March 26, 2020

Astronaut Families

By roads-rus

The New York Times had what I thought was an interesting article by Dan Bilefsky about Vancouver, BC within the past week.  It’s about a phenomenon I have been aware of for about 25 years and have seen unfolding every time I have visited Vancouver, the so-called ideal city in Western Canada.  It’s about one of those less-than-ideal situations that sounds like a problem solver but leads to trouble over time, Astronaut Fathers.

When Great Britain announced that it was turning Hong Kong over to China by 1997, many Chinese men with families in Hong Kong and Taiwan began moving their wives and children to this Canadian city while continuing  to work in Asia.  They feared that Communist China would negatively impact their city’s entrepreneurial spirit after the transition.  Because they spent so much time in airplanes going to Vancouver on weekends and such, they became known as astronaut fathers and their wives, who felt responsible to raise children alone in a culturally alien environment, became known as astronaut wives.

These parents were attracted to Vancouver’s schools and easily gotten passports for family members.  They had plenty of money and began transforming the social atmosphere of this Canadian city by buying  up property.  This eventually made Vancouver one of the most unaffordable cities in North America.  Ruth and I noticed that the area from downtown to the international airport was transitioning to an urban Chinatown with many signs in Chinese and shops catering to their needs.  The article points out that many Chinese families bought property in Richmond, a city near the airport.  A couple of generations later the astronaut children of these astronaut parents are feeling more Canadian than Chinese.  They have been spoiled, defy parental authority, and feel the loss of family intimacy.

BC authorities fought back by increasing taxes on foreign homeowners, but the wealth of the immigrants mitigated that.  But then the coronavirus struck.  There are 659 confirmed cases in BC and 14 deaths in one care center with 9 senior centers affected by the virus.  The situation is fomenting discriminatory behavior aimed at the Chinese immigrants while making commuting far more problematical for them.  Race, class, and income inequality could tear Vancouver apart.

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Hank

 

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2020 at 9:23 pm and posted in Canada. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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