Chimo!

For those of you who haven't seen Douglas Coupland's movie Souvenir of Canada, an Ookpik (sometimes spelled Ukpik - the Inuktitut word for Snowy Owl), could be considered the Canadian mascot. They are often made from wolf fur and other traditional materials.

Also, Chimo. As Tokyo Tintin puts it, "In the 1970s with the Olympics and Expo, draft-dodgers, Trudeau, bilingual cereal boxes and kicking Soviet hockey ass, Canada-mania reached new, dizzying heights. We were hot hot hot, and we needed a word that was cool. A Canadian word. And that word was "chimo." [According to folklore, when two people met on the Arctic tundra, they rubbed their chests in a circular motion and said, "Chimo" , meaning "Are you friendly?" The answer was a repeat of the gesture and the word "Chimo!" ("Yes, I am friendly!)]

Canadians seem to be in a neverending search for their identity. Take Vancouver, for example. Vancouver has been called Vansterdam - due to the city's lax law enforcement of marijuana usage, proliferation of marijuana grow-ops + large drug traffic in the city. Vancouver has been called Hongcouver - as a derogatory recognition to Hong Kong immigration that saw huge spikes in 1980's. Vancouver is also supposedly known as Lotus Land - attributed to Torontonian's view of Vancouver's laid back life style.

And I thought Estonians were overdoing it by looking for a slogan that would surpass the ingenious "Welcome to Estonia!" campaign.

There's a weird mechanical display at the concrete factory on Granville island. Basically, it is one of those fun kinetic installations where metal balls travel through the framework, roll down the paths and get lifed back up by metallic springs, etc. The idea is to provide an entertaining interpretation of how the concrete factory works, while staying as far from truth as possible. To me, this display symbolizes much of what I have witnessed in Vancouver - a recognition of the aesthetically pleasing, environmentally sound and humanly friendly, while voices of protest and images of harsh reality are regularly subdued. Take the guy at the Service Canada office, who was yelling at somebody on the phone - he was instantly silenced by the secretary, since a raise in one's voice could not be tolerated. Or take East Hastings, where junkies and street people pine away while the rich do their Armani shopping five blocks west.

I go through a whole continuum of emotions every time we take the bus through the Downtown East Side. Taking the downtown bus from Mt. Pleasant to downtown Granville is exactly like taking a roller coaster through the house of horrors at the amusement park. The junkies have better things to do with their money than get on the bus, so there's a sick kind of pleasure that can be derived from knowing that you are safe in the clean and happy electrical bus, while the world has come to a horrible zombie movie end outside.

Now, coming from Estonia, it would be easy to say that Canadians are neglectful and not taking care of their real problems, and putting on a happy face while there are serious issues out there. However, living in East Van, I am beginning to realize that some of this ongoing practice of blissful ignorance is not as ignorant as it may seem. It just seems to be a bit of a therapeutic way of approaching the problems that are out there. It is simply easier to tackle serious problems from a happy place instead of a sad place. The majority of people I see on the streets do honestly seem to care about their cohabitants. Many people speak up, whether it's on public television or through the word on the street. There is the kind of Canadian modesty and respect about it, but they still raise a lot of legitimate concerns.

Now whether the government is acting upon it and reorganizes its resources to take care of East Hastings instead of getting ready for the Olympics is a whole other issue.

They're definitely going to have to do something about it, as they can't have the world see the mess. It would simply be too aesthetically unpleasant, too non-Canadian. But what can you even do at this point, considering that there is a whole economy in and of itself in East Hastings - bottle return points, community centers, drug dealers, street peddlers, prostitutes, the full rainbow of all the goods. I hear they might actually have to go as far as making homelessness illegal. Is this even possible?

A United Nations housing specialist who this year blasted Australia for its record on providing housing to that country's poor and aboriginal populations will next turn his attention to Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside. Miloon Kothari, the UN's special rapporteur on adequate housing, will tour the stricken neighbourhood during a cross-Canada trip this October.

The Globe and Mail, Friday, August 31st, 2007.

We'll see what happens. Until then, Chimo!