TransLink announces 10 year plan of Transport 2050 priorities

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May 18, 2022

Action shot of middle-aged Chinese woman in a floral shirt and red vest, twisting her arm as though in a fighting position. Background is a darkened office with papers flying around her. — Michelle Yeoh’s shocks and awes audiences with her most recent performance. Image courtesy of A24.

By: Makena Leyh, SFU Student

From the company that created witty comedies like Spring Breakers, heart-wrenching dramas like Moonlight, and terrifying horror films like Hereditary, A24’s most recent cinematic release is truly one to remember. Currently screening in theatres since its debut in early April, Everything Everywhere All At Once is a thrilling concoction of creative production design, a touching storyline, hilariously choreographed fight scenes, and endless interdimensional madness.

The incredibly talented Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn Wang, a first generation Chinese-American woman whose life is quickly slipping out of her control. Her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), is in the middle of filing for a divorce and her disapproving father (James Hong) has just flown in from China to visit them. Evelyn is struggling to accept her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), and her new girlfriend, and her family-owned laundromat is in deep financial trouble with an IRS audit. Evelyn’s world is turned upside down and inside out when she learns about the multiverse and how all of the infinite parallel universes are in danger of being eradicated.

Directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively referred to as Daniels, take their audience on a wonderfully weird journey where fanny packs and pomeranians make fantastic weapons, an everything bagel is something to be afraid of, and butt plugs are something to be fought over. As absurd as it may seem, the chaotic nature of Everything Everywhere All At Once is one of its greatest strengths. Over the span of the film the audience learns to accept and appreciate the oddities rather than question them. One of the film’s most memorable scenes consists of a heartfelt conversation between two rocks on the cliff of a desert canyon. Yes, two actual pieces of stone silently communicating with each other genuinely brought a tear to my eye.

The way the Daniels communicate their thrilling yet sentimental story about a woman’s complicated relationships with her family members, particularly the generational divide between her and her queer daughter, is so fresh and riveting that it is impossible to look away. Evelyn’s skepticism of Joy and her new girlfriend is realistically portrayed through a series of microaggressions, rather than overt intolerance. Throughout the film, we get to watch the tension in their relationship rise and fall as the mother and daughter duo slowly come to realize that they can learn from one another, and maybe they aren’t so different after all.

As a film major, I tend to be quite critical of blockbuster movies. However, Everything Everywhere All At Once exceeded my high expectations from the glowing critics’ reviews. Leaving the theater, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of excitement and inspiration after witnessing such a cinematic treasure. The film’s artistic use of cinematography and production design proved just how powerful the film medium can be. Within a meager two hours, I felt the devastation of a failing marriage, travelled to a universe where people have hotdogs for fingers, and so much more.

Everything Everywhere All At Once promises a hilarious, action-packed adventure for the critical or casual viewer, and is a great way to support Asian American and Pacific Islander folks in film!

Everything Everywhere All at Once is currently showing at all theatres, and will be digitally released to Prime Video and iTunes on May 17, 2022.

The meaning of cultural identity: (Re)making Chineseness

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May 18, 2022

Event poster on red background, with photographic works by Lu and Choi: a Chinese woman lying on a bed with various fruits scattered around them and a photograph of a collaged picture frame with Chinese women ancestors hanging on a grey cement wall. — Lu and Choi present their meditations on cultural journeys. Courtesy of Greystreet Media and Intersections in Art

By: Kelly Chia, Humour Editor

How does our perception of cultural heritage intertwine with our memories? Canadian artists Lucy Lu and Melanie Choi tackle this question in their photography exhibition, (Re)making Chineseness: Reflections of Cultural Heritage. Visitors can view Lu and Choi’s collections online, titled Da Pi Yuan and Blanket Fort respectively, on the Intersections in Art website between April 23–May 29. Curator Yang Lim describes the exhibit as explorations on Chineseness in Canada, and the ways they are shaped by factors like migration and heritage.

Lu’s statement on her work titled, Da Pi Yuan (大皮院), is an homage to Lu’s first five years of life in her hometown of Xi’an, China. Lu fondly recalls the time as “nebulous, distinctly [her] own, but of a different lifetime.” Da Pi Yuan captures this exploration in dreamy, melancholic photographs of her hometown. In an email interview with The Peak, she writes about the conflicting sides of her cultural identity growing up in Canada and feeling like an outsider.

“I tried very hard to be ‘less Chinese’ growing up in an attempt to fit in. Then when I would visit family in China, I felt like a foreigner,” Lu explained. “As I’ve gotten older and explored the topic more deeply, I’ve learned to see it not as two sides in opposition but many aspects of myself and my past existing in harmony.”

Through some discomfort due to her limited fluency in Chinese, Lu lived in Xi’an for three months for her project. “It was definitely healing, it made me realize that preserving my culture takes effort, and isn’t always easy,” said Lu.

One photograph titled, My Parents’ Vase, is especially close to Lu’s heart. The photo is comprised of a new set of silk flowers that adorns a plastic-covered vase.

“My grandparents kept that vase after we immigrated to Canada, and I love that the fake flowers are covered by plastic,” Lu said. “It very much speaks to my own desires to preserve pieces of my past through this project.”

Lu also treasures the portrait of her grandmother, a radiant and resilient figure in burgundy. Lu explained that despite her grandmother’s limited mobility after a stroke, she wanted to pose on her own outside. Da Pi Yuan, then, is Lu’s honest depiction of the nuances in her cultural identity.

Choi reckons with similar questions in determining how identity is defined in her photographic series, Blanket Fort. Choi describes Blanket Fort as a “narrative of Canadian-born Chinese experience.” Choi deals with cultural identity on a personal level while reckoning with the painful marginalised histories of Chinese immigrants in Chinese Canadian history.

In our email interview, Choi said her work was a response to the confusion many young Asian Canadians may be experiencing.

Blanket Fort began with anger. “I felt that often the intricacies of my culture could be instantly erased when someone would tell me they loved sweet and sour pork or bubble tea. To have my entire language and culture be simplified to the menu of a Panda Express definitely made me question my existence,” Choi explained.

When researching Hong Kong textiles for her work, Choi initially wanted to reclaim any vapid stereotypes of her cultural clothing being a costume. This characterized the main tones of Blanket Fort — the relationships between cultural appropriation and appreciation as viewers took in the model in Choi’s photographs.

“I think my favourite of the collection is still the one with the model standing alone in all the wreckage below her,” Choi says. In the photograph, the model distinctly stares at the camera amongst the fruit and flowers underneath her, as if interrupting the softness of the collection. “The model shows no emotion of fear but rather presents an atmosphere of strength and warmth.”

Choi ultimately wants Blanket Fort to be a safe space for other Asian Canadians questioning whether they are enough. “I can speak Cantonese but I can’t read. I love going back to Hong Kong but I’m regarded as a white-washed Chinese. I’m in Canada and people only see me as being Chinese, not even bothering to ask where my family is from,” Choi recalled. But she also remarks that confusion can be comforting and hopes her work provides a refuge for similar feelings.

As I spoke with Lu and Choi, I felt unspeakable nostalgia. Their work speaks to the complicated nuances of how I’ve felt about my culture and hometown as a Chinese migrant — a cultural outsider both at home and in Canada. It embraces those nuances as a valid part of cultural identity.

Interested parties can view (Re)making Chineseness: Reflections of Cultural Heritage on the gallery website. Lu and Choi’s works can be found on their respective websites.

Opera Mariposa hosts its annual Benefit + Awareness Campaign

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May 18, 2022

Singer Jacqueline Ko is standing in a sequined dress in front of a vintage microphone. She is spotlighted by a beam of light, against a dark backdrop of purple mist. — The event will be held online and over a month to increase accessibility. Image courtesty of Stephanie Ko

By: Charlene Aviles, Peak Associate

Opera Mariposa, an opera company, is hosting its 10th annual Benefit + Awareness Campaign for myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and fibromyalgia (FM) during May 1–June 1, 2022. Their website notes they are “Canada’s first entirely, openly disability-led and run opera company.”

The virtual campaign will include a music video from singer Jacqueline Ko and interviews with Ko and YouTuber Robin Hahn. Opera Mariposa has also partnered with Christina Baltais — an artist living with myalgic encephalomyelitis who uses paintings, photography, writing, and art to showcase their experience living with chronic illness.

Opera Mariposa reports myalgic encephalomyelitis can lead to issues ranging from “chronic pain, cardiac issues, and immune problems to neurological symptoms like movement disorders, light sensitivity, and intermittent dyslexia.”

They also note fibromyalgia is characterized by chronic fatigue, widespread pain, brain fog, issues with sleeping, and digestive issues. According to ME | FM Society of BC, “the cause of myalgic encephalomyelitis is not yet known.”

The campaign’s goals are to increase public awareness on myalgic encephalomyelitis and fibromyalgia, raise funds for the ME | FM Society of BC, and build a community.

In an interview with The Peak, Stephanie Ko explained her sister Jacqueline was always passionate about fundraising and educating others on myalgic encephalomyelitis. They realized from first-hand experience how few people were educated on myalgic encephalomyelitis.

“We’ve encountered that first-hand in the medical system trying to seek health care, and then that flows through to family and friends and the public, the lack of understanding, the lack of support,” said Ko.

She added, “There’s an additional urgency now with COVID-19, because the majority of these types of illnesses [can be] triggered by viruses.”

Ko reported, “Researchers are estimating that one in ten folks who get COVID-19, including mild cases and even initially asymptomatic cases, are probably going to develop myalgic encephalomyelitis.”

The response to the annual campaign has been positive. She explained many participants approached her enthusiastically about how the event was the first of its kind in Canada.

“When we started these events, we had folks phoning us up saying that they’d never heard of an event like this and being excited, saying ‘And it’s in Canada where I live!’” said Ko.

Ko explained the urgency of this cause, especially since many people with myalgic encephalomyelitis and fibromyalgia have difficulty accessing health care resources.

“Myalgic encephalomyelitis is a very prevalent illness. Prior to the pandemic, it affected over half a million people in Canada [ . . . ] but it’s not even talked about in most medical schools. For people, it takes many years to get a diagnosis, and they think about 90% of people with it aren’t even diagnosed.

“Statistics Canada showed that myalgic encephalomyelitis and fibromyalgia had the greatest unmet healthcare needs of any chronic patient population in Canada and the highest poverty levels,” said Ko.

At the heart of the campaign is Opera Mariposa’s commitment to accessibility. Taking into account the different aspects of accessibility, the campaign will be online, self-paced, sensory-friendly, and feature closed-captioning, and alt-text.

“To me, temporal access, temporal accommodations, is one of the most invisible but pervasive aspects of accessibility, or the most common friction points, particularly for people with energy limiting illnesses or access needs,” said Ko. Participants will be able to watch the interviews, experience Baltais’ work, and Ko’s music online at their own pace.

Opera Mariposa is accepting donations via Rally Up.

To learn more about the campaign or to purchase entry tickets, visit Opera Mariposa’s website.

Climate Crisis: We can handle worrying about multiple problems — we just lack the time

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May 17, 2022

Climate rally sign reading “one world,” written over a drawing of the planet. — Climate action remains on the backburner. Photo: Markus Spiske, Pexels

By Luke Faulks, Opinions Editor

Just over a month ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the planet’s highest climate research body, released the latest in a series of damning climate predictions. Among the frightening calls to action was their finding that a livable world depends on global emissions peaking in 2025. It gives us just three years to reverse a horrifying upwards trend in planet-warming emissions. The problem is that it’s not resonating with citizens.

Predictably, researchers have been trying to work out why climate doesn’t animate voters for a while. One idea that’s gained prominence recently is the “Finite Pool of Worry” (FPW) hypothesis. FPW argues that humans have a limited number of issues they can care to stress about at any given time. Though the term was coined in 1991, the hypothesis was first applied to climate change in 2004. The study investigated why climate change remained on the backburner of public opinion. They put a survey to two groups of farmers. Each was presented with a research on seasonal climatic conditions for the coming year, one favourable, one not. It found that beyond ranking climate as a higher concern, the group exposed to the poorer climatic outlook expressed less worry for other factors, like taxes or politics. Basically, “as the concern about climatic risk increased, concern about political uncertainty diminished.”

The FPW hypothesis has been gaining traction in recent years, even leaping beyond academia to mainstream news outlets. Why the boom? COVID-19.

Some academics had been worried that stress about COVID-19 would diminish climate anxiety. Instead, the research shows that climate worry stayed high as COVID-19 surged. A survey of the United Kingdom in 2021 suggests that climate has become an “intransigent” worry for citizens. In essence, it’s an issue citizens feel consistently upset about, regardless of the context — including, apparently, a global pandemic. Opinion surveys in Canada support the hypothesis. Early in 2021, before wildfire season and the heat dome, the environment surpassed COVID-19 as Canadians’ “top national issue of concern.”

The question arises, then, why aren’t we doing anything about it? The answer is we don’t have the time to care. Research, let alone political participation, are luxuries that an overly-busy citizenry can’t afford in an economic system that demands so much of our time.

Let’s take Canada. Whether it’s taking the time to exercise, to cook, or to lead otherwise healthy lifestyles, Canadians don’t have enough free time on their hands. That might be why, out of 30 countries surveyed this year, Canada ranked among the bottom five states whose citizens are aware of any national climate plan. In a busy country, we don’t find ourselves with the time to engage meaningfully with the issues of the day.

British labour economist and universal basic income champion Guy Standing has written and spoken about the need to recapture citizens’ time. A new politics based on time, he argues, is necessary to spur citizens’ “community and political engagement.” He’s right. In Canada, politics based on reclaiming Canadians’ time is a necessity for climate action. Only a fully informed citizenry can be fully engaged on climate action, and right now, that’s not us.

The FPW hypothesis doesn’t account for everyday pressures felt by Canadians. While climate remains ever-present on our minds, our ability to meaningfully engage on the issue, let alone keep it at the fore of our everyday lives, is hamstrung by smaller everyday pressures. Climate change alone is enough of a threat. To have a citizenry that’s meaningfully engaged on the issue, however, means reforming the way we work and live to afford us time.

SUBstandard: The Student Union Building hours should match the rest of the campus

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May 17, 2022

Student Union Building during the evening — The SUB forgets we pay for it. Photo: Jonathan Wong / The Peak

By Nercya Kalino, Staff Writer

How is it that the most student-centric building on campus has the most restrictive hours? Whether it’s during or in-between semesters, most of the Burnaby campus is basically open 24/7. Not so with the Student Union Building (SUB). It’s time for the building’s hours to match the rest of the campus.

To be fair, between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m, some of the campus’ doors are locked. But there’s always a way to get into campus. It seems like a no-brainer as to why. As students, our schedules vary based on our course load, extracurricular activities, and the lives we have outside of academics. I’m sure you’ll find during your university career that students have some of the weirdest schedules around. The rest of the campus has hours that accommodate students’ complex schedules. Case in point, the AQ is open 24/7.

The SUB, it seems, has yet to realize the problem with restrictive hours. Between semesters, the building’s hours are 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Fine, I guess. During the semester, though, the building opens two hours after the rest of the campus at 9:00 a.m. Why? That’s not even the worst of it, because the building is entirely inaccessible before then, unlike the rest of the campus.

It feels like a bait-and-switch. We’ve spent so long waiting for the SUB to fully open, and now it’s opened with restrictive, seemingly arbitrary hours. And that is not all. Due to this restriction, many of us crowd the building at peak hours in hopes of avoiding traffic in other communal spaces. Earlier this year, the SUB closed to reducing in-person activities due to rising cases of the new Omicron variant, despite the SFSS articulating their concern for the health of students. Not ideal in the middle of a pandemic where we’re apparently supposed to be social distancing. The SUB’s hours make that harder.

That’s not even to mention the sheer number of critical student spaces the building houses that are off-limits to students thanks to those weird hours. The SUB is supposed to be one of the spaces that indulge students. We have spaces for food, retail, napping, recreation, dining areas, as well as study areas. We’ve also got important groups representing marginalized groups like the Disability and Neurodiversity Alliance, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Student Association, and Students of Caribbean and African Ancestry residing in the SUB.

All of this begs the question, “why?” Why the abnormal hours?

If the SUB’s decision-makers are short-staffed, hire students! We need jobs. There are plenty of students that live on the Burnaby campus surely seeking experience. But if we’re being kept from the building because the SFSS feels overly protective of its new toy, well that’s harder to respect.

Students don’t have predictable hours and we’re absent any concrete reasoning from the SFSS on why things like $11,000 parties are more important than paying for SUB maintenance staff. While in part, this is speculation, the building’s limited hours continue to feel like bait for something we can’t fully enjoy. The hours of operation remove groups of students that have unconventional schedules. It’s not us, it’s the hours.

We’ve paid for the space. We’re still paying for the space. It’s time for the building managers to unclench and line their hours up with the rest of the campus.

The Darkest Timeline: Why are we so obsessed with the multiverse right now?

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May 17, 2022

Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Wong (Benedict Wong), and America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. — The multiverse is a cross-medium phenomenon in 2022. Image courtesy of Disney

By Yasmin Vejs Simsek, Staff Writer

The multiverse. It’s understandably on everyone’s lips right now. When it seems like our own reality is becoming increasingly nightmarish, we want to check-in on an alternate self to see who has it worse. Simply put, the multiverse is everywhere thanks to our increasing desire for escape and comfort.

That’s not to say The multiverse is a 2020-era invention. The idea of multiple parallel universes started circulating over 2,500 years ago in Ancient Greece. Flash comics and Michael Moorcock’s The Sundered Worlds helped re-introduce the concept to readers in 1961 and 1963, respectively. You’re probably familiar with the concept thanks to Marvel’s billion-dollar, movie-length meme. Marvel is not the only one exploring the multiverse. In the multiverse we also find comics such as DC, novels like His Dark Materials, and TV series like Rick and Morty. Undoubtedly the multiverse is most profitable capitalistic venture for show business.

So, why are we hooked on the multiverse right now?

The best answer is the most obvious: COVID-19. These last two years have felt like the longest in living history and a lot of people wish there was a real end in sight to this pandemic. With Shanghai going back into lockdown, the finish line seems further and further away. Who doesn’t fancy an escape? A great escape would be to walk to another world, a parallel universe where there is no pandemic, no wars, no anti-vaxxers — just magic, heroes, and more Benedict Cumberbatches.

With the multiverse, there’s a diverse array of escapist options. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a 2022 movie that makes absolutely no sense (humans have hotdogs for fingers at one point), but is a comedy about how the main character is struggling in our world and needs to connect with parallel universes to make sense of it all. If I didn’t convince you to watch it with hotdog fingers, it stars Michelle Yeoh, who we should watch every day, but especially during Asian/Asian American and Pacific Islanders heritage month. We all need a laugh these days, so watching a comedy about the multiverse is exactly the escape we need.

It’s not just speculation. There was a huge surge in superhero and disaster movies in the ’00s. Just as we needed superhero movies after 9/11 to feel hopeful, we now see a need for several universes to feel there is a way out of the current state of the world. The reasoning was explicit in movies such as Iron Man and The Dark Knight. Both movies also revolved around terrorism — domestic and abroad. Despite increasingly problematic portrayals of Muslims, the media and political landscape allowed audiences to fulfill a desire for protection. Similarly now, humanity has plenty to gain safety from, so we seek it out in parallel universes.

From Doctor Strange’s utopian Earth-838 to the fantastical, philosophy-heavy universes in His Dark Materials, the multiverse abounds. Check in to see if you’re really in the darkest timeline.

Reconciliation on campus: Land acknowledgments at the start of classes are still performative

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May 17, 2022

Indigenous statue pole in the AQ — Land acknowledgments are just the beginning of the work. Photo: Adam Madojemu / The Peak

By Maya Beninteso, Peak Associate

Content warning: mentions of graphic violence towards Indigenous peoples

As another semester dawns upon us, it means enduring another semester of empty words and abysmal attempts at reconciliation. The use of land acknowledgments, whether at the beginning or throughout the semester, lacks a key component: action.

While important, land acknowledgments are the bare minimum and at the end of the day. In a world where Indigenous peoples lack clean drinking water, continue to end up missing or murdered, were confined and killed in residential schools, and comprise a disproportionate percentage of the foster care system, words uttered in a monotone fashion are purely performative. This chapter in Canada’s “dark history” is not closed — nor has it ever been — and SFU can do much better to act on Canada’s ongoing genocide.

It seems as if Canada’s “engaged university” continues to lack engagement with respect to reconciliation. In my experience, land acknowledgments are met with a sigh by some faculty members — as if acknowledging we are indeed on stolen land is a waste of their breath. The attitude towards land acknowledgments may be a contributing factor to why Indigenous peoples see these utterings as superficial. In the words of the Algonquin elder Claudette Commanda, land acknowledgements are simply “a brownie point on [the] Truth and Reconciliation Commission report card.”

Notably, the education system continually fails to address its colonial curriculum at every level. Education must expand its horizons beyond textbooks written by white cisgender heterosexual men with a Western lens. It often lacks Indigenous histories and perspectives but has been reinforced as “education.”

Students, like the rest of our society, should be learning from an Indigenous lens within post-secondary institutions. They would gain invaluable knowledge from people who can share history from their own experience, instead of a colonial perspective. On top of that, this would fulfill Call to Action 63, which suggests education should integrate Indigenous knowledge and history into its curriculum. Faculty members need to be provided with the proper education in order to teach students on Indigenous ways of learning and knowledge. For instance, Indigenous knowledge has been recently consulted for matters pertaining to environmental protection. Faculty members can also invite Indigenous leaders and experts to share knowledge while retaining the integrity of their roots and paying them for their labour. Incorporating Indigenous knowledge, along with sincere land acknowledgments, is the bare minimum.

The world of academia has historically been, and continues to be, composed of cisgender white men and SFU is no exception. There is a white bias towards white men that exists in the world of academia, wherein these candidates seeking research opportunities receive a response at significantly higher rates than any other intersectional identity. This reinforces systemic barriers that marginalized communities face. One way to combat this discrepancy is to add more diversity to educational institutions. In the Final Report of SFU’s Diversity Meter, a mere 3.7% of SFU’s faculty identified as Indigenous — a statistic which SFU claims is “proportionate” to the general population. However, according to the Government of Canada, 4.9% of Canada’s population identified as Indigenous as of 2020.

SFU’s inaction doesn’t mean you cannot participate in reconciliation. Though I’m not an Indigenous person, there are a myriad of ways in which one may support reconciliation and Indigenous peoples. Namely, you can start by educating yourself on Indigenous history, culture, languages, and ways of learning. If you truly want to make a significant impact, you may further organize a fundraising event for a charity that supports Indigenous peoples.

Reconciliation doesn’t end with teaching Indigenous ways of learning and acknowledging we’re on stolen land. It means removing systemic barriers that Indigenous peoples face, listening to them, and platforming their voices.

Need to Know, Need to Go: Food Festival Edition

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May 17, 2022

Japan Market Summer Festival

Illustration of a blue calendar, with "Need to Know, Need to Go" written on top — Arts & Culture events to catch around the city. Image courtesy of Brianna Quan

By: Yelin Gemma Lee, Arts & Culture Editor

When I think of summer, one thing that comes to mind is food festivals. Walking around an outdoor market and trying so many foods that you have to loosen your belt is one of my favorite ways to spend a hot summer day. Food festivals are also a great way to find out about new local brands and businesses to support. Mark these dates on your calendars because many of these food festivals only come once a year!

Braid StrEAT Experience!

This food truck festival began in 2020 as a bi-weekly drive-thru to safely support food truck businesses and the Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation impacted by the pandemic. It’s returning as an in-person event this year, welcoming folks to set up a picnic and listen to live music while they eat. According to Daily Hive, there will be a rotation of 20 participating vendors differing each day and local businesses selling their products as well.

Where: 97 Braid Street, New Westminster (next to Braid SkyTrain station)

When: May 21–May 22, 11:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.

BC Halal Food Fest 2022

A new food festival is born this year and a much needed one at that. With BC being the home to over 79,000 muslims, the festival aims to “strengthen and unite the Halal food community to create a delicious collection of vibrant cultures and traditions in our own little corner of the world.” The event is free to attend and welcome to everyone, promising Halal food and drinks, vendors, and activities.

Where: Surrey Civic Plaza

When: June 25, 12:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m.

Planted Expo Vancouver

Previously called Veg Expo, the largest plant-based lifestyle expo of the year returns to the Vancouver Convention Centre this summer! The event boasts over 200 vegan food and lifestyle vendors and features a stage programme of inspirational speakers from all over the world. Every year I’ve gone to this Expo, the sense of community and compassion has always been strong. Whether you’re vegan or not, be prepared to learn something new and to try many different vegan delights.

Where: Vancouver Convention Centre West (1055 Canada Place)

When: June 4–5, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Richmond Night Market

With almost no need for mention due to its raging popularity each summer, the Richmond Night Market is introducing Hawaiian food to their stacked roster. Although not quite the same, the Richmond Night Market makes me nostalgic for late night food-stall snacking under street lamps in Korea. This is a fun place to try both innovative and nostalgic Asian street foods, especially with their expanded seating this year.

Where: 8351 River Rd, Richmond

When: April 29–October 10, weekend evenings (hours vary)

As part of explorASIAN 2022’s programming, this Japanese market is making a comeback after a two-year hiatus. They promise over 70 vendors of Japanese edible treats and merchandise. The event is in the heart of downtown this year, so you can snack your way through the festival before checking out an exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Where: Vancouver Art Gallery North Plaza

When: June 11–June 12, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Monday Music: for the melancholic transition into summer

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May 17, 2022