I spent the first 18 years of my life in the suburbs of Richmond Hill, Ont. It is an aesthetically homogeneous place, which I think is the source of its two biggest flaws: transit and safety. My boyfriend still, after five years, cannot identify my parents’ house while driving because every home on the street looks so alike (the builders gave buyers the option of garage on the left or right). The urban planning of the town involves a lot of looped crescents and cul-de-sacs, so it’s no surprise that pedestrian and transit commuter traffic is non-existent. The only people that walk in Richmond Hill are people who can’t afford a car, those seeking exercise (usually in loops around the maze-like, go-nowhere residential roads), or people who are too old or young to drive. Subscribers of the Jane Jacobs school of urban planning recognize that populated streets are safer than empty ones (see: crime prevention through environmental design).

With these ideas in mind, here are two events in my life that explain urban planning in Richmond Hill — though these anecdotes could as easily have been told from Markham, North York (pre-Sheppard subway), Burlington, Oakville or Whitby:

1. The time I was 14 and tried to visit the local bike shops to buy a bike.
2. The two separate incidences, at the same York Region Transit bus stop, in which I had two men, in two separate incidents, show me their penises.

There was a brief period of time when I was 13 or 14 and wanted to buy a BMX. I didn’t realize that it involved upper body strength, but that’s another story, which ends with me becoming a roadie instead. In any case, I wanted a bike, so I could go the mall and corner store and back home on my own. Richmond Hill has lots of bike shops, many of which are close, if you’re driving. They are a mere 10 minute drive away — but 30 on a bus, or an hour’s walk. Thus, I had a dilemma: I needed a bike to get around, but as long as I had to rely on expensive and outrageously infrequent bus service, I couldn’t buy said bike. In the end, I gave up on the dream of owning a Haro (Matt Hoffman-endorsed model!), because it took half a day just to visit one shop. I still find that sad, that I was defeated in my goal to buy a bike by the awfulness of Richmond Hill’s transit system. No coincidence, there are hardly any bike lanes in town, too.

Now about the penises…

On top of infrequent service, the bus stops in Richmond Hill are at least five- or ten-minute walks apart. I’ve spent many an after-school afternoon trodding down sad, empty sidewalks for what seems like forever after falling asleep and missing my stop. There are no trees or other shelters from the elements, and long straightaways that channel the wind, so it’s baking hot in summer or cold and windy in winter. Without streetside stores backing onto the sidwalk, you’re rarely going to see people just ambling down the road. I think most folks would pay the bus fare than take the extra block or two on foot.This brings us back again to the the “empty streets = unsafe streets” notion. On top of that, there are long, straight arterials with few visual or traffic distractions to slow down drivers — they certainly aren’t paying attention to what’s on the sidewalk. Even homes that back onto main arterials like Bayview aren’t inclined to notice what goes on in their backyard, because of a) the 8 or 10-foot high fences and shrubs that separate the street from someone’s private backyard kingdom, b) the cul-de-sacs that don’t connect residential streets to main roads.

All this is a recipe for old man perverts to show young women their junk without anyone around to hear your shrieks. Within a three or four month span, I had two men show me their penises at the SAME BUS STOP. Both times I’m just sitting there minding my own business, they sit down or amble up to the bus shelter, and unzip their pants. The first guy had made a name for himself doing this all around York Region and North York to girls, most younger than myself, and was eventually caught. The second guy was an Asian fella who panicked and tried to make a hilarious break for it in his car (imagine his minivan getting two feet of air after gunning it through a row of shrubs and interlock retaining wall), but was eventually nabbed when also showed his genitals to one girl too many, and was also arrested. I felt a little bit like Anna Faris in Observe and Report (see above) — though oddly, this didn’t happen in the four years I used the bus daily during high school, but when I was living at home temporarily in my third year at Ryerson.

Until this happened, I’d always believed, like so many other people, that the suburbs are safer than downtown. As it turns out, they’re great for a lot of things — good dim sum, long dog walks, churning out neurotic teenagers, big malls, a Tim Hortons close at hand — but not at making a 20-year-old girl feel safe.

The Ethnic Aisle, a blog about race and ethnicity in the GTA (and beyond!!), is holding a ‘Suburbs vs. Downtown’ event on Monday September 26th at 6pm at The 519 to discuss the divide between the city and the ‘burbs and what it has to do with differences in culture and identity. Details of the event can be found here.

I think every person can pinpoint a moment in their lives when they begin to view their parents not as the role models and heroes you automatically trust and believe because they told you so, but as people with feelings, flaws, opinions and ideas that make you think more, less, skeptically or maybe just differently about them.

That moment for me came when I was about 15.

It was a Saturday morning (circa 2002/03, when the same-sex marriage debates and legal rulings were beginning in Ontario), and I had woken up and come down the stairs just as my parents came through the front doors. It wasn’t unusual for them to be up way before me — getting groceries, doing yard work, eating dim sum — but I immediately noticed the bright red T-shirts they had on. Here, to the best of my recollection, is what they looked like:

So I asked them, more rhetorically than anything, “Where have you been?”

“Down Yonge Street. Church organized it. Lots of people were there, hundreds.”

“And the shirts?”

“We were all wearing them. We matched!” they enthused.

“Oh.” That’s pretty much where the conversation ended, since I was too bleary-eyed to process exactly what the fuck they had gone and done, besides to think, WHATTHEFUCK. Also, I remember being miffed because they did not bring home dim sum leftovers.

Around the same time, I had a very good friend come out of the closet between periods at school. When he told me, he said so sheepishly, as though he expected my reaction (and that our other friends) to be one of scorn or revulsion. The disclosure seemed so unimportant, so immaterial to the dynamic our friendship that I just blinked a few times, smiled and said, “That’s cool, man. We’re going to be late for French.”

Between then and now, I also had a feminist awakening, a liberal awakening, all events that would set me further and further apart from my parents on the spiritual-political spectrum. It wasn’t in the way that kids instinctively want to be the opposite of their parents, but a real philosophical divide. The struggle that my parents (my dad, especially, who’d grown up poor) had faced as Trudeau-era, university student immigrants was intrinsically linked to that of LGBT folks, women and the poor. Couldn’t they see that?

(Tannis Toohey/Toronto Star photo)

These days, I often view my relationship with my parents through the Jason ‘Smiling Buddha’ Kenney lens. Up until May, the riding I’d lived in my whole life had been a Liberal stronghold, but the last few years have been a case study in how the Tories court an ethnic riding:

1. Parachute in candidates with no qualifications other than having Chinese names. (N.B. candidate Chungsen Leung lost in 2008, but for what it’s worth, my parents voted for him, and every Chinese candidate before that.)
2. Back policies that mirror the views of the socially and fiscally conservative population. Direct quote from my parents: “We’re voting Conservative because they oppose gay marriage.”
3. Pander to them with symbolic gestures such as the redressing of the head tax. My mom was so deeply touched by this gesture, yet to my knowledge we have no relatives, distant or otherwise, who ever came to Canada while this law was in effect.
4. Shake hands with a couple people from each community, maybe put on their ethnic dress.
5. Sit back and win.

Anyone who doubted the efficacy of this strategy is probably a now-former Liberal MP. I hope someone’s writing a political science thesis on this.

So, it’s no surprise that the Chinese people of Richmond Hill helped swing the vote blue. My parents and many of their friends are an immigration minister’s wet dream: fundamental Christians (members of a 5,000-member Chinese-Canadian megachurch), affluent GTA suburbanites, double-income families that value hard work, education and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. And since traditional Chinese values are pretty much Confucian values, in which filial obedience and child-production are paramount, gay marriage doesn’t fit into the Chinese social fabric. Religious or not, I believe your average Chinese person will always be closer to the Tories in social values than any Liberal or NDPer.

Add to this that their church is also active in politics. Their pastors have endorsed parties, candidates and particular legislations and, as the t-shirt indicates, encouraged other forms of activism such as protest and letter-writing. (Lest you think their church is a political anomaly, I should point out there are Chinese-Canadian megachurches just like it in every Asian-GTA burb: Markham, North York, Unionville, Scarborough, etc.)

My parents will probably read this, and I’m sorry, Mom and Dad. But like I said, this moment also marked the beginning of the period when I also came to appreciate (not just criticize) my parents — that even if I disagreed, they believed in their politics as ardently as I do mine. They weren’t just these pylons I yelled at and begged for rides and money… they came to Canada as university students speaking little English, carrying little money and carrying the fire to succeed. They also keep dinner time conversation interesting, if a bit combative.

Edited to add: This is not an apologia for my parents’ generation of Chinese-Canadians, but rather an explanation for why they think this way — it’s partly a generational thing carried over from their own upbringings — and a tribute to the political power that such a community can wield. I respect the empire/infrastructure my parents’ church community has built for its members, even if I disagree with the politics. And, in the battle over the ‘very ethnic‘ vote, the voices and experiences of the people in those communities are rarely heard from directly.

‘Cause I’m beating this horse good and dead before I move onto another topic to rage about, I wrote about hockey again, this time for my Metro column:

Both our hockey teams struck Olympic gold in Vancouver. The next day, hockey fever raged on for the NHL. But whither the women after the podium is packed away? Is there support for women’s hockey beyond the Games?

I polled a few hockey-obsessed friends: The answer was no. For one, there’s no high-profile league; even if there were, the game lacks speed and finesse, one said. Another said women don’t excite the way pugilistic NHLers do. Wait, where did that fuzzy feeling go? I thought we were proud of our golden girls.

Despite limited interest in the game itself, I love women’s hockey. The players push the envelope of what’s seen as acceptable for “the fairer sex.” Look no further than the constant chortling about lesbian players and coaches, and about Team Canada’s cigar-and-beer-fuelled celebration (which I maintain was a tongue-in-cheek jab at how male players celebrate) to understand its place in our social fabric.

Female hockey players have always been a bit subversive. The sport began with men, and as a result, fans have come to see the boys’ version as the way it ought to be played. Now, women are adopting it, but with a style that’s all their own. I must be among a minority of those who would welcome that kind of play — if this wasn’t the case, a North American league like the NHL would exist by now.

There are some examples of women in men’s hockey: Hayley Wickenheiser in European leagues; Manon Rheaume in NHL exhibition games — but one league said Wickenheiser shouldn’t play with men, while Rheaume was dismissed as a publicity stunt. Still, everyone rubbernecked — eager to see if these gals could overcome that unspoken notion that men always outclass women, and actually beat a guy.

It’s a difficult pill to swallow, acknowledging that some spectators will never be inspired by women for their sheer athleticism; that she will always be good … but only for a girl.

Add to that the talk that women’s hockey ought to be removed from the Olympics. Supporters cried foul, citing limited opportunities and underfunding, maintaining that it will just take time to establish the sport and develop a deep talent pool. I hope that’s the case. That would be golden.

What I didn’t have room to add was an observation that when it comes to women’s sports — not just hockey — we tend to love it with our minds, in a cerebral, affirmative sort of way that says, ‘Yes! We support your right to play any game you please (but I don’t have to watch it, right?)’ while we will always love men’s sports more intensely, elementally, and we will feel that love with our hearts — from the very core to the tips of our raggedy-ass, blue and white Maple Leafs clown wigs. No one ever sits on the edge of their couch in double overtime, hands locked in prayer and brow furrowed, fervently in prayer to the hockey gods, waiting and hoping their bunch of breathless and exuberant women to hoist a silver-plated cup, y’know?

I suppose you can’t force anyone to feel a pure sense of joy and passion for something if it doesn’t strike you that way, but I wonder how much of it is manufactured by a celebrity-driven, money-soaked, extremely powerful league and sponsor system, and how much is rooted in the athletes themselves and their willful determination. I don’t believe female players feel their love for their sport any less than male players do, nor that they are limited in passing on that sentiment to their audience. If you do, you should read Roy McGregor’s first hand account of the cigar-and-booze celebration, which made me love the women’s team all that much more.

Any sport that requires such a money sink is self-stratifying. It’s a terrible social phenomenon happening not just in amateur sports, but also in skyrocketing university tuition, extra fees required even in public school, laptops and other technological gadgets that are now virtually mandatory in academic and professional spheres. It also means at the highest level, the NHL, as in many other places in life, those that succeed are the ones that can afford it. It’s disheartening that all these opportunities are moving further and further out of reach of low-earning Canadians families.

…

When [hockey is] put on a cultural pedestal, it demands a fairness and accessibility that befits the morals of the country it represents. I think most Canadians believe we are a fair, free and equal country. Hockey, if it ever did represent that, doesn’t anymore.

The spirit of a nation comes from its people, emblematic of their shared experience, ethnicity, history or culture. Our spirit is that we lack all these, and instead take polite pride in them all. We are not one dish, one national dress, one language, one music (I would defect if Anne Murray or Celine Dion were our national chanteuses). How, then, can Canada reduce its sport to just one?

Read the whole thing here. I plan on elaborating a bit more on growing up in Hockeyville Richmond Hill later on this blog.