to me. People seem to hide behind texting instead of talking on the phone or meeting face to face as soon as possible. The end result is hours of wasted time texting someone I don’t even know. I feel like I have to continue texting to maintain the connection before we are able to make plans to meet.

Visit

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LABOUR DAY

Organized B.C. workers still facing serious issues Teacher safety, temporary layoffs, asbestos exposure, and unsafe work are among the major concerns

by Charlie Smith

ormally, there’s a plethora of Labour Day events taking place across Metro Vancouver on the first weekend in September. That’s not the case this year, obviously. And that has CUPE B.C. president Paul Faoro, along with many others in the labour movement, feeling a little sad. “It might sound corny, but community Labour Day events bring the full spectrum of the union movement together in one place like no other annual event, and they give us time to appreciate our shared values,” Faoro wrote on his union’s website. Those shared values have been on display during the pandemic, as both publicand private-sector workers have stepped up to continue serving the public in the face of a deadly virus. “The success of B.C.’s economic recovery is going to depend on workers, just as our successful fight against the pandemic has depended on workers,” Faoro noted in his essay. “Whether public or private sector, unionized or not, it’s workers who will dig us out of this pandemic.”

for one-third of all deaths linked to employment. The B.C. Insulators Union and the B.C. Federation of Labour have been calling for licensing of asbestos-removal contractors and consultants, but that hasn’t occurred yet. COMMUNITY BENEFITS AGREEMENTS

Last year, Vancouver hotel workers were upset with their employers, prompting a lengthy strike; this year, some believe that the B.C. government is protecting the bosses. Photo by Charlie Smith.

Even if there aren’t public gatherings of workers on Labour Day, there are still serious issues facing the movement. Here’s a summary of some of the major concerns in B.C.

ASBESTOS

Asbestos exposure is the leading killer of workers in this province. According to WorkSafe B.C., there were 47 of these workrelated deaths in B.C in 2018. That accounted

The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, which represents many nonunionized employers, and many other parties recently lost a case in the B.C. Court of Appeal concerning these agreements. The appellants wanted to set aside a contractual term that workers building the new Pattullo Bridge must be or become members of the B.C. Building Trades. The legal action was filed shortly after a community benefits agreement was executed, according to the court ruling. However, the ICBA is not likely to give up—and if the B.C. Liberals win the next election, this provision could easily be jettisoned. What the opponents of community benefits agreements often fail to mention is that when the B.C. Liberals were see next page

HAPPY LABOUR DAY ON LABOUR DAY

LET’S RECOGNIZE OUR NURSES AND ALL WORKERS

from your Members of Parliament

www.bcnu.org Workplace safety has never been more important. Nurses continue working long hours delivering safe patient care when British Columbians need it most. Please do your part by following public health guidelines to help keep us all safe.

President, BC Nurses’ Union

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The Honourable

HARJIT SAJJAN

JOYCE MURRAY

Vancouver South

Vancouver Quadra

604.775.5323

604.664.9220

Harjit.Sajjan@parl.gc.ca

Joyce.Murray@parl.gc.ca

in power, there were far fewer women, Indigenous, and disabled people working on public construction projects than will be the case with these community benefits agreements in place.

We all want to get back to a place where every student is in school…

PAID SICK LEAVE

The B.C. Federation of Labour has launched a petition calling on Premier John Horgan and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to improve sick leave for nonunionized workers. One of the demands is that businesses provide at least 10 days of paid sick leave for workers who have to self-isolate due to COVID-19 or who have to take care of an ill family member. “For all other illnesses, require businesses to ensure every worker starts with a minimum of 3 days of paid sick leave a year and accrues additional time based on how much they work—one hour of paid sick leave for every 35 hours worked up to 52 hours of additional paid sick leave,” the petition states. “So a full time worker would get 10 days of paid sick leave a year.” REFUSING UNSAFE WORK

The B.C. Nurses’ Union is one of several unions that has raised serious concerns about safety in the workplace during the pandemic. According to a BCNU survey of more than 3,000 members, nurses “continue to struggle with having unfettered access to the critical PPE [personal protective equipment] they require to keep themselves,

– BCTF president Teri Mooring

Labour Minister Harry Bains came under criticism from hotel workers for extending temporarylayoff deadlines, enabling some employers to delay paying severance. Photo by B.C. government.

their patients and their colleagues safe”. “If a worker believes that there is a hazard to their safety present in their workplace which could place them at undue risk of harm, they may refuse unsafe work,” the BCNU states on its website. “It is very important to note that the right to refuse unsafe work may be exercised solely at the workers’ decision and that there is a prohibition against discriminatory or retaliatory action by an employer or supervisor in the event of a refusal of unsafe work.” SAFE SCHOOLS

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation has called on the provincial government to mandate smaller class sizes and stricter rules around

wearing masks inside public schools when they reopen this month. The federal government has promised to provide the province with $242 million to help restart schools safely. But BCTF president Teri Mooring has claimed that the Ministry of Education did not do enough consultation with stakeholders to ensure that this money was put to the best use. “We all want to get back to a place where every student is in school learning, socializing, and celebrating those ‘a-ha’ moments. It’s why we teach,” Mooring said in a recent union news release. “The pandemic, however, has changed everything and it’s not going away. We need to do things differently and that starts with making sure staff

and students can actually achieve physical distancing in our schools and classrooms. Under the government’s current plan, that physical distancing just isn’t possible.” TEMPORARY LAYOFFS

On August 31, hunger strikers held a media briefing outside the Surrey constituency office of Labour Minister Harry Bains. Members of Unite Here! Local 40 are upset about the B.C. government extending temporary layoff provisions. If a majority of workers agree to this, it can delay severance payments to everyone in a workplace without giving them a legal right to return to their jobs. Last autumn, Local 40 members won major concessions from four downtown Vancouver hotels after a lengthy strike. However, less than a year later, the union says hotels are firing their long-term, laid-off staff even as the tourism industry is seeking a $680-million government bailout. g

Paul Faoro, President Trevor Davies, Secretary Treasurer CUPE.BC.CA

SEPTEMBER 3 – 10 / 2020

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

MUSIC / ARTS

Indigenous music fest fosters tolerance, safety

by Charlie Smith

usicians form bands for many reasons. They might want to go on tour and earn some money, make an album, or simply enjoy the creative sparks that come from playing off one another. Some teenage boys think it might help make them more popular with girls. But Meeka Morgan’s band might be the only one in British Columbia that was born out of a 183-page master’s thesis. It investigated how the Secwepemc people in the B.C. Interior maintained a sense of family in the 1950s and 1960s despite children being forced to attend church-run residential schools, often hundreds of miles from their homes. Morgan, born to a Secwepemc father and NuuChah-Nulth mother, had a personal connection to this. Her father, Terry Morgan, attended the St. Joseph’s Mission near Williams Lake, where unspeakable abuse was meted out by its principal, Hubert O’Connor, who later became a Catholic bishop in Prince George. “I did my master’s thesis on impacts on families of my dad’s generation,” Morgan tells the Straight by phone from her home in Ashcroft. Her band, the Melawmen Collective, was launched as an arts project in 2008 to provide workshops to Indigenous youths. Morgan was keen to teach them local First Nations history that wasn’t well-known at the time. “They would process it through creative means, whether they would do writing, art, or music,” Morgan explains. Eventually, that led the members to begin creating their own music—a mix of rock, country, jazz, reggae, blues, and country laden with hip-hop beats. In addition to Morgan, the lead singer, are her husband Rob Hall on guitar, beat boxer Geo Ignace (a.k.a. The Voice), and in recent years, Morgan and Hall’s 20-year-old son, Kiva. “Of course, it’s always hard to keep a band together, especially in small, rural towns,” Morgan added. “So we often have revolving bass players.” Nowadays, Morgan is also the artistic director of the third annual 2 Rivers Remix, a contemporary Indigenous music festival that normally takes place in Lytton, a.k.a. ’Q’emcin. This year, it’s a virtual series of shows featuring more than 30 musicians, running from Friday to Sunday (September 4 to 6). Headlining the festival are Buffy Sainte-Marie, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, and Kinnie Starr. “We’ve always wanted to bring Buffy,” Morgan says.

Meeka Morgan, artistic director of 2 Rivers Remix, wants First Nations youths to know their history. Photo by Billy Jean Gabriel.

The Melawmen Collective is also scheduled to perform, along with Vancouver MC Ostwelve (a.k.a. Ron Dean Harris), Vancouver-based Curtis Clear Sky & the Constellationz, the Inuit throat-singing duo PiqSiq, two-spirit singer-songwriter Shawnee, and female rapper Eekwol, among others. “What we’re working towards, what we’ve always been working towards, is creating an environment that is Indigenous-led, centred, and focused, that creates a feeling of acceptance, tolerance, and safety for the many generations of Indigenous people,” Morgan says. She cites her father as an example. He attended the event in July 2019, two months before his death. “It was probably the last music festival he went to,” Morgan recalls. “And it was the first time that I ever witnessed him be comfortable in a public situation. He was a residential-school survivor.”

The name 2 Rivers Remix refers to the Thompson and Fraser rivers, which were at the centre of a great deal of conflict during the 19th-century gold rush. Many British Columbians are unaware of the Fraser Canyon War, which was waged by U.S. gold miners against Indigenous people in the summer of 1858. The Nlaka’pamux agreed to a truce, allowing the miners to continue through the territory in search of precious metal. “It almost became another state of the United States—if it wasn’t for Chief Spintlum,” Morgan said. That was followed by a smallpox pandemic, which wiped out a large share of B.C.’s Indigenous population. Morgan has been involved in the Indigenous sovereignty movement since childhood, so she’s well-aware of this history. Her father was very close to legendary B.C. Indigenous leader George Manuel, who cofounded the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. In fact, Manuel used to refer to her dad as his “fifth son”, she tells the Straight. And in the 1990s, Morgan worked alongside Manuel’s son, widely admired Indigenous sovereignist Arthur Manuel, and his friend, Mohawk intellectual Russell Diabo. “They strongly believed in bringing…youth that were working with them everywhere…and [to] sit beside them with those meetings with government representatives,” Morgan recalls. She thinks it’s not accurate when people talk about an Indigenous resurgence or an Indigenous comeback in the 21st century, notwithstanding the great strides being made in many fields. “I feel it could be expressed differently—as a continued assertion of culture, identity, territory, and homeland,” she says. “Our culture was very much built and based on reciprocity. Anyone who came into our lands were treated as a guest. “The Indigenous nations, especially in meetings, really had some beautiful visions of working together with the people that came onto these lands,” Morgan continues. “They had a beautiful dream that we could make this country great and good. And they went through many steps to continue that assertion, but it hasn’t been presented that way.” g To register for free to see 2 Rivers Remix from Friday to Sunday (September 4 to 6), go to VirtualFeast.ca.

From web series to podcasts, Studio 58’s going digital

by Janet Smith

tudio 58 has announced a digital fall season that spans everything from livestreaming to podcasts and a radio play. The professional theatre training program at Langara College has announced a series of five shows for autumn 2020, all of which will be free online to the public. The season kicks off with a strippeddown ensemble production of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House directed by Laara Sadiq, October 4 to 11. It livestreams on Facebook and YouTube. A Risky Nights installment called fort then runs live on Zoom from October 22 16

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

Studio 58 theatre students play with different platforms this fall. Illustration by Emily Cooper.

to 25. Described as an interactive digital experience, it invites audience members at home to participate in a communal

SEPTEMBER 3 – 10 / 2020

construction of personal fortified spaces, using household objects around them. Celebrating it’s 20th year, the reimagined-for-COVID-times Risky Nights series has fourth-term students creating and performing every aspect of an original theatre piece with professional directors. Angelica Schwartz and Stephanie Wong (from theatre collective happy/accidents) return to direct. In November, the students launch a web series pilot called The Watch on YouTube. It’s written by and filmed with recent graduates of Langara’s filmarts program. The mockumentary-style

comedy has a group of rag-tag citizens putting together a neighbourhood watch program. A podcast showcase happens on November 20. Created by Colin Murdock, Aaron Bushkowsky, and Josué Menjivar, it involves students in the scriptwriting. Finally, Theatre: The Play, written and directed by Ryan Beil and Mark Chavez, livestreams on Facebook and YouTube from November 24 to 29. The cheeky ode to the theatre world takes place at the Nearlake Theatre Festival & Bar & Grill, which may have to shut down if the troupe can’t produce a hit show. g

ARTS

Polygon exhibit takes viewers into Asia’s art explosion Third Realm curator Davide Quadrio draws photo and video work from crucial era in China and beyond by Janet Smith

In Third Realm’s collection of work from 2004 to 2019, Cao Fei works with Second Life avatar China Tracy in RMB City Opera: But Sometimes I Confuse, part of a series critiquing Chinese consumerism amid its economic boom; at right, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Ghost Teen (detail) refers to a bloody history of oppression in northwestern Thailand. Art courtesy FarEastFarWest collection.

urator Davide Quadrio traces his fascination with Asia and its artworks back to being 13 in Italy, when two magazine spreads caught his eye. One was of Japanese butoh dancers, “moving around Tokyo like corpses”; the other, in National Geographic, showcased ornately costumed Tibetan dancers. Later, as he entered adulthood, he became hooked on studying Mandarin. “When you start to look at the letters—it is art,” he says, speaking over Zoom to the Straight from the countryside outside Milan. “For me, Chinese was the perfect language.” Quadrio has been holed up in Italy with his family during the pandemic, marking the first time that he’s spent more than three weeks away from Asia in decades. He’s reflecting on what took him to Shanghai and the Far East as a young man in the 1990s—a journey that would coincide not only with a time of unimaginable, warpspeed sociopolitical change in Asia, but also with one of the world’s greatest contemporary-art explosions. And he brings some of the highlights of his work with groundbreaking artists from across Asia to the Polygon Gallery this month as part of the exhibit Third Realm. Studies in Chinese art at university in Venice led Quadrio to China, first exploring remote parts of eastern Tibet that were still closed to most foreigners, then heading to Shanghai, where he held exhibits in temporary places while establishing himself as a painter. By 1998-99, Shanghai was not only entering a period of unprecedented growth, but it was ground zero for a new movement of young media artists in their

early 20s. Their work reacted to and captured the momentous shifts and economic prosperity around them. Quadrio founded and directed the first not-for-profit independent creative lab in Shanghai, Bizart Art Center, as a platform to foster the local contemporary art scene. A decade later, in 2007, he helped establish the Shanghai-based FarEastFarWest, which commissions and acquires contemporary artworks from China as well as Thailand, Japan, Korea, and other parts of Asia. Its collection is housed at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago. Its exhibits—including Third Realm—show around the globe. Third Realm will showcase pieces from the crucial period of 2004 to 2019. Included in the exhibit are works from such now-big names as Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Indonesia’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and China’s Cao Fei, Lu Yang, and Zhou Xiaohu. “You really felt like something was happening at the time—there was excitement,” says Quadrio of his early Shanghai days. “It was a city on steroids. Shanghai had a lifespace cycle of two years—so literally every two weeks there was an entire neighbourhood that was pulled down and rebuilt, to a point where you couldn’t remember what was there before. One skyscraper was built in six months—two floors a week. Imagine visually what that means! “And art: there was no commercial value to it then,” he recalls of that boom period, “but there was a beautiful, real energy in relationship to the idea of creating something new.” The connections of Chinese contemporary

art to the work of young artists elsewhere in East and Southeast Asian countries go deep, he argues. “Young people were grappling with change that was so radical—a push through the stagnation of post-imperialist Asia,” Quadrio explains. “When the mother dragon woke up in China, it had a massive presence economically and culturally.” But ultimately, what links Third Realm’s works together is a less tangible artistic sensibility. Quadrio says the exhibit’s title plays on liminal spaces, between the historic and the present, the local and the global, the secular and the sacred. In a few works, there are also references to those realms in Buddhist rituals.

This gives an opportunity to see Asia in a much more complex way. – Third Realm curator Davide Quadrio

Amid the diverse, provocative, and sometimes bitterly humorous photo and video works, Cao Fei uses Second Life virtual-gaming tech to create an artwork set in the fictitious RMB City, making for a critique of China’s rampant consumerism. In the video Writing in the Rain, FX Harsono speaks to the discrimination of ethnic

Chinese in Indonesia, painting his own name in Chinese characters in a downpour, the ink slithering, streaking, and dripping away. Lu Yang animates video-game-styled Tibetan Buddhist deities and integrates brain-mapping technology in Wrathful King Kong Core. And Weerasethakul’s Ghost Teen, which features a boy in a track jacket, his cool rectangular blue-tint sunglasses perched over a rubbery zombie mask, addresses the brutal history of oppression in northwestern Thailand, reshaping the younger generations’ memories of the tragedy into a kind of horror-dreamscape. What Quadrio wants to avoid at all costs is oversimplifying what Asian art is—that’s reflected by his thoughtfully worded captions in the exhibit. “It’s important not to make that simple mistake of thinking of what is presented as a crystallized idea of what Asia is,” he begins. “It really is about not talking per se about a time but about a narrative that is much more important than getting a satisfactory vision of what Asia is now. “This gives an opportunity to see Asia in a much more complex way,” he continues. “I hate this idea of simplification. I find it dismissive of other complexities. For a lot of us working on the ground in Asia for so long, there’s a lot of frustration about how the Guggenheim or the Met or the British Museum are simplifying what Asian art is. So my reaction curatorially is trying to do something very powerful that brings you to a territory of discovery.” g The Polygon Gallery presents Third Realm from Friday (September 4) to November 8.

SEPTEMBER 3 – 10 / 2020

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

SAVAGE LOVE

Long-suffering partner entitled to erotic fantasy by Dan Savage

b I’VE BEEN MARRIED for 30 years to the same man. I have dealt with his tantrums, his screaming, and his fits. He’s always had anger-management issues. He strangled me once a few months after our son was born and never did it again. I would have left otherwise. He’s had relationships with other women but always swore it was just online. Then, a few years back, I got into an online relationship with someone. I never actually met this person, just as my husband claimed he’d never met the women he was talking to online. I had opened up to this person about our troubles and I talked about my husband’s anger issues and some other private things. This person encouraged me to have an affair but I kept putting him off. Finally, I told him I did it, I had an affair, it was great, etcetera. It wasn’t true, but it seemed like that’s what he wanted to hear. About 30 minutes after I told him, I got a call from my husband! This person had sent it all to him! All of our conversations, everything, every detail. My husband flipped out but we worked it out and moved on. Then a few months ago, right at the start of the pandemic, I found out that my husband has been speaking to other women. I also found out that he’s been meeting other women in hotel rooms in other cities and all this time I believed him about never meeting with anyone in person! He claims he has erectile dysfunction, but it was clear from the messages I saw that he is having sex with these other women. So he’s somehow fucking other women despite the erectile dysfunction that prevents him from fucking me? I’m beside myself because over 30 years we built a life together and now I don’t know what my future is going to look like because of this. I can’t provide for myself monetarily. I still work full-time, but if I lose this job or retire, Dan, I will have nothing. And we both have medical issues. I don’t want a divorce because a secure future for both of us really does hinge on us remaining together. I know for a fact that he’s still seeing these women while forbidding me from having even online conversations—to say nothing of relations—with another man. Neither of us can make it on our own. I don’t know what to do. Why wouldn’t he want an open relationship? - Divorce Invites Serious Consequences Or Real Distress

Your husband doesn’t want an open relationship, DISCORD, because he doesn’t want you to have the same freedom he does. And while he doesn’t want to be sexual with you for reasons that have nothing to do with erectile dysfunction, he doesn’t want you seeking sexual attention—much less sexual fulfilment—in the arms or inboxes of other

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

b I JUST READ your advice for CATMAN, the person who asked if there was a name for his specific and newfound fetish: he wants to marry a submissive bisexual guy and then pick up and dominate submissive women together with his guy. As I read it, I wondered is this a sexual fantasy or is it a fetish? Then I wondered what the difference is between a fantasy and a fetish. Is there one? Does it matter?

- Knowingly Investigating Newly Kinky Yearnings

What CATMAN described —what

Just because someone has endured a sexless marriage with a lying, cheating, and abusive partner doesn’t mean they can’t have a rich fantasy life. Photo by Dainis Graveris/Unsplash.

men. Which means your husband sees you not as a human being like him (i.e., a person with needs and feelings and agency) but more like a car he keeps in his garage and refuses to drive and won’t let anyone else take for a spin. You’re not a car, of course, and you’re not his property. You were also faithful to him even as he cheated on you—even after he assaulted you—and you stayed in this marriage despite being deprived of sex and other forms of intimacy. But even if you guys had been fucking on a daily basis for the past 30 years, DISCORD, even if your husband wasn’t an abusive asshole with anger issues, you would still have every right to indulge in sexual fantasies that don’t involve your husband and every right to explore those fantasies on your own time. Partnered or not, monogamous or not, we are all entitled to a zone of erotic autonomy. You say divorce isn’t a viable option for you, DISCORD, so I’m gonna recommend a different D word: detach. Make peace with your circumstances and make the best of your living situation. Don’t go searching for evidence that your husband is cheating on you, just accept that he is. Don’t feel the need to confront him about his fucking hypocrisy, just accept that he’s a huge fucking hypocrite. And then, DISCORD, just like your husband, go and do whatever and whoever you want. You don’t need his permission to seek attention elsewhere. And if being honest about the attention you get elsewhere upsets your husband—if being honest about swapping dirty texts

SEPTEMBER 3 – 10 / 2020

with other men makes your husband and your home life unbearable—then don’t be honest about it. Just as he made an effort to be discreet in order to hide the scale of his cheating and his hypocrisy from you, DISCORD, you can be discreet in order to avoid conflict and drama. Get back online, DISCORD; go make a new friend. And just because that last guy turned out to be a sadistic asshole who drew you out in order to blow up your life, that doesn’t mean the next guy you meet online is going to be a sadistic or vindictive asshole. Billions of people get online every day to chat with strangers, and millions of people share explicit fantasies with strangers every day. While revenge porn is definitely a thing—and definitely a crime—it’s almost always jilted IRL lovers who lash out like the way that asshole did. If it was even remotely common for people to be exposed to their spouses the way you were exposed to yours, DISCORD, if it happened even .01 percent of the time, we would hear about it constantly. We don’t because it isn’t and doesn’t. But to be on the safe side, DISCORD, you might want to keep it anonymous. Don’t share your real info with someone you only wanna swap hot fantasies with and never intend to meet in person. And when your husband is being an asshole or just generally getting on your nerves, DISCORD, you can fantasize about the statistical likelihood that you will outlive your husband by many years. Because orgasms aren’t the only sweet release.

CATMAN was looking for—was a relationship. He was fantasizing about his perfect partner and wondering if he was out there somewhere. Since literally everyone does that, KINKY, I wouldn’t describe fantasizing about a perfect partner/partners as a fetish or a kink. Vanilla or mildly kinky or wildly kinky, we all want that perfect match: i.e., a person or people whose sexual desires and/ or relationship goals parallel our own. And a lucky few manage to find someone who comes really close. People don’t just fantasize about sex, of course; people fantasize about dream jobs, dream vacations, dream weddings. (Wedding fantasies aren’t about who you’re marrying but how you’re marrying them, e.g., a destination wedding, a traditional wedding, a nontraditional wedding, etcetera.) But when it comes to sex, KINKY, fantasies are best understood as scenarios or situations that incorporate important elements of a person’s sexual desires— desires which may involve kinks or fetishes or may not. Think of fantasies as sexy little movies we screen for ourselves in our heads and kinks or fetishes as optional plot points and/or props. The natural follow-up question: what’s the difference between a kink and a fetish, then? While people often use those terms interchangeably, KINKY, they mean different things. Psychologist Justin Lehmiller recently unpacked the difference on his website Sex & Psychology (www.leh miller.com): “Kink is a very broad concept that encompasses pretty much any form of sexual expression that falls outside of the mainstream. This includes the eroticization of intense sensations (such as mixing pleasure and pain), playing with power differentials, deriving pleasure from inanimate objects, role playing, and more... [whereas] fetishes involve heightened attraction to certain objects (like boots and shoes) and/or body parts beyond the genitals (like feet and armpits).” So, all fetishes are kinks but not all kinks are fetishes. I hope that clears things up! g

Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

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