The smell of fresh brew whenever I step off of the airbridge at YVR. The forever crystal blue skyline and temperate shores. The mild rain tapping unhurriedly on fresh shrubs and little wildflowers. The guy in Lululemon athleisure wear jogging alongside his beloved golden retriever... Everything about Vancouver is so well put together and yet so lack of character - just like your stereotypical “friendly Canadian.” As the first city I had lived in since leaving my hometown Beijing at 13, the picture-perfect Vancouver has been so familiar, and yet I had never felt that I belonged here for all 5 years.
The world sees Vancouver as “quality of life,” “natural parks,” and perhaps “ski resorts.” But the local Vancouver today is grounded in a series of insoluble, troubling contradictions. We have world-leading quality-of-life ratings, yet tons of locals are squeezed out of the central residential areas every year. We keep a mild, characterless international profile, but the world’s richest eagerly seek after local estates and move their bank vaults over. High-end markets here are always thriving, but there is barely a key regional economic engine that sustains such a level of spending. Ultra-wealthy immigrant children are brought up by parents willing to provide them with anything, while typical middle-class kids around the world at this age stress about earning a degree, getting a brand-name job, making a living. The overwhelming influx of external wealth has made Vancouver a seemingly flawless Titanic floating out on the sea, where, inside, each group of citizens live strictly on their own floors and defined social spaces but often bump in.
When I first lived with a local host family, shaking juice out of Kool-Aid pouches was a celebration at dinner for the host kids. Next thing I knew, I was in a family friend’s wine room, sipping unpronounceable drinks out of crystal glasses. I wandered through my teenage years, always perplexed, trying to get a sense of what life’s reality is. Coming from a traditional Beijing education system, my childhood value that performance in school was the only way to outcompete was ingrained. But in Vancouver, the normal upward social progression was distorted, and my old values were drastically challenged for the first time. When looking at life ahead, I had many questions that I was too nervous to ask: What is the value of work? What does it mean to have social esteem? Where would my peers end up in life in ten years? Can my unremarkable self make a ripple anywhere in the social system?... Am I overthinking? Worse, there was nowhere to start asking. If each city I’ve lived in has a cultural soul, I couldn’t find one for Van. It was so peaceful. So content. So still. So bland.
Even so, it would be thoroughly unfair to pin my life here as bad as I made it sound. I couldn’t have lived healthier, safer, or more carefree from practical challenges. My friends and I joked about Van as a city-size luxury retirement home. Cross out income and work from the life equation, and there aren't that many places in the world where you could so comfortably and conveniently sip coffee, jog on the beach, and read on a drizzly afternoon until the end of your life. In fact, the greatest liberty one could have is to move here whenever this lifestyle suits his or her stage in life. Now that I’ve spent years away from Van and lived in many other cities, I finally realized the socioeconomic truth behind our teenage joke - what I had unknowingly enjoyed in my teens was a lifestyle that countless others around the world would crave for but have no way of achieving in a lifetime. I felt silenced back then partly because I was ignorant, and partly because I probably shouldn’t have the right to complain.
But I will not be a teenage retiree. I will not be cruising and be oblivious to the world onshore. I’ll leave you with another wise joke from my teenage friends: Some were born in “Rome,” others find a way to “Rome,” and Annabelle was born here but would rather travel around the world before considering coming back here again.
(all photos by Annabelle C)