The thesis project can be viewed here
This is a video-led thesis project which explores Tibetan Buddhism in Chinese society.
Chinese society is developing rapidly. This has led many Chinese to realize that money is not everything in life. In response, they have turned to Tibetan Buddhism and because of this, Tibetan Buddhism is thriving in the Chinese community.
Tibetan Buddhism: Intro from ThunderbirdTV on Vimeo.
Here is an unpublished story that I wrote during my internship at the Globe and Mail on February 10, 2010.
There will be partying throughout the Olympics period at the Irish House despite numerous noise complaints.
Residents living near the venue have filed numerous noise complaints and actions have been taken by the Irish House to reduce the level of noise.
Special technicians and city workers have been brought in to figure out how to further reduce the noise levels according to Tania Richards, the director of sales, marketing and promotions.
“We’re actually changing over equipment, we brought in new amps last night,” said Ms Richards. “We’re hoping to reduce the noise; we’re doing the best we can.”
David Mclellan, the general manager of community services for the city of Vancouver stated that some residents have given feedback stating that the noise levels have improved.
“It appears that a lot of the adjustments that [the Irish House] have made are now being quite effective,” said Mr. Mclellan
The Irish House, like many other Olympic venues that will be opening across the city this week, is a temporary structure. In other words, the venue is a large vinyl tent. Because of the construction material used, sound levels will increase in volume as they travel upwards.
Noise however, is not new to this neighborhood.
The venue is located near the busy theatre district on Granville Street. “The 800, 900 and 1000 block of Granville Street are the three loudest busiest blocks in Vancouver,” said Ms Richards.
Inside the Irish House there’s no indication the party will die down. People like 41-year old Andy Maxwell from Victoria are enjoying the Olympics atmosphere early on.
The Irish House is one of the only venues open this early on in downtown. That’s why “this is the place to party,” said Mr. Maxwell while he enjoyed a drink.
Even with new sound-dampening equipment, noise will still be reaching the residential areas surrounding the venue.
Ms Richards welcomes input from the nearby residents and also welcomes them to the Irish House. “I will even buy them a beer.”
The instant before their first kiss as husband and wife - 2:32 p.m., March 20, 2010
Wedding photography is a very intimate job.
The photographs produced could be the strongest visual elements in the lives of the married couple and their families.
As a photographer, I hope that my photographs can offer a glimpse at those magical moments for the couple, their friends, family, children and grandchildren for the years to come.
It is nice to think that I may have produced pictures to last a lifetime during those brief eight hours on the wedding day.
Congratulations Tapiwa and Irene Chibota!
Here is a story that I wrote during my internship at the Globe and Mail on February 5, 2010.
Nine cases of whooping cough have been diagnosed over the past week in the Kootenay-Boundary region, an outbreak that health officials attribute to low rates of immunization in the region.
With nine confirmed cases, the Kootenay-Boundary outbreak has almost reached the annual southeast B.C. average of 10 to 20 cases.
No one has died or has been hospitalized.
Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is a bacterial disease spread by coughing. It causes inflammation of the airways and may cause a person to cough for up to three months.
The disease is particularly harmful to infants and toddlers because of their small airways.
“For infants, they can get so short of breath from those coughing spells that they actually have a loss of oxygenated blood to the brain and get brain damage or they can die,” said Dr. Rob Parker, the medical health officer for the Kootenay-Boundary region.
With 19 cases in the past 8 weeks, the Interior Health Authority, which serves the Southeastern part of B.C., is speeding up the vaccination process for the disease in order to protect infants as soon as possible.
Pertussis is not new to the Kootenay-Boundary region.
In a 2006 outbreak, there were 108 cases of pertussis in Kootenay-Boundary alone according to a report from the Centre for Disease Control in B.C.. This is due to the fact that the region has a 69 per cent immunization-rate, the lowest in southeast B.C. which has an average of 78 per cent.
“There is at least a portion of the population there who … live there for a more rural lower paced perhaps more naturalistic lifestyle, at least for some of them, it incorporates a strong anti-vaccination beliefs,” said Dr. Parker.
According to Dr. Parker, this group makes up a very small percentage of the population but is causing approximately ten to twenty per cent of parents to doubt the safety of vaccinations.
“We are making a push…so that parents have information about both the outbreak risk and the safety of the vaccine” said Dr. Parker.
Dr. Parker expects to see more cases come in for at least a month. “This is just the start of the outbreak.”
Vancouver, B.C. — Globe and Mail updatePublished on Thursday, Feb. 04, 2010 6:13PM EST
Ramandeep Singh Khaira, a relief volunteer leaving for Haiti Thursday, has had trouble sleeping for the past few nights.
Mr. Khaira, a 29-year-old sales and marketing employee from Surrey, B.C., is part of Team Kitsilano - a group of five Sikh volunteers organized by the Surrey-based Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Society. The GNSGS raised $1.5-million for Haiti in one week, through three radio campaigns and donations from individual Metro Vancouver Gurdwaras.
“I’m so excited!”, said Mr. Khaira. “To have this opportunity - this is just an amazing thing to be part of this special group.”
Travelling with Mr. Khaira is Karnail Singh Rai, the senior vice-president of the GNSGS, Surjit Singh, a chef at Jagga Sweets, an East-Indian food restaurant in Delta, Sukhwinder Singh a medical graduate, and Jasvir S. Chattha a board member of the GNSGS.
The team’s primary objective is to distribute food to the Haitian people and also to assist medical and relief personnel currently on the ground.
The GNSGS’s first relief team of six – Team Jericho – travelled to Haiti last week to assist with food distribution. Since their arrival, Team Jericho has been keeping the local community updated with their activities in Haiti through daily blog entries at haitiblog.ca. “We have a couple of hundred readers every day going onto the blog site and it’s increasing by the day,” said Sukhninder Sangha, vice president of the GNSGS.
In a Feb. 2 blog entry, Team Jericho described how they were abandoned by their security escort, but managed to cope with the chaos and served up meals until they ran out of food.
Volunteers are plentiful. “As of today, [we have] 40 people on our waiting list that want to go down to Haiti,” said Mr. Sangha. “They’re all motivated and they have the spirit and willpower to make a difference.”
Though Mr. Khaira believes that his contributions will be limited, this opportunity was one he could not miss.
“It’s not going to be a major impact but I think it will make a difference in one way or another at least for the time that we’re there, they have something to eat,” Mr. Khaira said.
Mr. Sangha explained how the people of Surrey have come together to help out with the relief efforts by contributing money, food, toys and school supplies.
“There’s not much that we can do without the help of the local community.”
Mr. Khaira agreed that people have reacted very passionately. He noted that it was also important to emphasize that these are long-term relief efforts.
“From what I learn [in Haiti], I can come back and tell people how it is and keep this relief going.”
Teams Kitsilano and Jericho, both named after Vancouver’s beaches, join other Sikh relief workers organized by the U.S.-based United Sikhs.
Story was published here
Afternoon nap in afternoon heat.
Rush hour at 1830 - People stuff themselves into subway cars.
I find that we (humans) are very small.
Posing with space shuttles is a daily occurrence at the Hong Kong Space Museum.
In other news, former U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, payed Hong Kong a visit a while ago.
The federal government offers many services to help immigrants and refugees adapt to life in Canada. But those services are only available during their first year here. When the clock runs out, many newcomers struggle to get by. They turn to their family members for help. Sometimes that means parents are taking care of their children, and children are taking care of their parents.
Produced by Aaron Tam and Brandi Cowen
More immigration stories from Vancouver can be viewed at theThunderbird.ca
Vancouver’s Chinese community enjoys a good show on a Saturday night, and the Vancouver Cantonese Opera troupe (VCO) provided just that.
To the audience it was an enjoyable and nostalgic night filled with drama and laughter. To the performers and workers of the troupe, this was their way in preserving a traditional art form thousands of miles from home.
The day started early. Preparations, make-up, rehearsals along with the performance itself lasted until midnight.
For artistic director and VCO founder Rosa Cheng, all this effort was worth it.
“We want to promote our art form to the younger generation in Vancouver,” Cheng said. Her ambition was shown by her attempt to recruit me into their troupe. Singing and dancing, however, is not my strong suit.
The comedic play, “A Joyous Wedding,” brought smiles and laughter to the audience members throughout its five hours of performance.
Layers and layers of make-up are applied in the afternoon.
The rehearsals were followed quickly by dinner.
Costumes were donned in the last half-hour prior to the performance.
The show began at 7pm.
The audience included members of the troupe.
Next up.
Rosa Cheng stars in the final act of the five hour play.
Hong Kong's chief executive Donald Tsang promised universal suffrage by the end of his term.
The fears of Hong Kong citizens lie within the hopes of the Chinese population.
I made this discovery when I was having dinner with a friend of mine, Junning from Kunming, China.
“Do you think that China will have universal suffrage within your lifetime?” I asked. Junning’s answer was completely unexpected: “Yes.”
To him, it was quite simple. The future changes in leadership will bring about new ideas and will provide for a natural departure from the country’s conservative past.
Junning argues that China’s modern history has progressed towards a more liberal society. “Look at the Cultural Revolution, that was Mao’s doing, Tiananmen was Deng Xiaoping. Now, the two latest presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, they’re opening up China’s economy.”
According to Junning, the next generation of Chinese leaders will be a lot different than the ones preceding them. “They will be more liberal,” he said.
Ever since that conversation a week ago, I couldn’t get over the fact that he was that optimistic about the political situation in China.
My pessimism is derived from the Communist Party’s efforts to continually push back the date of universal suffrage in Hong Kong.
Having been pushed back from 2012 to 2017, the issue of Hong Kong’s universal suffrage will be the major political issue that will be dealt with by China’s future generation of leaders.
With pressure from Beijing, many in Hong Kong fear that universal suffrage will go unrealized even with new leadership.
However, if things in the political realm turn out the way Junning expect them to go, then Hong Kong will act as successful model for Chinese democracy.
In this scenario, the new generation of liberal leaders of China will speed up the process of political reforms in Hong Kong. The city would then translate into a test bed for Chinese democracy. Sooner or later, universal suffrage would be implemented in China.
There however, aren’t many signs pointing in this direction.
My greatest fear as a Hong Kong resident is that I won’t have a place to call home 38 years from now.
2047 is the year that marks the end of the ‘one country two systems’ arrangement. This treaty is the reason why pro-democracy advocates can still push for universal suffrage and for journalists, to be critical towards the government without the fear of prosecution. Without it, Hong Kong’s legal, political and economic qualities will be no different from any other large city in China.
The success of Hong Kong’s proposed 2017 vote will depend on the next chief executive’s ability to win over both the majority of the legislative council and future CCP leaders. Here is where I wish that Junning’s predictions would be realized.
For now, we can only wait and see.
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