This morning, I woke up and headed to the International District and Chinatown. I arrived in Chinatown via the SkyTrain at 8AM, which was a bit too early for many of the shops to be opened. After 30 minutes of walking around and eating a breakfast consisting of veggie-stuffed bread and asian pastries, I walked over to Starbucks to catch up on work for a few hours.
After working at Starbucks, I walked around for another hour or so through Chinatown. During the walk, I visited International Village Mall, a 3-story Chinese-oriented mall in Chinatown. The mall was very unexciting, poorly designed, and very random in terms of the types of types of businesses housed there. Here are my thoughts about the mall:
- The Good
- Food court on 2nd floor is a positive traffic driver. But on second thought, it might even be worthwhile to have the food court on the 1st floor, in order to increase the 1st floor traffic/rents which is also a bit slow. 2nd Floor could then be converted to office space, medical space, or other uses that aren’t dependent on traffic/visibility
- For the most part, the unit sizes are small which increases traffic, variety of stores, and likely increases rent PSF
- The Bad
- Poor/Inefficient layout (especially on 2nd floor with curved corridors). Should have just created one corridor on each floor
- Food court should probably have been on 1st floor (in order to increase traffic.) 2nd floor and third floors could have been office space
- Land could have been used much more efficiently to build a primarily-residential mixed-use property
After visiting Chinatown, I boarded a bus from Burrard Station to University of British Columbia. The last stop on the bus route was the UBC Campus. From there, I walked a few blocks until reaching the Museum of Anthropology.
One of the interesting exhibits displayed large, functional pieces of art which were used in Potlatch Ceremonies. Potlatch Ceremonies are gift-giving celebrations common among Pacific-Northwest Canadian Indians. The objects in the below photo were used to hold and distribute foods at Potlatch celebrations. In an attempt to coerce the Indians into assimilating, both the US and Canadian Governments, prohibited Native Americans from celebrating Potlatch events. As of today, only a small amount of Indians have reinstated their potlatch rituals, even though they are now fully legal.
The second interesting exhibit was a temporary exhibit by a unique artist named Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. Lawrence is a native American who strives to convey extremely strong political messages through his artwork. Lawrence is very direct and clear in what he’s trying to say, regardless of whether it may be seen as hateful, offensive, or malicious by some observers.
What political messages is Lawrence conveying through his artwork:
- Environmentalism
- White men, the Western World, and corporations are exploiting the world and its natural resources to fulfill their lust of greed. This exploitation is irreversibly damaging the environment and it is unacceptable
- Tribal-owned land
- The United States and Canada have stolen land which rightfully belongs to Native Americans. This stolen land was in some cases simply taken by White Men and in other cases bought at unfair prices from unsuspecting Native Americans
- Native American Independence (Shine light on persecution of Native Americans and seek payment)
- Lawrence has several pieces of art shining light on the persecution and forced assimilation which the Native Americans were subject to (Horrors of residential schools, criminalization of potlatch)
What are some other notes about Lawrence’s artwork:
- Excellent use of color serves to instill a Native-American creativity and art style into the artwork
- One can almost feel the high levels of hate, resentment, disgust, and vengefulness in the artwork toward oil corporations and western governments. He hates/mocks governments and he hates/mocks corporations throughout most of his artwork
- His work shows signs of not just despair, but also hope/”courses of action” for the future. He believes that there are steps that can be taken to partially remediate the wrongs that have been done. For example, some of his artwork points to the Native Americans taking possession of the land and the possibility of corporations and governments stopping the exploitation of the land
While walking to and from the Museum of Anthropology, I walked past an 18-story high-rise wood building. When I peered up at the building, I immediately knew that I was looking at something revolutionary. Once completed, the building will be the tallest wood building ever built. Here is an article explaining the general construction components.
At 8:30 PM, I left the AirBNB to attend the Jewish Federation Young Adults Rooftop event. I found out about this event a few days ago from Leat, who I met while swiping on Jswipe. It was a great socializing event where I conversed a little bit with Leat and Lihi. During the next week, I’ll hopefully be able to meet up with each of them.
