Chinese beliefs don’t frown on living near UBC hospice, community leader says
Asian condo owners in a high-end UBC building who are opposing a planned hospice next door have a “shallow misunderstanding” of Chinese culture, a well-known community leader says.
David Choi, president and CEO of Vancouver-based Royal Pacific Realty, disputed claims that Chinese beliefs regard facilities such as the proposed 15-bed St. John Hospice next to the Promontory on the West Mall as bringing bad luck to residential neighbours.
“In the Chinese culture, we are not opposed to a hospice because if you think of the Chinese philosophy, the yin and yang, the yin exists with yang side by side to make it whole, the whole circle,” Choi told the Straight in a phone interview today (January 17). “There’s a specific reason for it, and the Chinese believe in a balance.”
Choi is also the national executive chair of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians.
He acknowledged that in terms of Chinese folklore, there is some negativity attached to residing near cemeteries and funeral homes.
But Choi stressed that the “hospice is part of a life process”.
“We believe that to some extent, new immigrants may not understand what a hospice is,” Choi said. “If they’re only associating death with hospice, I think that’s incorrect. As we respect human rights in Canada, residents have a right to object, they have the right to object individually. But what the Chinese community is concerned, and this is why I’m getting so many calls to speak out, is that the residents are claiming this is something of a cultural clash. And it is not!”
According to the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, hospice palliative care is “whole-person health care that aims to relieve suffering and improve the quality of living and dying”.
As Choi puts it, a hospice deals “with the last stage of life, which is deep in the Chinese culture”.
Asian residents are reportedly arguing that yin, which stands for death, shouldn’t be near yang, which is life, because this will bring bad luck, even death.
Choi made short shrift of this claim.
“When you look at the yin-yang symbol, it’s not even a straight line,” he said. “The whole of the yin and yang is about life and life is not complete when you only have one. So I would say it is a shallow understanding, it’s a misunderstanding of Chinese culture to say only half the circle is accepted, and the other half is not accepted.”
Choi agreed to speak briefly to the Straight ahead of a press conference on Tuesday (January 18) by community leaders who are alarmed about what they consider as a misrepresentation of Chinese culture.
The media event starts at 10:45 a.m. at the Hanson Travel boardroom (7680 River Road, Richmond).
According to Choi, speakers include feng shui, or Chinese geomancy, master Sherman Tai.
Choi said that Tai will explain that even feng shui doesn’t frown on hospices near residences.
Comments
21 Comments
buzz
Jan 17, 2011 at 5:49pm
Funny how everyone who supports building the hospice don't live anywhere near it. The university should build it in the faculty housing area and see what kind of opposition they get.
NDB
Jan 17, 2011 at 6:37pm
The asians that were complaining about this seemed to confirm a stereotype. I can see that its certainly inconvenient for this to be in the media for them, but the fact is most asians who come here from China have no respect for our way of life. Its not to surprising thou considering how terrible of a country they come from. Human rights, no regard for safety (lead in baby toys, melamine in baby milk, poisonous dog food) or respect of others. These are just thing which happen in the last decade.
These are the same people that will kill a shark just to eat the fins (which are tasteless) for no other reason then status.
Yes
Jan 17, 2011 at 7:14pm
Finally we get to the heart of the matter. The racists should be marginalized. The condo owners should also be marginalized for falsely using culture.
OMG
Jan 17, 2011 at 9:10pm
Glad the GS scooped the rest of the MSM on this story. Cudos! Seems to me Janet Fan, who obviously from the expert opinions coined is this article is just not Chinese enough, is truly a real Vancouverite: NIMBY.
Michael Castanaveras
Jan 17, 2011 at 9:20pm
Please, build a hospice next to my place! It sure beats:
-Partying rednecks
-Half-way house
-Fire Hall
-Skytrain Station
etc. etc...
These condo owners should feel blessed!
Morty
Jan 17, 2011 at 9:33pm
Actually, buzz, there's more faculty housing (five buildings of rental apartments plus co-development apartments and townhouses) than anything else in the neighbourhood. If you can call anything at UBC the "faculty housing area", this is it.
tim.
Jan 17, 2011 at 10:21pm
wait, why is the university spending student money to build condos and hospices? the chronic underfunding of our post-secondary education system has forced the university to build high-end market condos on campus in order to make up for the shortfall. our "campus" is no longer a "campus."
the rich and everyone else
Jan 17, 2011 at 11:04pm
This is really about immigration and importing the "wrong" kind of Canadian. We currently import the incredibly wealthy from around the world with the hope that some of that wealth will trickle down to us plebs... or at least that is the logic we are led to believe.
In the decades since Ronald Reagan and the Thatch it should have become abundantly clear that the trickle only goes one direction - up.
Import intelligent hard workers that will actually invest in Canada. Not just foreign Campbell clones looking to flip real estate.
@NDB
Jan 17, 2011 at 11:25pm
NDB is so thoroughly misunderstood and racist that I'm not even going to bother correcting him. If I were bothered to write a long, detailed rebuttal though, I'd mention that 1. not all Chinese people come from mainland China, 2. just because you hear horrible things on the news about China doesn't make China a horrible country nor its residents the same, and 3. his blatantly stereotypical view of the Chinese.
Regardless of rebuttals, it's great to know that stupidity is still alive and kicking in Canada, in Vancouver even, in this day and age.
BB
Jan 18, 2011 at 3:00pm
There not afraid of ghosts this day and age, even those traditional types. They afraid of their million dollar apartments being devalued --kind of like putting social housing next door or something to that effect. They are afraid of there investment.