So Whats Up With Vancouver? Revelation Of Matts Vancouver National Anthem .

[guitarchick]

So I am bored, sick, unemployed, chilling in someones house I don't know on the North Shore and I have been here for about a week now. Maybe someone will discuss this with me this will sit here for a year with no input. But here it goes.

 

Whats up with Vancouver? I have been around for a lot of Matts rants about the poverty here among other things.

Maybe it's because I spent much of my life on the east side of Canada and the past 3 years of my life in Nova Scotia where everything is just dandy. Of course I have experienced seeing poverty across the USA and Canada but nothing seemed to hit me as much as what I have seen in Vancouver.

 

Last week I took a trip over to East Hastings to the Rickshaw Theater to see one of my favorite bands, Balmorhea.

As someone who comes from a town of less than 10 thousand and who has lived in areas of no more than 15 thousand, I wasn't particularly prepared for what I would see.

 

Of course I've been to large cities in Canada like Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, and Montreal but none of these compare to the bizarre and uncomfortable feel I have experienced in Vancouver.

Obviously this is all new to me regardless of the fact that I have read about it or not and of course some parts of the USA defiantly take the cake for being incredibly poverty stricken, ie Maine and New Mexico. But it was the sheer number of people on East Hastings that surprised me. Not only that but it seems like there are these imaginary borders or boundaries.

 

I was with my partner when we walked over to East Hastings who has been to Vancouver but told me he never really went that way and always turned back. As we continued it seemed to get progressively worse and the numbers of people either homeless or involved in various drug actions increased. To be honest, I was particularly fearful because I had never experienced such an area. I had never seen someone cook their heroin in a spoon or watch a person convulse on the ground while people simply ignored the whole situation.

 

As we stood outside the theater around 9 o’clock I observed the other side of the street which seemed to be the side where most called home. I was fixated on this women dressed provocatively as she lit up a lighter and heated the spoon she held in her left hand. While a short distance down the street several men huddled together while others pushed their grocery carts full of random items past them. I tried to really gain some kind of understanding of what I was seeing and questioned if my fear was really just a sign of my own ignorance or if I was really in some kind of danger.

 

Why did I fear East Hastings but have comfort in my own mind and body as I passed over into West Hastings later that evening. What’s really mind boggling is that the richest people live maybe a kilometer and a half away from some of the poorest in the city.

 

On Friday evening I ventured out on the sea bus to meet my partner and some of his co-workers for a few drinks at the steamworks. One of his co-workers was off to South Africa for a vacation and they were having a small good-bye/good-luck party for him. I quickly ventured over to the office and proceeded to the bar. I noticed this man maybe a few years older than me lying on his back appearing to be suffering the withdrawals of heroin. Much of his effort went into trying to control himself enough to cover his body with a flimsy white cotton sheet. I looked to see if others were observing this man as inventively as me but I realized everyone seemed to rush by in their fancy suits simply unaware of the struggle unraveling on the other side of the street.

 

Something inside of me wanted to help him and in fact even provide him with a better blanket but I did nothing further and continued on my way. To me there was some kind of guilt and shame inside of me that said I am probably no better than the business man who changed his walking path to avoid the man convulsing on the corner.

 

But what bothered me the most is that you can tell the journey of hard drugs on some ones face, this man looked as if he has just begun his. Not only that but when I saw his face it felt like as if I was looking at my brother from across the street.

 

Matthew Goods Vancouver National Anthem lyrics was something that I spent some time trying to understand and grasp. But it seems to sink a lot deeper into me now to hear and read the lyrics and to see how much it make sense to the way the whole city is laid out. “This is the place where you find out Well this is the way you find out.”

 

To be honest I am somewhat glad that I am not going to be in Vancouver for more than a few months not because it bothers me to experience the problems of the city. But because I don’t want to become desensitized to what I have observed here so I am able to carry it in my memory as something to be thought about and discussed.

 

Anyone have thoughts to add, experiences relating to the city or other cities. Also, I am kind of curious if someone can answer this question:

 

Did the Olympics change a lot of the downtown in a way that forced many into certain areas because they are homeless, drug addicts or mentally unstable?

 

Also, a local told me, maybe he was lying to me, that during the Olympics the city bought one way tickets for people to get out of the city and to go to Victoria. Is this true? Or is this total bs.