The Ancestral Memories of the Next Generation
Dignity YEG-GA (left) and Salsa YEG-GA (right), Three Bananas Cafe, Churchill Square, Edmonton Spring 2016
About Dignity YEG-GA and S.H.
The travels of S.H. and Dignity YEG-GA began in early Summer 2016, shortly before Canada Day and when S.H. departed for British Columbia for Summer vacation. The portrait of the two carvings seen here marked a "coffee-talk" moment in which S.H. and the School of One Carver discussed the state of affairs in Western Canada, past and present. Part of the discussion harked to the plight of the residents of Fort McMurray Alberta following the massive wildfire which engulfed the region during the Spring. The exchange also included revisiting developments stemming from a natural disaster of a different sort: S.H. was part of a group of extraordinary group of undergraduate students that the School of One Carver encountered after he returned to Alberta from New Orleans almost one year after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf South. As he chatted with S.H., the Carver once again remembered how the enthusiasm, the genuine thoughtfulness, and the commitment to advanced study that characterized these students made such a difference to him as he became reacquainted with his Northern "patria chica" and reclaimed his memory of what it means to be Canadian after sixteen years abroad. He is, in short, eternally grateful for their fine example.
S.H. is a graduate of the highly successful Chemical Technology Program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (N.A.I.T.) and she now works in the field in Edmonton. In anticipation of that educational and vocational scientific journey and after she completed an Arts degree, S.H. had supported Edmonton's inner-city inhabitants at Boyle Street Community Services when she was enrolled in the Occupational Therapy graduate program (MScOT) at the University of Alberta. A committed aficionada of science fiction and married to a ardent fan of the work of the Canadian writer and producer Gene Rodennberry, S.H. is very proud of her Chinese-Vietnamese heritage as the reference to her treasured parents in the first vignette clearly reveals. Meanwhile, the piece of Brazilian rock for this carving was part of a larger stone obtained from the enterprising rock merchant Asad on 118 Avenue, Edmonton. The patriotic lineage of Dignity YEG-GA was foreshadowed when other carvings from the larger stone were commissioned as gifts for Chinese diplomatic dignitaries and the artist Fan Zeng in 2013 by the University of Alberta Provost. This carving is dedicated to the individual agency, accomplishments and historical contributions of female volunteers, interns, and professionals, past, present and future, especially those of them who have been so dedicated to the cause of buttressing human dignity through their participation in educational, dietary and medical programs for inner-city inhabitants in Edmonton.
The Chinese-Vietnamese Patriotic Example: Canada Day, 2016
Canada Day, North Edmonton
1 July , 2016. 21°C.
For me, Canada Day is all about spending time with people, about the opportunity to come safely together as a family, and as a community. My parents were teen refugees when they came to Canada, and, during their travels, they they had lost track of members of their families. In some cases, it took them many years to find out if their family members were even dead or alive, and to track down the location of living relatives. Eventually, my parents' remaining family members reunited, thanks to the extraordinary kindness of their former neighbours in Vietnam. This picture was taken in our backyard in Edmonton shortly before it rained. Our home seemed an appropriate venue for a Canada Day portrait of Dignity YEG-GA because a family from Fort MacMurray who had stayed with us for six weeks was able to return their own home two weeks ago. Like my parents, when the family was forced to evacuate because of the horrid wildfire, they lost track of people very dear to them. Because of the extent of the natural disaster, moreover, they were not sure if and when they would be able to return to their home. During the Fort MacMurray wildfire, many individuals and businesses from throughout the Province of Alberta and the City of Edmonton came together to help. This is what Canada Day and being a proud Canadian really means to me: the ability to imagine oneself in another person's place during a time of distress or need. And not only to feel empathy, but to care enough about people to take action. The name of the carving, Dignity YEG-GA, helps remind us that our community is all about giving a hand up at a moment's notice and not a hand out.
Two Mile Creek Voyage
2:16PM, June 21, 2016. Sunshine between rain, a warm 22°C.
We are in a houseboat moored at Two Mile Creek in the Seymour arm of the Shushwap lakes to celebrate my s.o. parents' 60th birthdays. The Shushwap lakes are part of British Columbia's provincial parks and are located about an hour's drive from Kamloops. BC is special to my s.o.'s parents because it is where they both were born, wed, and started their family. Because it is the middle of the week in the early summer, there is hardly anyone else on the lake. When cruising the lake, we go for hours sometimes before seeing another houseboat and the solitude in the brisk wind and blue waters is peaceful. Near the shore the scent of the earth and the trees waft towards the boat and it seems like a revelation to again see individual trees rather than green blur forests.
Over the course of those few days we hiked, swam, fished, and enjoyed each other's company over good food. This trip gave us all an opportunity to relax away from the chaos of our everyday lives. This year has been full of challenges and sometimes it has felt difficult to be a person and to go from day to day. This trip was a wonderful opportunity for us all to step back and gain some perspective on the things we value most before returning to face our daily concerns.
Cognitive Holiday Travel Companions
Edmonton, December 23, 2016. -6°C. The air is clear and the wind is gentle.
The Christmas season is a time full of traditions and tales. Every Christmas, my partner’s family enjoys many traditions, including watching ‘’A Christmas Story’’ for the family antics and the humour. My childhood was different from his – my parents didn’t grow up in a country that celebrated Christmas, so we exchanged gifts and met up with our extended family, but only sparingly adopted traditions like cooking a turkey, decorating a tree, and baby Jesus (our closest elementary school was Catholic). Santa, re-watching Christmas films, and carolling was not a thing in our household. As it was made clear to us from a very young age that any gifts received did not come from Santa, the concept of asking for anything and everything that we wanted seemed odd because our gifts would be constrained by the family budget and its availability in stores.
However, one of my favourite movies to come out around Christmas was the first Harry Potter film. In the film, sometime after Christmas late one night Harry stumbles into a room containing a large mirror that will show the viewer’s deepest wish. In the mirror, Harry, who lost his parents when he was one years old, sees an image of him with his parents for the first time. Instead of sleeping, he comes to stare into the mirror on consecutive nights until the school’s Headmaster removes it, warning him that staring into the mirror can be a fatal addiction. Even though Harry’s wish to be reunited with his parents was impossible, perhaps it was still a gift to know what is one’s deepest desire. It has served as a good reminder to me to appreciate the people in my life and the importance of those relationships.
I have a huge extended family and it’s rare for there not to be at least one ongoing feud between family members at any given point. I took this picture as a reminder that even when we feel isolated, because Christmas can also be a very lonely time of year, that there is always someone standing by us, even if they are no longer physically present.
Questioning
Edmonton, June 23, 2017. 19.1° C.
It's a bright and sunny morning in Northeast Edmonton. I hear the traffic as it pauses in front of our place, then the engines rumbling as the traffic light turns green. Light streams through the window and it's quiet enough to hear the little sounds of the house shifting as I start packing.
For the past ten months my partner and I have been house hunting. When I was a child, we moved every five years, and my parents usually chose a place within a month of starting their search. The level of deliberation in choosing this next move was unusual for me, but a good lesson in patience and persistence. We finally found a place at the end of May and can move in this August. This is both a relief, because we can stop searching, and a burden, because we must begin sorting and packing.
Sorting possessions can often be an exercise in introspection: do I have this thing because I have neglected to discard rubbish, because it signifies something to others about me, because I love it, or because it is useful? Alternatively, what do I want to spend my time on and have in my living space? When I think of moving, I think about our plan on mortgaging a house, that by the time we pay it all off we maybe have twenty years in it before we cannot take the stairs anymore and must move again. Aside from the stewardship aspect, there does not seem to be much difference between owning and renting something. Everything is fleeting and changes, but maybe I'm being cynical because thirty or forty years is a long time, and of course things will be different.
Books settle into the bottom of totes and excess towels perch on top. How often are these books read? Why do two people possess fifteen towels? Minimalism seems more and more appealing, not only because there would be less to pack but because it would mean that things were here deliberately rather than randomly collected and being surrounded by so many questions. Fortunately, we have the luxury of some time, and have been gifted with more opportunities to practice patience and persistence.
