Latest News

McGill, News

Safety concerns loom as WALKSAFE and DriveSafe halt operations

by Signy Harnad on

More in McGill:

Content warning: Discussion of physical and sexual violence.

Two volunteer-based security services on campus are halting operations, with a firm date for resumption yet to be determined. Run by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), WALKSAFE announced the suspension of their regular services on Facebook Sept. 13, following SSMU DriveSafe’s similar announcement on Sept. 3.

WALKSAFE president Leon Picha, U2 Management, attributed the shutdown to limited staffing and phone line complications during the SSMU University Centre’s multi-year closure.

“As the University Centre moved, we did not have access to our landline for some time and we actually do not have access to the WALKSAFE phone,” Picha said. “But also we do not have enough volunteers. A lot of our volunteers have graduated and, if we were to operate, we predicted that volunteers would have to do three times their original commitment.”

Tiffany Leung, vice president (VP) operations at DriveSafe, also blamed their services’ suspension solely on their inability to access the landline. The issue of DriveSafe’s hiatus is currently being handled by SSMU representatives.

While both services have been out of day-to-day operations since March 2020, they have still provided security services by special arrangement, like both services’ helping out during  Frosh Week and Drivesafe’s partnership with the Montreal Student Initiative for COVID-19 Response and Relief.

SSMU vice president (VP) student life, Karla Heisele Cubilla, explained that COVID-19 has also played a role in disrupting the operations of services like WALKSAFE.

“The pandemic has been really rough on our services and our clubs,” Cubilla said. “The government keeps giving us updates daily, and it takes time to plan how a service is going to be run.”

According to Yossef Levin, Med 3 and former WALKSAFE volunteer, the service suffered internal difficulties such as understaffing even before the pandemic.

“When I was part of WALKSAFE during my bachelor degree, we operated on tight staffing, and often they would ask people to help fill out shifts,” Levin said. “Many of the executives would take on an excessive amount of shifts from what I remember [….] There were days when they had to cancel services because of understaffing. This happened every so often, especially in 2019.”

(Brian Schatteman / The McGill Tribune)

The shutdowns have left some newcomers to Montreal uncertain of how to stay safe on and around campus. Sarah*, U1 Arts and Science, was disappointed to hear that the security services on campus had been suspended.

“Coming from a small town, my family and I had concerns with a lot of what you hear about the city,” Sarah said. “But then looking at these services that McGill provides, and knowing that they existed, was quite comforting. Getting here, and realizing that they are not in operation, was a bit nerve-racking.”

Earlier this month, Sarah was walking downtown with her roommates when they witnessed an assault. She attempted to reach WALKSAFE the following evening. 

“We saw this girl in front of us get aggressively groped,” Sarah said. “The next day, I had an appointment late at night and thought, ‘I should use WALKSAFE,’ but was not able to.”

The shutdowns come on the heels of grave campus incidents elsewhere in Canada. In the early morning hours of Sept. 11, an 18-year-old student at Western University in London, Ontario, died of injuries sustained in an assault on a street adjacent to campus. In addition, four separate cases of sexual assault were reported to Western campus authorities during the week of Sept. 6.

Lapses in current security offerings are unacceptable, argued U3 Arts student Mikaela Fasold. Remarking on the dwindling security options available to students, Fasold called on volunteers to rise to the occasion.

“Students now have even fewer resources […] short of building their own buddy system or gambling that campus security can always be there to provide protection,” Fasold said. 

“The onus lies on all of us to step up.”

Emergency aid can be reached through a Security Services Safety Escort  (Downtown: 514-398-30000. MacDonald campus: 514-398-7777). The Sexual Assault Center of the McGill Student’s Society hotline is 514-398-8500. McGill Students’ Nightline can be reached at 514-398-6246. SSMU WALKSAFE and SSMU DriveSafe are actively recruiting, see their respective Facebook pages for more details. 

*Sarah’s name has been changed to preserve their anonymity.

Science & Technology

The social and environmental toll of concrete production

by Raymond Tu on

More in Science & Technology:

Names like McCall MacBain Arts, Redpath Museum, or Stewart Biology may bring to mind lecture halls and study spots, but all these McGill landmarks have at least one more thing in common: They all use concrete in their construction. Just about every infrastructure project in Montreal, and across the world, relies on the sand and gravel mining industry. These materials are used as aggregate—a mixture of sand, gravel, and crushed stone used to produce construction materials such as concrete and asphalt—and are then incorporated in infrastructure projects such as bridges, roads, and walkways.

At around 23 billion tonnes annually, concrete is the second most consumed material in the world, after water. The sand and gravel used in concrete production are the most mined materials globally, with 32 to 50 billion tons extracted each year. Despite the size and scale of this industry, the human and environmental impacts of sand and gravel mining, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), are not yet well understood.

To fill this research gap, Mette Bendixen, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at McGill, and her colleagues set out to review and assess the effects of sand and gravel mining in LMICs, especially as they pertain to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Sand is definitely a complicated topic that interacts with fields including science and health,” Bendixen said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “It is a global challenge that is often overlooked. So many people don’t know that it’s such a highly used commodity.”

In an article published in One Earth, Bendixen and other researchers from institutions around the world argue that aggregate mining can alter local topography and damage surrounding freshwater and marine ecosystems. Not only do these mining activities affect the health of the environment and its flora and fauna, but they also affect human health. Some of the potential health effects of sand and gravel extraction include respiratory diseases from the inhalation of small crystalline particles, as well as exposure to environmental contaminants such as arsenic, lead, and cyanide. 

The communities most impacted by sand and gravel mining are often the most marginalized in their local contexts. The article notes that the low-income and uneducated workforce is heavily dependent on aggregate extraction, and that these populations are particularly vulnerable to poor health outcomes such as lung cancer and silicosis. Artisanal and small-scale miners in LMICs, controlled by sand mafias, are often criminalized and subject to violence as well.

“[Miners] are not criminals. They are just trying to make a living,” Bendixen said. “Actually, sand and gravel mining can provide a relatively good income.”

Bendixen and co-authors explain that communities, especially in LMICs, need extractive industries to provide jobs and build infrastructure, which are key elements of the United Nations’ SDG. For instance, children from these families can afford to go to school, furthering SDG 4’s goal of quality education for all. For these reasons, Bendixen believes it is not productive to ban mining activities outright, but instead advocate for better solutions, including circular material usage—a concept supporting the necessity of reutilizing already-consumed resources. 

“We, in high-income countries, have the moral obligation to reuse the material we already have,” Bendixen said. “We should try and look for other alternatives.” 

This call to action begs the question: Do McGill’s buildings and roads use materials that are eco-friendly? Bendixen thinks not, although she says it is often hard to tell where building materials come from. 

“I would be surprised if the resources were sustainably sourced,” Bendixen said. “There are very few incentives to use recycled materials.”

Bendixen compared the situation to the looming threat of climate change, and believes that it is the responsibility of governments to implement solutions. 

“We need political leadership,” Bendixon said. “Just as we are committing to limiting global warming to 2°C, we must commit to the circular approach, to reusing materials.”

Off the Board, Opinion

‘Where We Were’: From reality to memory

by Xiaotian Wang on

More in Off the Board:

This summer, McGill’s Tuesday Night Cafe Theatre, a student-run, anglophone theatre company affiliated with McGill’s English department, screened the short film Where We Were. The film feels reminiscent of the COVID-19 outbreak as the story makes connections between how people process memories of large-scale catastrophes and our current reality. This film takes on special meaning during the pandemic, as it inspires the viewer to reflect on how to react and live following a world-altering event. 

While watching this film, memories flooded back to me of when I first heard about the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Although I was in Montreal, the shock and fear I felt for my friends and family remain deeply rooted in my memory. It began as a terrifying rumour spread on WeChat. Immersed in the joy of the Lunar New Year festivities, most people did not take the rumours seriously. But then, the government confirmed the “rumour.” Cities were placed under lock-down, shopping malls and small businesses closed, and my mom even lost her part-time job at the popcorn store. The parallels between the characters and the audience, such as their age and place in the world, immerse the audience in the narrative world of the film. 

The Lunar New Year should have been the most delightful and exciting time in China. But instead, the streets laid empty and quiet, deserted because everyone was isolated at home. However, I did not foresee how quickly things would get out of control and how differently people around the world would experience this pandemic. Although things are slowly getting better in many parts of the world, the shadow of COVID-19 still affects our lives in ways. The various racial, gender, and class backgrounds of Who We Were’s five characters impact the way they experience and remember the same event—also shaping how they react to and process it. The film then explores how reality transitions into collective memory, a phenomenon that we are all undergoing during the pandemic.

There is one character named Nikki that I particularly empathize with. Nikki is an immigrant who might never get the chance to see her father again due to the undisclosed event in the film. Similar to the real world, when COVID-19 became a global health crisis, travelling between countries became extremely difficult. Many friends of mine still cannot return to their homes in China because of limited flights and increased prices. Besides, different countries’ policies regarding travelling abroad change so fast that even if one can manage to come home, there is no guarantee that they will be able to return to Canada in time to continue their studies. This is also why I have chosen to stay in Canada since the beginning of the pandemic. I have had to sacrifice the chance to see my family in China to avoid the risk of not completing my degree on time. 

Due to the ongoing pandemic, all productions of the McGill Tuesday Night Cafe Theatre were adapted to virtual formats. Where We Were was an experimental pandemic film production, with intriguing production techniques that combine Zoom recordings and in-person shots. As we move into the post-pandemic world, restrictions will ease, and with this comes changes to how this time will be remembered. Knowing that we have gotten to a point where media and film reflect and represent our lives during the pandemic only strengthens the theme of the film, revealing the plurality of ways different situations can be experienced by different people.

McGill, News

Activities Night ‘after hours’ party marks return to in-person SSMU events

by Juliet Morrison on

More in McGill:

The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) held its first in-person event of the Fall term, “Activities Night ‘after hours,” on Sept. 14 at Muzique—a nightclub on St-Laurent Blvd near campus. “After hours,” promoted as a celebration for the return to student life on campus, was the second part of SSMU’s two-day Activities Night series. 

In keeping with Quebec’s COVID-19 regulations for bars and restaurants, protocols included mandatory mask-wearing when moving around the venue, enforcement of the Quebec vaccine passport, and fixed seating arrangements at pre-reserved tables. Plexiglass separated the individual booths and tables. Attendees were allowed to visit Muzique’s three rooms: The Main Room, the Hip-Hop room, and the Terrasse.

Although attendees were required to wear masks, many of the Muzique staff, including the bouncers and the DJ, were seen without masks. Nevertheless, many students, like Joey Hershkop, U1 Engineering, said the event’s vaccine policy eased his concerns. 

“I feel completely safe, considering the vaccine passport,” Hershkop said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Having the peace of mind knowing that everybody here is vaccinated is crucial.” 

Abdel Madrid Rafai, U2 Engineering, agreed that the safety precautions at the event were sufficient. Madrid Rafai expressed his eagerness to participate in student life this year, after completing his first year at McGill entirely online.

“I really do not have many concerns,” Madrid Rafai said. “We did not have many cases [at] McGill these past few weeks and the regulations were followed [….] I am just excited to be with other students.” 

At around 10:45 p.m., Montreal Police (SPVM) inspected the venue to ensure that the venue was adequately enforcing COVID-19 safety regulations. The police found no violations, leaving Muzique after 10 minutes.

“I talked to the police,” Karla Heisele Cubilla, Activities Night organizer and SSMU vice-president student life said. “They told me that they received a phone call, saying that there was a party and [asking] if [the police] could go check that regulations were being followed [….] The police came in, they found nothing wrong.”

Heisele Cubilla said that while she primarily received enthusiastic responses from the McGill community after the event, she said she also received concerns from SSMU members about how the after party would adequately adhere toCOVID-19 protocols. 

“I brought it to [SSMU’s executive committee],” Heisele Cubilla explained. “The entire team approved this event. I explained […] all the regulations we are taking, and they said, ‘okay, this seems like it is per Quebec’s laws and regulations.’”

SSMU president Darshan Daryanani looked back on the event as a welcome return to student life at McGill. 

“From what I have heard, after more than 18 months of remote learning, students appreciated a venue where they can finally re-engage with each other and restore an experience that students have missed for so long,” Daryanani wrote in an email to the Tribune. “Some students are COVID-19 cautious and prefer online events, so in the near future, we will be planning for both.”

Commentary, Opinion

Bill 96 is not the solution to the Anglo-Franco divide

by Alex Jonas on

More in Commentary:

Starting Sept. 21, Quebec’s National Assembly will debate Bill 96––a proposed amendment to the Canadian constitution that would declare Quebec a “nation” and make French its only official language. The bill has unsurprisingly sparked controversy in a province known for its biculturalism and history of intraregional tension. The English Montreal School Board (EMSB)’s retaliatory statement firmly denying Quebec’s nationhood––which the board withdrew a few days later due to backlash––only fanned the flames. Concerns about constricting teachers’ abilities in the classroom or limiting job opportunities for non-French speakers are just some of the bill’s many points of debate. The new law will only perpetuate existing linguistic divides, and politicians on both sides of the debate should promote individuals’ freedom to choose their language of education—rather than making that decision for them.

Hugh MacLennan’s 1945 novel, “Two Solitudes” is but one example demonstrating how the lack of communication between the anglophones and francophones has jeopardized Canadian political harmony. The novel illustrates the disjointed relations between French and English Canadians through characters who intentionally isolate themselves. This type of separatist rhetoric has circulated in the political sphere since the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837. It gained traction again in the 1980s and 90s, dominating the two referenda concerning the question of Quebec’s national sovereignty. Today, it emerges once again in the form of Bill 96. Triggering passions on both sides, the bill makes no real effort to resolve ongoing polarization; instead, it further entrenches it.

In a last-ditch attempt to save face, EMSB chairperson Joe Ortana retracted his denial of Quebec’s nationhood, clarifying that the English-speaking community wants to be a part of it. Nevertheless, Ensemble Montreal dropped him as a candidate for the upcoming municipal elections in November.

Whether Ortana’s declaration was a semantic mishap or a politically motivated jab remains unclear––though in the current social climate, the latter seems most likely. What is clear is that relations between the EMSB and the native French speakers that attend its institutions will be all the more fractious. Speaking out against Bill 96’s proposed reforms and its potentially detrimental outcomes to anglophones and allophones is entirely reasonable; but attacking Quebec’s distinct nationship in so doing is irresponsible and frankly, unproductive. 

Dialogue about the bill’s deleterious implications is absolutely necessary, and the concerns of the anglophone minority are not unfounded. Many parents and teachers alike are concerned about the ramifications this amendment might have in the classroom, given that the bill would require employees, including teachers, to communicate entirely in French. This would restrict non-French speaking teachers’ abilities and severely limit job opportunities for anglophones.

One of the most disturbing propositions of an otherwise tame series of requests––such as rendering signs to be completely in French––is its implications for CEGEP applicants. The bill would allow the government to intervene in the affairs and choices of students in Quebec, requiring English CEGEPs to primarily accept anglophones and mandating that no more than 17.5 per cent of the provinces’ students attend English language CEGEPs. Many francophone students feel they have to make the switch to English CEGEPs to optimize their career prospects, and although French colleges’ declining enrollment is a cause for concern, it must remain the student’s decision to attend a French or English CEGEP—not the government’s. No student’s future should be decided based on the vote-pandering movements of sour politicians. 

Overall, this bill––and the heavily biased and partisan media frenzy surrounding it––will only further divide the anglophone and francophone populations. Rather than arguing over semantics, unnecessarily attacking the legitimacy of the Quebec nation, or barring French speakers from English CEGEPs, politicians should be trying to mitigate polarization in the province and bridge the gap between the “Two Solitudes.” MacLennan coined the term over 70 years ago and is most certainly rolling over in his grave at the news that, in 2021, we are still squabbling over the same petty argument. 

Soccer, Sports

Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United is an exercise in spectacle

by Dylan Schofield on

More in Soccer:

At the age of 36, Cristiano Ronaldo is still undoubtedly a superstar of world soccer. Alongside Lionel Messi, Ronaldo has been the joint best player in the world for more than a decade. He has encapsulated fans’ imaginations with a myriad of iconic moments, spanning his early days as a Manchester United phenom, to his stint as an established talent at Juventus. He has won nearly every accolade, both team and individual, that the sport has to offer. The crowning jewel—or rather, jewels—of his career are the five Ballon d’Or titles he has earned, consistently marking him as the best player in world soccer.

In a dramatic turn of events, Ronaldo has returned to Manchester United, the club that first gave him a platform to grow as a young 18-year-old prospect back in 2003. The move is full of romance, tying Cristiano Ronaldo, Manchester United, and all of the history between them together.

Despite his age, Ronaldo is still an incredible footballer; his physical conditioning and remarkable in-game sharpness is second to none, and he scored a tremendous 36 goals last season. Despite the romanticized reunion of Ronaldo and  Manchester United, this move smacks of desperation on both parties. 

If Ronaldo is anything apart from being talented, he is incredibly marketable. His 344 million Instagram followers attest to the scale of his global influence. Manchester United have already reaped the rewards of the meagre £25-million investment, as they saw Ronaldo’s iconic number seven jersey become the fastest-selling shirt in Premier League history. The famed new number seven jersey has brought in £187.1-million since his number was confirmed.

From a financial standpoint, these sales have more than justified both the fee to bring him to the club, and also the astronomical £500,000 per week he will be earning. 

U1 Arts soccer fan Ben Manson thinks the move may be ill-advised. 

“He has to prove it on the pitch,” Manson said. “As of right now, the only thing that Ronaldo has brought to Manchester United is an inflated ego and a paycheck. Ronaldo is a wonderful player, but yes, as of right now this entire transfer is one big circus, especially after the loss to Young Boys.” 

The loss came in Manchester United’s match against Swiss team BSC Young Boys Bern in the opening Champions League fixture of the season. Ronaldo scored in typical fashion, but the team failed to keep their composure, conceding a late goal.

Young Boys are not a team Manchester United should ever be losing to. Many believed that Ronaldo’s prowess for the biggest games would elevate United’s game. After all, he is known for his ability to rise to the occasion, often being likened to the Michael Jordan of the soccer community. Despite this, he failed to infect his Manchester United teammates with the same capacity for big-game success. 

Sam Koenig, U1 Arts & Science, on the other hand, believes Ronaldo’s move is a recipe for resounding success.

“Purely in virtue of the fact that he is such a brilliant player, he will elevate Manchester United to a higher level,” Koenig said. “That’s why I love Ronaldo. He has proved time and time again that he is capable of making those around him better.”

This will be an important facet of measuring the success of Ronaldo’s move to United. Although he is but one man, the best players are renowned for galvanizing their entire squad and winning. 

As it stands, Ronaldo’s transfer to Manchester United seems nothing more than a sales-driven spectacle. He is earning an exorbitant amount of money every week, but he is long past the player that rose to fame all those years ago. And crucially, the romanticism of a move back to his boyhood club suggests that this transfer has much more to do with appeasing the fans than it does with succeeding on the pitch. 

Commentary, Opinion

Federal candidates must work harder to earn students’ support

by Michael Dickinson on

More in Commentary:

Viewers of the federal leaders’ debates on Sept. 9 and 10 heard many promises to solve the country’s problems. Unfortunately, details about the implementation of these sweeping goals were missing. Young people, in particular, may have felt left out of the discourse, as student issues were barely mentioned in either debate. Although the candidates discussed issues that impact young Canadians, such as pandemic recovery, mental health, the housing crisis, and climate change, they failed to address students’ unique concerns. To gain their support, federal candidates must be more clear about communicating how their policies will help students. 

Based on the debates alone, leaders appeared to overlook student issues. However, some parties’ official platforms still prioritize them. The New Democratic Party plans to eliminate student debt up to $20,000, while the Green Party seeks to increase scholarships for graduate and doctoral students. Likewise, Prime Minister Trudeau could have taken time during the debate to outline his promises to end federal interest on student loans and increase universities’ funding for mental health counsellors. While it is encouraging that parties have included student issues in their platforms, the debates were a missed opportunity for candidates to tell millions of viewers about these plans and show that they are passionate about helping young Canadians.

It is curious that the leaders downplayed student issues since inspiring young people in Canada to vote is a major challenge. Canadians between the ages of 18 and 24 vote less than any other age group: Many believe that their vote does not matter and think that the government does not care about their concerns. Young people also face greater barriers to voting, since many do not receive voter information cards and are not made aware of how to register. The suspension of Election Canada’s Vote on Campus program during this campaign will likely further decrease turnout. With many students disillusioned about voting in this unpopular snap election or uninformed about how to vote in the first place, it is imperative that parties go out of their way to direct their messaging toward this key interest group.

Although politicians may wish to appeal to all demographics evenly, the debates focussed on many issues that concerned specific groups. Both sets of moderators asked about the high rate of COVID-19 mortality in senior care homes without mentioning the pandemic’s devastating effects on young people’s mental health. Economic recovery was a major theme of the debates, though the participants ignored the fact that students’ entry into the workforce is necessary to spark this recovery. Candidates may have been more interested in courting the support of seniors because Canadians over the age of 55 have the highest voter turnout, but when seniors’ concerns are discussed more than those of other age groups, it can become a cause, rather than an effect, of higher turnout. If candidates want students’ votes, they should speak about issues that matter to them, just as they do for constituents of other ages. 

Young people represent a largely untapped resource for Canada’s political parties, and winning their support now has the potential to turn them into lifelong voters. As the 2021 federal campaign comes to an end, candidates must highlight the aspects of their platforms that pertain to young people, and continue to speak about these issues in upcoming campaigns—in addition to delivering on their promises once elected. However, candidates are not solely responsible for tackling low youth voter turnout. Students can advocate for themselves by pushing their leaders to restore on-campus voting and encouraging their friends to register and vote. To gain politicians’ attention, young people need to resist the temptations of apathy and meet the parties halfway. If students show greater political interest, candidates will be more inclined to discuss student issues in future debates, creating a cycle that ensures that every citizen’s voice is heard.

Features

Meeting myself halfway

by Sequoia Kim on

More in Features:

“Hi Halmoni,” I say, as I draw my Korean grandmother into an awkward, very loose, hug. “Hi say-quoi-yah,” she beams back at me, purple puffer jacket, tattooed eyebrows, and all. My grandparents are very predictable; Halmoni will measure herself against me and tell me I should enter Miss Universe; Haraboji will draw out a long “Hii,” pull me into a very brief hug, and give me two or three solid—and I mean solid—pats on the back.

I am grateful for every minute I get to spend with my grandparents, but seeing them in the flesh is a bittersweet experience. It reminds me of the time I told Haraboji that I was going to take an introductory Korean language class at McGill. I never actually ended up taking the course, and it pained me when every time he would come over to visit, he would ask me if I was still taking it. I shook my head and muttered that I would start trying to learn on my own soon—a promise I knew I wouldn’t keep. I wanted to take the class to stop feeling like a Korean fraud, and more importantly, to be able to talk to my Korean family. I wanted to know all the stories that couldn’t quite pierce through the language barrier between us. 

Growing up mixed Korean-Scottish in a predominantly white town in Southwestern Ontario, my search for a sense of identity and belonging has felt, at turns, humiliating and insatiable. As I enter my twenties, however, I’ve begun to see this confusing existence not as something to lament, but as something beautiful and inordinately complex to explore.

Simmering on low heat for several years prior, my racial identity crisis erupted in my first year of studies at McGil. McGill’s Upper Residence felt packed with hundreds of self-centred, loud, white people. More than being excluded, I felt repulsed: Who I was couldn’t have been farther from the culture I had been plunged into. Outside of the more glaring reasons for my alienation—like the astounding dominance of the thin, white, and blonde ideal—lots of other small things bothered me. For one, people wasted disgusting amounts of food in the dining hall. My Apba taught me to scrape out the last grain of rice out of the bowl, and I always use chopsticks to nitpick out the final few half-grains stuck to the side. 

I thought maybe my proximity to whiteness would grant me backend access to the ‘best four years of your life’ university experience that I was expecting—but it never really did. Through various conversations with other mixed East Asians, it was affirming to find out that my experience was not an anomaly. Serene Mitchell, a U3 Arts student born in Taiwan but raised transnationally between Asia and the West coast of Canada, remembers being shocked by the unabashed displays of privilege among the much of the McGill population.

“[I remember] feeling so […] isolated, feeling like I don’t have anything in common with these people at all,” Mitchell said, recalling their first year. “I think that’s when I started doing a lot of thinking and I was like, ‘if this is white people, this is not me.’”

But, it was those very experiences of Othering and alienation that led Mitchell to explore their Asian identity in more depth. She added, “I feel like because of how horrible it was, it pushed me to reconcile with my Asian identity, because […] the fact that people make me feel like I can’t have it makes me want to have it more.”

And oh, how badly I wanted my identity. After being chewed up and spat out by my first year of university, I felt the sudden urge to explore, and confront, my Asian identity. But how? The most obvious starting point was through my Haraboji—translating to “grandfather” in English. In my eyes, he embodied a lifetime’s knowledge of Korean culture, traditions, language, and lived history. I wanted to know all these things too, I wanted to be able to answer any Korea-related question anyone ever had for me, just like my grandfather could. It was as if I wanted to become my grandfather himself. Not far into my tragic hero’s journey did I confront the realization that being a walking encyclopedia on Korean culture wouldn’t make me any more Korean than I already am.

After that, I latched onto something different, something that Katia Lo Innes, BA ‘21, calls “boba liberalism.” Said to be coined by the now-deleted Twitter user @diaspora_is_red, the term points to the rise of bubble tea as part of the “substanceless trend-chasing spectacle” that is mainstream Asian-American—and Asian-Canadian—liberalism. 

“Once boba liberalism kicks in, and you see your cultural identity as things that can be bought and sold, and you’re mixed, you are always going to have this idea that you’re deficient,” Lo Innes said. “You have a scarcity mentality that tells you have to do all these things to catch up.”

The term critiques the idea of reaffirming one’s racial identity by purchasing commified and mainstream “Asian” products. Another Twitter user, replying to the original thread, continues: “It’s capitalist consumption presented as ‘API-ness.’ Buy more crazy rich asians tickets, sell more boba, go to raves, wear this brand. It’s reliant on capitalism.”

Though I was never a materialistic ‘boba liberal,’ I certainly struggled with the temptation to outwardly display—and perhaps, perform—my Asian-ness. I was never obsessed with purchases, but I was still obsessed with their shadow: Performance. I knew I just desperately wanted to prove to people—especially to white people—that I was Asian, that I was Asian enough.

“If you look at things as a performance for other people, you’re not going to feel it. But if you look at your own personal rituals, I think a lot of it was actually quite cultural. Like boiling water or taking shoes off to wear slippers. And they’re not ‘capital C’ culture, I’m not doing a tea ceremony every morning, but those are all cultural habits,” Lo Innes said.

At some point along the way, I, along with Lo Innes, was added to the Facebook group “Subtle Asian Traits.” Its 1.9 million members make funny, relatable posts about the ‘Asian experience’: Asian dads making kids cry while helping with math homework, references to K-dramas and animes, strict Asian parents pushing their children to be doctors and lawyers. While I related to some of the memes, I often felt like an outsider—even an imposter—in a community I was supposed to fit into.

“A lot of the Subtle Asian Traits discourse, and also a lot of mixed-race and cultural identity discourse is really based on consumption and what you do,” Lo Innes said. “It’s kind of shallow. Being Asian isn’t just going to get boba or having parents that beat you with a wooden spoon.”

But the unsettling feeling of not feeling Asian enough obviously runs deeper than not being able to relate to a universalized Asian experience. Many of my worries are linguistic, existential, even generational. Earlier this summer, I decided to walk down to Montreal’s melting-pot-of-a-Chinatown for the first time, expecting to find some comfort. Instead, I felt alienated. As I walked through the stores, pouring over all the things that I used to see lying around my grandparents’ house, I felt lost trying to navigate a space written in languages and characters I didn’t recognize nor understand. 

The dichotomy is dizzying: I saw so many familiar Korean things, but they felt oh so distant, foreign, and out of reach. It’s akin to how I feel around my Korean relatives sometimes: They speak to me in broken English, measure themselves against my towering height, marvel at my mixed features—my curly hair, mostly. I always nod along, catching some words and comments here and there. My Apba spoke to me in Korean when I was a young child, but eventually stopped. I never learned the language.

If there’s one thing that keeps me up at night, it’s grappling with the fear and sorrow of the possibility of the Korean line fizzling out in my generation. If I feel so disconnected and alienated from my culture now, it hurts to think about how disconnected my kids might feel. Haraboji and Halmoni won’t be alive; I won’t have any Korean to pass onto my kids; so many family stories will be left untold, caught behind the rigid language barrier dividing the world between my grandparents’ and I. Michelle Zauner, the half-Korean lead vocalist and songwriter of Japanese Breakfast, asks herself a similar question in the opening chapter of her memoir ‘Crying in H-Mart’: “Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?”

Lo Innes, too, has grappled with long-term generational anxieties, but finds comfort in the fact that Chinese culture is always in flux—not something stuck in time, about to be lost.

“What I try to tell myself is that if I try and claim too much of Chinese culture as I know it, it ends up becoming kind of the archaic, fake version that I’m trying to feed my kids and that isn’t that cool,” Lo Innes said. “Culture in China is always changing and it changes with me and it changes with everyone who is Chinese, so I think a lot of people are being less traditional.”

And change does it ever: When I visited South Korea in 2016 with my grandparents and family, I was shocked to hear from both Apba and Haraboji that they felt like outsiders there. My grandparents were born in Korea, but moved to Toronto in 1968, my father in Toronto. Haraboji said that the dialect had changed so much that he—a native Korean speaker—could at times barely comprehend what people were saying. 

It made me think about the diasporic yearning to return to the homeland. The thought of travelling to the place my ancestors have lived for hundreds of years remains appealing. But while visiting South Korea was beautiful and thought-provoking, I realized that the place itself would be no silver bullet in reaffirming my racial identity.

Connecting to geographic places outside of the homeland is important too. Born to an Italian father and a Korean mother, Catherine Young Zambrano, U2 Arts, said she feels most at home in Toronto, where she lives right in between her two cultural neighbourhoods.

“In Toronto, my mom’s house is in between College Street and Bloor Street. On College Street, it’s Little Italy. And on Bloor Street, it’s Koreatown. And [we lived] literally right in the middle,” Zambrano said, smiling. “What I love about going home is how close I feel geographically to each little town of mine.” 

Lo Innes and Zambrano inspire me to see my complicated relationship with my cultural identity as a beautiful, complex thing to treasure. Instead, I think I’ll start asking myself questions like: How do I find genuine connection to culture? How do I learn to accept everything that I am, and realize that everything I am not? How do I come to peace with myself?

Food was an accessible entry point to accessing Korean culture for me. Although there aren’t many Asian grocery stores in the Plateau area where I live, I enjoy biking down to Chinatown or up to the Jean-Talon area to visit Marché Oriental. One time, annoyed by the meagre 2 lb bags of rice sold at grocery stores around me, I hauled a 15 lb bag of ‘extra fancy’ Calrose rice—otherwise known as sticky rice—several kilometers back to my apartment. For Zambrano, making her mother’s dumplings is a way of connecting to Korean culture. 

“I make them for my roommates, make them for my friends, and make them for my dinner parties,” Zambrano said. “Everyone loves them a lot.”

Food is my care language. I prefer chopping vegetables and preparing a birthday meal for a friend rather than buying them a gift. This summer, I made bibimbap for a close friend’s 20th birthday. I spent the morning julienning the carrots and cucumbers, marinating the spinach, making the sauce, and arranging everything in the bowl perfectly. Together, we celebrated his 20th birthday in the park just outside my apartment.

“Food is a great way to reconnect because it’s a universal language and has a universal way of caring for yourself and caring for others,” Lo Innes said. “Often, […] being mixed and not speaking […] your mother tongue, it’s like, ‘how do I communicate these feelings to people without the vocabulary to do so?’ Food is a great way to find that vocabulary.”

From Korean barbecue, to mul naengmyeon, to dotori-muk—a wobbly acorn jelly—to a simple bowl of fresh, steaming rice, making and eating Korean food brings me so much comfort. 

Though I cook for myself much of the time, food is best enjoyed in company. Renée Laberge, U2 Arts, made space for herself in Upper Residence in first year, sharing bits of Chinese culture and food with her floormates. “When I was in residence, I made a point to let people know that not only am I half Chinese, [that that I also] I fucking love the culture,” Laberge said, beaming. For Autumn Moon Festival, Laberge’s mother sent her mooncakes, so she cut the mooncakes up into tiny pieces and put them on a plate outside for people on her floor to try. For Chinese New Year, she cooked dinner for her entire floor.

***

My Haraboji is my cultural rock. As I was reading over the final versions of this feature, I decided to call him. I could hear his excitement emanating through the phone when he picked up. After explaining the topic of my feature to him, he surprised me when he said he felt the same way: When he travelled to Korea for the first time in 53 years, he said other Koreans treated him like he wasn’t a full Korean. But back in Canada, he said he is seen as an immigrant—fully the Other, fully Korean. I sat still in my chair, processing his words, because I had always seen myself as not-Asian-enough in his shadow. Hearing about his alienation from both places challenged the idea I had held onto for so long: That having a cultural identity is something you are born with and that sticks with you for the rest of your life. That because Haraboji was a full Korean, born in Korea, that he would stay Korean for the rest of his life. The fact that even Haraboji—who epitomized Korean-ness in my eyes—was still navigating his own cultural identity at the ripe age of 84, showed me that feeling Asian is so much more complex than I could have ever imagined.

Stepping out of the metro station near Place-des-Arts one lonely night this summer, I passed by an outdoor MUTEK festival performance. In a plain white tee-shirt that hung loosely off her shoulders as she pulsed to the beat was Ciel, a Toronto-based DJ hailing from Xi’an, China. As I swayed to the ethereal, head-bumping electronica, suddenly I was crying. It was a simple revelation, but an important one: There is no single way to be, or feel, Asian.

Science & Technology

Five science myths perpetuated by your favourite movies and TV shows

by Shafaq Nami on

More in Science & Technology:

Movies and TV shows are notorious for sacrificing sound science in favour of cinematics that capture audiences’ attention. While this provides good entertainment, viewers may be shocked when scientific reality does not match up with fantasy. The McGill Tribune busts five incorrect portrayals of science in the popular media.  

Myth 1: Antidote to the rescue!

You may be familiar with action movie plotlines, involving the manufacture and distribution of an antidote to counteract a poison in a timeframe of mere days. For instance, in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Shredder’s evil plan revolves around spreading a virus and then using the teenage mutant ninja turtles to create and distribute an antidote—all within the time span of a month. Most of these films feature certain characters with a natural resistance toward the poison who then provide their antibodies as a cure.

In real life, however, manufacturing an antidote would take much longer than a few days—even if the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations were ignored and a production process was already in place. A real-life parallel of antidote manufacture is snake antivenom, which is made by injecting horses with venom to produce antibodies. The process takes at least 18 months to complete and involves breeding snakes and milking their venom, and then purifying the antibodies produced by horses upon exposure.

Myth 2: Charge to 100—stat! 

Defibrillators, a very common occurrence in movies and medical dramas, are often used to put audiences on the edge of their seats, waiting to see if their favourite character will survive the shock.

In shows, defibrillators are mostly employed when a character’s heart suddenly stops beating. However, in a real emergency, defibrillators cannot be used on people with extremely slow heart rates or none at all. They are also not placed side-by-side on the chest as shown in movies, but at specific angles on the chest; one above the right nipple and the other on the left side just below the chest area.

Myth 3: Walking away scot-free

Many movies feature action heroes that are seemingly invincible: They walk away from huge explosions and destruction relatively unharmed—think any movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While fire and shrapnel are both dangerous side-effects of an explosion, there is a more insidious way explosions can kill: Through blast waves. If a person is close enough to the explosion to be propelled by its shockwave, they are close enough to be killed. 

When an explosion occurs, it creates a vacuum which is immediately filled by surrounding air. Pressure changes of three pounds per square inch (psi) can cause 164 kilometre-per-hour winds—gusts strong enough to collapse most residential buildings. Anyone close to the explosion would not only feel the blast, but also the immense wind pressure it creates. Such high pressure can cause serious ear, lung and bowel damage—sorry, Tom Cruise.

Myth 4: The BOOM in space

Battle sounds and noises made by ships as they move through space are found in many science fiction movies, like Star Trek and Star Wars. If these movies were true to science, there would be only deafening silence in space.

The reason for the silence is because space is a vacuum, and sound needs a medium to travel through to be heard. This fact was first proved in the 17th century by Irish physicist Robert Boyle, when he conducted an experiment that placed a ringing alarm clock inside a glass jar. After sucking out the air from the jar using a pump, creating a vacuum, Boyle discovered that when the air disappeared, so too did the sound.

Myth 5: The chloroform kidnap

Kidnapping scenes in movies tend to involve a dark figure descending upon an unsuspecting victim from behind, muffling their screams with a chloroform-soaked cloth. The victim typically loses consciousness only seconds later. 

Though it is a powerful anaesthetic, chloroform is a slow-working substance. It would take an adult human at least five minutes to lose consciousness—during which they could potentially fight off their attacker. Moreover, chloroform’s efficacy also depends on its dose: If the attacker is imprecise, overdose of chloroform can cause death. This is one of the reasons why chloroform is no longer used in surgeries. 

Despite the inaccurate portrayals of science that would make any expert shudder, most people continue to consume such media without question. After all, why go to the movies if not for an escape?  

Science & Technology

Nature-based solutions are the future of climate change mitigation

by Madison McLauchlan on

More in Science & Technology:

Global biodiversity has been increasingly imperilled since the beginning of the Holocene, or the human age, but many scientists agree that biodiversity decline in the 21st century is akin to a sixth mass extinction. Without the transformation of many facets of society, species abundance will continue to decline, causing a disastrous ripple effect across ecological, social, and economic spheres. 

This information, coupled with ever-more-troubling International Panel on Climate Change 

(IPCC) reports can make it feel as though all hope is lost for a livable future. To discuss mitigation strategies, McGill’s Faculty of Science is hosting the Bicentennial Mini-Science lecture series to disseminate scientific knowledge about the future of sustainability. 

Andrew Gonzalez, professor in the department of biology at McGill, Liber Ero Chair in Biodiversity Science, and director of the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science (QCBS), gave the sixth Mini-Science lecture on Sept. 9 via Youtube Live Stream. Gonzalez is a prolific researcher who also co-founded the environmental consulting company, Habitat. Based in Montreal, the organization advises local communities on forest management, landscape conservation, and ecosystem evaluation. 

The talk covered the history of biodiversity decline and the current challenges policymakers face in preventing environmental breakdown. Gonzalez emphasized that sustainability should aim to improve the quality of human life while preserving non-human biodiversity.

“Vital to all of this, is that human activities remain within bounds, so as not to destroy the diversity, complexity, and function of [the] ecological life support system that we call the biosphere,” Gonzalez said.

According to Gonzalez, the world operates as a “coupled social-ecological system,” where the economy and its growth are totally dependent on the productivity of the biosphere. As it stands, global supply chains for goods such as sugar, coffee, and textiles contribute to biodiversity loss, which in turn decreases economic productivity—ultimately creating a vicious cycle as long as these systems are intertwined. 

“Canada also imports biodiversity loss,” Gonzalez said. “[We] imported enormous amounts [of goods] from around the world to support our diets and the commodities that we purchase. Those imports […] have an imprint on ecosystems far from here, and that imprint, [whether it be] the destruction of habitats or the degradation of ecosystems, can be accounted for and quantified in our impact.” 

The economic slowdown caused by the pandemic has had several negative effects on biodiversity and conservation efforts. Despite the initial decrease in pollution and claims from social media that nature was healing, not a single international biodiversity target was reached this year. The global average temperature increase stands at a worrying 1.2 degrees Centigrade and 2021 had the warmest July on record. Canada also has the second-highest impact per capita on terrestrial mean species abundance—4.3 times the global average.

After discussing the sobering details of the climate crisis, Gonzalez shifted gears, offering several nature-based solutions, both on the micro and macro levels, to reach biodiversity and sustainability goals. 

“We have to extend global conservation networks by establishing more protected areas […] if we are going to bend the curve of biodiversity,” Gonzalez said. “We need to restore degraded lands [like] abandoned agricultural lands, […] and we have to base future land-use decisions on comprehensive landscape-level conservation planning.” 

A part of this solution set, Gonzalez added, is to transform agricultural systems by shifting away from animal protein-based diets toward more plant-based ones.

Although a small number of corporations are responsible for the majority of global emissions, Gonzales noted that effective biodiversity conservation strategies should consist of local efforts—and especially those led by Indigenous groups given their extensive knowledge of land stewardship. 

“We cannot come down from an ivory tower where we are hidden away from society and proposing top-down solutions,” Gonzalez said. “That doesn’t work. The risks are too great and the needs are too immediate.” 

The presentation provided a glimmer of hope in a sea of eco-anxiety, reminding attendees that scientists have amassed a wealth of solutions to preserve biodiversity. Whether they can be adopted in time remains to be seen.

1 … 325 326 327 328 329 … 1,363

Read the latest issue

Read the latest issue