By Susan Tsang Photo courtesy of Judith Lam  I caught a glimpse of being a woman nearly sixty years old as merely the beginning; the beginning of making her dreams come true. Judith Lam and Yoko Ogawa, who both looked much younger than their actual age, were noticeably two different styles of personality. Judith was an assertive speaker while Yoko had a gentle persona. However, both were smiling cordially, open to have a discourse about their upcoming collaboration focusing on transforming Japanese kimonos into modern fashion, while letting me to have a glimpse into their friendship and who they are. I was immediately intrigued when Judith and Yoko said they were excited to dive into the project without concerning whether or not their creations will be completed like they had envisioned. Judith explained, “It’s more that when we get older, the more we catch every moment,” so the two inventive women had no time to be tied down by clients or deadlines, worries or uncertainties; they simply act and live the most fulfilling way at the moment. Judith and Yoko are two long-time friends who met in the seventies in Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo. After graduation, they had begun different expeditions in the fashion industry, all the while, harboured the same passion. Judith established her design company in Hong Kong by catering to the Japanese market. Yoko worked in a team that specialized formal attires at an extensive Japanese company. The pair had sprouted from the same seed of dream and grown into separate branches, but their love for creating fashion was of the same root—both Judith and Yoko had loved drawings and sewings since young. Judith said, “I still vividly remember when I was young, like Grade three or four, I...

By Chloë Lai Photo courtesy of  Chloë Lai As I followed Keiko and the volunteers into the Beyond Music meeting space at the Musqueam Cultural Centre, I was greeted by the sound of lively chatter and haphazard violin-string plucking. Then one of the students spotted me and said, “Who’s that?” Good question.  It was something I’d spent the past two months (or the past 15 years, if I’m being completely honest) trying to find the answer to. I was fresh from a research trip to Borneo, where I had reached out to my paternal grandmother’s side of the family. She is Kadazandusun, an ethnic group indigenous to Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian state of Sabah. My father and I drove all over her hometown of Penampang interviewing as many elders as we could find. We learned about cultural taboos, rituals surrounding birth, marriage and death, and hilarious flirtation techniques that involved licking fruit sap from someone’s neck.  Several of the elders we spoke with were related to us by blood or marriage, others were introduced to us by friends. More than half of them had never seen or heard of us. Regardless of whether they knew us or not, our shared ancestral connection meant that we were welcomed with open hearts at every turn.  As someone who’s spent over a decade in a city known for being aloof, I was overwhelmed at this reception. I was determined to find ways to keep that spirit of connection alive once I came back to Vancouver.  The Beyond Music students told me that their favourite thing about the program so far was learning to play the violin. One of the students even held her violin case in her arms throughout the entire session. Since music is one...

By Lara-Sophie Boleslawsky Photo courtesy of Dundarave Olive Company Our dining room table has become a ‘lay-away’ zone. One of those places where you temporarily “lay-away” something that you will probably use later, but you don’t exactly know when. Amidst school notices, calendars, pens strewn here and there, and advertisements, declaring in bold yellows and reds the “Super Saver” markdowns in our local retailers. Pushing aside the impending avalanche of stuff, my mother and I settle down for what I would term the most nerve-wracking interview in my life. I relish getting to spend time with my mother, we rarely sit and talk anymore; most days are spent in a flurry of school lunches, book-keeping, business management on her end and endless papers, midterms, and extracurriculars on mine. Yes, we live in the same house, but some days it certainly doesn’t feel like it.  Interviewing has always been for me an intimate affair, a brief encounter through which I must pull from the subject an array of emotions and inspirations that are often lodged deep inside. But time and time again the result is profoundly rewarding, this interview with my mother incredibly so.  Growing up, I had the amazing opportunity to be immersed in the everyday practices of the food industry. My parents were self-employed bakers and my earliest memories included devouring excess cookie dough, icing and freshly baked buns. As joint owners of Dundarave Bakery in West Vancouver,  every morning, my father would wake up at 3am to begin mixing, rolling and kneading the dough, with my mother often joining at 5 or 6am to begin with the daily pastry prep. I would often join them, walking around, putting my grubby hands in places I definitely was not supposed to, if only to get a...

Involvement, engagement, collaboration, and leadership, these are the terms that describe Barb, a director of the Kerrisdale Community Centre Society.  She is a retired educator and during her 32 year career in Vancouver, she taught primary and intermediate students and coached youth in volleyball, badminton, softball, track and field, also Odyssey of the Mind teams (provincial winner). Barb currently serves as a Director on the Board of the BC Retired Teachers Association, chair of the BCRTA Heritage Committee, member of the Finance Committee and has served on the Membership committee and Health and Housing committees. She is a BCRTA delegate to BC Teachers Federation AGM, and represents them on the Board of BC FORUM (Federation of Retired Union Members). She is past president of the Vancouver branch of the BC Retired Teachers Association. Through COSCO (Council of Senior Citizens Organization of BC) Barb serves as General Vice-President and Housing Committee Chair and Strategic Planning committee member.  Barb is a facilitator for the COSCO Wellness Institute and regularly presents workshops on health issues to seniors groups in the Lower Mainland. She contributes articles to: Postscript, COSCO News, NPF newsletter and Vancouver Tabloid. Barb served on the planning committee for the recent COSCO 2016 conference, held in September, 2016. At the NPF (National Pensioners Federation) AGM in September, 2016 she presented an ‘Action Plan for Housing’ as chair of the Housing committee.  This followed the national ‘Housing Policy’ paper which she prepared, and was adopted at the NPF convention last year in Ottawa. Barb also served on the action committee for Canada ‘Healthcare Declaration’ which is endorsed by groups across Canada. Locally she is on the Board of the Metro Vancouver Cross Cultural Senior Network and has served as their secretary. This group won the SFU...

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Dear Readers, The idea of combining two or more disciplines, approaches, groups of people, or skills is not new. And yet, few of us have gone so far as to ask: “What happens when such skills and people from different disciplines are brought together in a synthesis?” I am excited to share the news about the Opening Reception of Beyond Music on Tuesday Oct 11th, 2016 at Musqueam Cultural Centre. This is a new community collaboration initiative for Musqueam Youth where music, poetry, and community engagement merge into a larger themes. It’s about celebrating abundance; it’s not about providing extracurricular activities; it’s about creating a life of possibility. Go check it out here! Speaking of sharing abundance, our beloved board member, Dr. Alex Cherkezoff, will be giving his talk, “How to live and survive well into your octogenarian years and beyond” on October 26.  What not possible?! Free and Open to the Public. Come join us! Thanksgiving is upon us! Happy Thanksgiving to All! Blessings, Keiko Honda Community Engagement Chair Kerrisdale Community Centre...

By Susan Tsang Photography by Kenta Moike John Yan—an aspiring violinist and an UBC integrated science major—arrived at Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS) office on a Monday afternoon, accompanied by an electric violin after his practice session. Before his interview, he played a little to show how the electrical instrument differentiates from the traditional violin. He explained that playing both of the instruments are the same, but their sounds vary because the electric violin would only come to life with the amplifier. Even though the electric violin barely made any sound, John could not help but fiddle with it.  John playing the electric violin mirrored his first experience with the violin thirteen years ago. “I don’t know (why I liked the violin, because) in the beginning, I didn’t even make any sound. I just felt it was pretty cool.” John had embarked on a soulful path with music in a more or less ordinary way: his parents wished that their child would learn an instrument. Under their encouragement, John fell into the embrace of music briefly before piano proved to be a chore. Fortunately, violin was challenging but fun. “Violin is definitely my go-to instrument,” said John. He was grateful that he would have a chance later down the road to share his music and knowledge with other young kids who might not had the same opportunity as he did. His chance arrived when he was going through his toughest time adjusting his lifestyle to the university life during the first year.  John expressed the challenges of playing violin after graduated high school: “I joined the UBC Orchestra. Since I’m not a music major and didn’t know many people, I felt a disconnection between me and them.” He needed the human connection in the...

By Susan Tsang As I was expecting to enjoy a queue of singers performing their pieces at the Opera Zone, I was thoroughly impressed already by the first performer Gerard Satamian’s En Sourdine. His buoying baritone voice lightly rode the sad wave of music that was accompanied by the piano. His melancholic composition from 2008 moved me and left an profound mark on my first experience with classical singing. I was compelled to talk to him about composing music and being a musician in Vancouver.  Growing up in Beirut, Lebanon, Gerard had the support of his family to hone his musical talent even hough they might not have been rich in resources. He had studied in the Beirut National Conservatory of Music when he was thirteen-year-old and earned his piano Master degree at Gomitas Conservatory of Music in Yerevan. After Gerard had moved to Vancouver in 1989, he continued to perform and went on releasing albums Canada, Mon Amour (2010), Frisson Infini (2010),  Forget Me Not (2009), Flowers and Thorns (2004), and Dry Fig Trees (2004). Gerard proved that artists can create outside the box, even in the strict, prestige world of classical music. How is being a musician in Vancouver different from being a musician in the Middle East and other places that you lived in? Gerard Satamian: Vancouver is such a beautiful place. It inspires you to paint if you’re a painter; to compose if you’re a musician. It has such a high standard of life here. I was in LA for awhile, and it wasn’t inspiring. I couldn’t last long so I came back here. I missed all the beautiful mountains, nature, and the ocean. These are inspirational.  Can you tell me what inspired you to write Barcarolle Triste (another of Gerard’s...

By Lara-Sophie Boleslawsky Photo Courtesy of Lilia D’Acres It was completely unplanned. Soft rays of sunlight were filtering through the windows of the Dunbar Community Centre and the lobby found itself filled with a diverse group of women, all of whom continue to be avid participants of the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society’s Creative Weaving Workshop. Perhaps through some form of Fate, her deft hands always intervening in life, I soon found myself meeting and conversing with local author, Lilia D’Acres. The setting was loud, as women continued to weave and talk amongst themselves, and small children roamed the room, crashing and playing with any items their surroundings seemed to proffer, and yet it seemed our conversation never wavered, never warbled, never faltered. What struck me most about Lilia was the care and craft she took in deliberating and delivering her answers. We seemed to be forming a narrative through our dialogue, worthy of being written in ink. Passions seemed to erupt, as we touched on the power of English literature, the tasks and troubles of the writer and a few of Lilia’s ongoing projects.  Before composing her first book, Lilia taught writing and literature classes to many diverse groups of individuals. While happy to be fostering such supple minds, Lilia mused, “I didn’t get the chance to write.” This realization spurred her movement towards writing books, and eventually she transitioned from the classroom into this new creative venture. Her first work, described as “onerous” by Lilia, chronicles the building and development of Vancouver’s most iconic landmark. Entitled, Lions Gate, the non-fiction piece delves into the stories behind this bridge; following multiple threads of thought, the book soon becomes a beautiful tapestry of Vancouver history. In Lions Gate, Lilia explores issues and themes such as the...

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