The soul of a neighbourhood typically grows over time through the building fibres of summer block parties, kids banding together for back-alley street hockey, or women meeting for a bottle of two for wine under the guise of book club night.
Or, in the case of the newish Wesbrook neighbourhood, the developers hire somebody like Christine Chan to speed things along a bit.
“It’s great to know people by name, it’s great to know faces, and people tell me they walk by and wave to each other. It has that community feel,” said Chan, who works under the title of “community engagement manager” for UBC Properties Trust, a private company owned by the university that manages its developments. Revenue generated by the leased land goes to the university’s endowment fund that supports programs such as scholarships and research grants.
Wesbrook is located off a roundabout near Thunderbird Stadium, just off West 16th Avenue next to the lush Pacific Spirit Regional Park. It’s designed with walking in mind with its mix of retail and residential, and Chan said it’s an ideal canvas to build social capital.
“It’s a growing community and we see there’s a large Asian population here — that’s indicative of Vancouver as well, but we do have all types of people here —Europeans, Koreans, Japanese, and so we wanted to bring some liveliness and engagement here to the village,” said Chan. “This is my first community project, and I love it. I tell people, ‘I put fun things on for people!’ That’s my job.”
Chan brought seasonal celebrations to Wesbrook, including Saturday’s third annual Lunar New Year. As the village grows, so do its celebrations with live performances from various local dance groups such as the Crazi Club, a pop song and dance group, participating for the first time.
While the village has a projected 10 more years of development before it is completed, there are still enough existing shops that it takes a full hour for the Chau Luen Athletic Club’s lion dance team to perform at every door.
After each stop, the stores were inundated by those seeking the Lunar New Year red envelopes; it took just a couple of minutes for University Barbershop’s Bobby Callahan to hand out 100 of them. Included in the envelope was an entry form to win a village shopping spree to the tune of $88, a numeric figure that is considered to be lucky in Chinese culture.
“For me it’s about lucky happenstance,” explained Michael Tan, Chau Luen Athletic Club president who led the lion dance throughout the village. “My apartment number is 2701. My birthday is the 27th and then my birth month is October so if you switch the 1 and the 0, it’s close enough!”
Speaking of luck of the New Year, above each store’s doorway hung a head of lettuce, which the lion grabbed with its mouth to toss into the crowd to spread good fortune. Lettuce is used because the Cantonese word for it is “sang choy,” which can also mean “rising fortune” when the tone of the second character is changed.
“Because of that, when they say the lettuce is spread to everyone, it’s spreading luck,” said Tan. “I always joke around that Chinese people are really into puns.”
Wesbrook was one of a few stops for Tan’s team, and good endurance practice for Sunday’s 42nd annual Vancouver Chinese New Year Parade, which wove its way through Chinatown in front of a crowd of 100,000.
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