Pinoy community in Victoria organized and focused

The mainstream/popular music scene has changed a lot last year, judging from the overall music sales in the country. Music sale climbed 9.8 percent in 2006 from the previous year. However, total album sales, including digital albums, dropped 4.7 percent, but digital sales of single tracks were up 11 percent. Strangely enough which is a positive sign of growing sophistication or could be the aging population is that classical music sales showed the biggest gain, up by 20.6 percent. It is a great pleasure for me to report that rap music showed the biggest stop, down by 34.7 percent which indicates that this down market genre could be on its way out.

British Columbians take their tourism business seriously. When I landed in Vancouver 13 years ago from Hong Kong, I found many people in the tourism and retail business coping with the idea of communicating with basic Cantonese greetings. But that’s all changed now as many British Columbian tourism operators preparing for Mandarin speaking visitors. The data below will explain why there’s the shift from Cantonese to Mandarin.

• The province attracted more than 90,000 overnight visitors from China in 2006, up from 59,000 in 2001.

• Tourism officials predict B.C. could attract as many as 500,000 Mainland Chinese by 2015.

• Chinese visitors currently spend an average of $1,857 in Canada.

According to B.C. statistics, the male-female composition of the province’s workforce is almost equal. But women are still more likely to work in service industries than in the good sector. About 47 percent of the workers in B.C. 9 out of every 10 women who have jobs are employed in the service sector. and more than half of the workers who have jobs in service industries are women. In the goods sector, only 20 percent are female.

The small Filipino community in Victoria is apparently more organized, focused and cohesive compared to the huge community of Vancouver and other major Canadian cities. Bayanihan Community Center which serves as the focal point of Filipino activities in Victoria has become mortgage-free in just five years. In comparison, Vancouver’s Philippine Center is still troubled financially with divided leadership and locked in a legal bitter dispute.

There are two power groups who have been fund-raising for the Center for a number of years and somehow some of the organizers cannot agree on how to manage and spend the money earned. The battle is still raging and the Philippine Center is still in limbo.

In Victoria, the Filipino-Canadian Association, Bayanihan Cultural and Housing Society, Victoria Filipino-Canada Care-givers association and the Victoria Filipino-Canada Seniors Association all bonded to achieve a common goal, a feat not often seen the fragmented "Pinoy-na-Pinoy" community.

We are very proud to learn the results of a new international survey on a racism. It confirmed that Canadians are among the world’s least bigoted, that the vast majority would not mind living beside a Muslim, homosexual, Jew or person of another race.

The respondents of over 24 western coutnries were asked the question: "Would you like to have a person form this group (Muslim, immigrants, people of another race, Jew, homosexual) as your neighbor?"

Canadians ranked amongst the most tolerant nations in each of the categories indicated. Fewer than 5 percent of respondents from Canada said they would not want to have a neighbor who is Jewish, an immigrant or of a different race.

The average percentage of negative responses across all western countries was 14.5 percent. Despite the growing liberalism, there can be little doubt that there is an increasing awareness of, and a hardening attitude towards people who are "different."

People who have stopped writing on paper may be surprised that paper is making a comeback in Canada. Despite the popularity of modern technology, plain old paper is making a return. Stationary stores report double-digit increases in the sale of writing journals and paper planners. At last, some people are getting weary of their electronic gadgets. It is being heralded as the "back-to-paper" movement. The pen business is also getting strong. Pen and paper can help you slow down the world.