“Welcome to Vancouver International Airport”, the pilot announced. I saw a ramshackle cluster of aging low-rise buildings which compared poorly with any of the train stations and airports I have visited in China.
After the glitz and glamour of Shanghai, or lesser urban lights such as Nanjing, Xi’an, Tianjin, Qingdao, Shenyang, and Suzhou, to name just a few, there was nothing impressive about the airport or its local transportation connections.
Attempting to make my way out of the city without a personal vehicle was a nightmare of non-connecting transit and buses involving substantial expense plus an even greater, and most unreasonable, expenditure of time.
At a Starbuck’s, an older woman said, “sorry”, as I moved in beside her to put cream in my coffee. I asked why, and she replied, “Because I’m Canadian”, at which we both laughed. My $2.50 coffee sells for about $7 at a Nanjing Starbucks, but that is the high end of the Chinese coffee-price spectrum.
I was caught off-guard my first day back when a line of cars, headed by a massive gas-guzzling pickup, slowed and stopped so I could cross the street. It felt wrong. I was standing by the roadside at a crosswalk, to be sure, but my intent was to wait for traffic to pass before crossing. How much expensive fuel did those vehicles burn in order to relieve one pedestrian of a brief inconvenience?
Sidewalks are relatively empty of foot traffic, even on the “busy” streets of downtown Vancouver, where the prices of basic foods and supplies shocked me. Even more shocking was the tax levied at the till. Serious shopping apparently requires a long commute best made by car, a huge parking lot, several mega-stores, and plenty of cash or credit. I wonder how people survive. Perhaps they don’t; homeless street people are very much part of the urban landscape in cities such as Victoria and Vancouver.
One afternoon I saw a small crowd of teens hanging around a convenience store, looking scruffy and rebellious. My host assured me they were part of the drug crowd, looking to score some oxy, heroin, or fentanyl.
At night, my neighbours are locked safely into their homes and in front of the TV. There is little social cohesion at any local restaurant or watering hole; the result, I’m told, of high alcohol taxes, a merciless approach to driving after even a single drink, and a lack of affordable, reliable transportation alternatives. There is no worthwhile destination within comfortable walking distance. A lone weekend backyard barbeque is all the socialising I have experienced thus far, plus one brief visit to a trendy pub where everyone appeared to be over 40. Is there a shortage of 20- and 30-year-olds?
To cover the cost of four glasses of beer, I gave the waitress (ahem, I mean “server-person”) a $50 bill, and she asked if I wanted my change. I was puzzled and told her “yes of course”, until my companion reminded me that rapacious prices and taxes mean I need to tip too, something which just isn’t done in the People’s Republic. But it explained the server’s obviously-fake good cheer and overly-attentive service.
Alcohol in the Bureaucratic Republic of Canada is both expensive and a jealously-guarded source of government control and revenue. It seems odd that Chinese, but not Canadians, are able to buy alcohol at low prices virtually anywhere. Comparable prices in Canada are at least five to ten times higher, and usually require a trip to the local government store. Unlike episodes such as the disgraceful 2011 drunken looting and violence which occurred in Vancouver, I saw almost no public inebriation in China, much less alcohol-fueled riotous disorder.
While family continues to be the backbone of Chinese society, such is not the case in the West. Single motherhood is not only the norm for young women, it is seen as a career path by many, who take advantage of forced parenthood (for men only – that’s called “equality”, for the uninitiated) and state subsidies to ease their own way through life.
Canadian cigarettes cost an outrageous $12 per pack, compared to the buck-and-a-half or so I was used to. Recent newspaper headlines suggest that tobacco may soon “become” illegal in Canada, as if such things happen of their own volition. Rents are equally outrageous, solutions to high housing costs being apparently beyond the bureaucracy’s reach. Good news though; the premier of British Columbia recently announced that she will “personally” go after realtors and speculators (many of them Chinese) engaged in dubious but legal practices, as if she and she alone were the whole of the law.
This portion of Canada at least feels stagnant, regulated, penalized, over-taxed, optimised towards safety at all costs and a Marxist-style utopia through an all-encompassing bureaucratic dictatorship. A sense of common purpose among the population is entirely absent. I surmise this is the price for clear blue skies and clean tap water, or something.
The price feels high, and I’m bored too. I miss the chaos of China, the energy, the extravagances found at both ends of every spectrum. I miss my occasionally-sullen high-schoolers trapped in their classrooms from 7:30 in the morning until 10:00 at night. I miss the crowded sidewalks, the low prices, the endless small shops, the incredible variety of foods, the unabashed non-enforcement of trivial laws, the street vendors peddling doubtful but tasty treats. I miss the routine affordability of daily dining out and walking or taxiing to a pub or club where I can meet or make as many friends as I care to and party ‘til the cows come home if I so choose.
I miss the university students who tell me they expect an easy course because I’m a foreign teacher (they’re in for a surprise). I miss the pretty husband-hunting girls, the arrogant young men who chase the new Chinese Dream, and the stoic tolerance of driving “offences” that would incite instant murderous road-rage on any Canadian highway or byway.
I do not really miss the pushy older generation who spit incessantly and turn every queue into an elbows-flying mini-brawl, but I’d accept them in trade for the necessity of having a license, a permit, a certificate and an inspection before I can sell a sandwich or repair the broken stair on a house. I almost, but not quite, miss the warm beer, the polluted grey skies and boil-before-you-drink water, and the traffic jams at every major intersection.
But mostly, I miss the personal and economic freedom I enjoyed in China.
