My 10th year in Canada

Last Nov. 16, I celebrated my 10th year in Vancouver, my first decade in Canada. I wrote a book and a play to celebrate my wonderful, peaceful, prolific years in Canada and I wanted the world to know about it. It is obvious to me now why I ended up in Canada. I am a firm believer that things don’t just happen, they happen for a reason. Sometimes we become so jaded that we neglect to read the subtext of life’s bountiful offerings.

But I still have vivid memories of the day I boarded a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver on Nov. 16, 1993 (the same month and day that I left the Philippines for the British Colony, Nov. 16, 1969). From a British Colony to British Columbia. Call it coincidence, fate, destiny, accident, but number 16 seems to play a significant part in my personal and professional life. I’m sure some of you have also experienced this unexplained scenario in your life. Life is indeed a mysterious journey.

During my recent winter cleaning projects, I came across a letter that I wrote to myself April 24, 1995. It was my candid Impressions of Asians and Filipinos living in Canada. I know I have changed a lot as I faced new challenges in my environment.

I’d like to share this private letter with you because nothing has changed in the Filipino community here in Vancouver. As they say in Hong Kong, "same-same". The 1995 letter is still fresh in 2003.

"Do you have the suspicion that most Asians living abroad are not really living but are merely surviving and just getting old? Ruling out the problems of economics, communication skills and health, most people still allow themselves to be trapped in their racial ghetto, holed-in, frozen in their concepts of convention, religiosity, traditions, routines and predictability.

I don’t want to indulge in what I see as the duplicitous habits of some of the Filipinos around me. Hypocrisy is a way of life in Philippine society, even amongst some Filipino-Canadians, who have brought their emotional garbage to Canada.

Shall we allow ourselves to remain stationary and forget the fact that we are not mere passengers on the train of life but also the drivers? Did you know that life can be compared to a piano, what we get out of it depends on how we play the instrument?

While it is true that we can’t control the length of our lives, we can do something about the width and depth. I must not forget, I must always remember that there are four major ingredients in a good enjoyable life: learning, earning, yearning and living for life. Every minute counts. I’ll not only dream, but do. I will not be a Filipino zombie! I will make each day work for me."

Vancouver is an emerging new city. Many welcome the projected changes and its transition from a sleepy town to a highly cosmopolitan, super-energized and commercially driven city. Oldtimers and traditionalists are afraid that Vancouver will be the next Toronto or for that matter become little New York.

Inevitably, Vancouver will change, specially with the forthcoming 2010 Winter Olympic Games. In other words, like it or not, boom times are ahead for British Columbia, as a tourist spot, as a job seekers’ paradise, as a city with bright economic potentials. The Olympic Games and the related projects will definitely have a monumental impact in the province over the next 10 to 15 years.

It has been reported that the Winter Olympics will create 131,799 new jobs by 2005 and this is a very rough estimate. The figure represents a 14.4 percent jump in the number of job openings in BC. Industries with the largest number of anticipated openings include: accommodation, food and recreation services, retail trade, health service and construction.

Jobs that will be most in demand are sales and service, management, trades, transport and equipment operation, and clerical.

Prime Minister designate Paul Martin’s advisers, opposition leaders and friends’ initial advise is to phone US President Bush to arrange a meeting to repair the badly-damaged Canada-US relations. A good personal relationship with the American cowboy was strongly recommended to solve the softwood lumber crisis, mad cow disease and the Iraq war. At the moment, there’s no reaction from Bush re the new PM.