Coffee Stained Stories

February 26, 2022 | Times Square

“What gives me hope is the knowledge that Ukrainians have been through worse, and they have prevailed. They have overcome this. We’re together. We’re one. Ukrainians that are in Ukraine are holding the front. They are fighting with everything that they have. And seeing them marching while singing Ukrainian folk songs, I have no doubt that Ukraine will prevail. I am terrified of how many lives we have to lose until that happens, but no doubt, no doubt in anybody’s mind that Ukraine will prevail.

My grandmother, she’s in the mountains. We’re from the mountains. People are prepared to go to the mountains and seek shelter in the mountains, though it would be the absolute last thing we would do. Because they can’t survive in the Ukrainian mountains but we can. After World War II, Ukrainians fought for over ten years with the Red Army for independence. The war ended for the rest of the world, but the Ukrainians continued to fight for another ten years. And mountains played an incredible role in protecting our freedom fighters. And they were digging themselves in bunkers, and my grandma would bring them food.

Many of us Ukrainians here have somebody that has been a freedom fighter who fought for Ukraine. We are descendants of strong ancestors. And they are praying for us up there.”

June 8, 2021 | Bean Around The World UBC

“I think I’m like anybody else. I have good periods and bad periods, and there’s definitely times where I don’t produce anything. But I think it goes back to my university days. I had a really great group of friends, and we kind of just helped each other do stuff. Doing stuff was really important to us. So I’ve always embraced that.

Looking back, whether you’re good or bad is irrelevant. We were pretty dedicated. Every week, we were practicing lots of times a week, writing our own stuff. So we just kind of developed that habit. I think there’s a reason people use the word creative practice, because it’s a practice, right? The worst thing you can do is wait for that moment of inspiration to magically deliver the finished product, because that never happens.

That moment of inspiration is phenomenal. And it’s fleeting. You still have to do the work.”

June 3, 2021 | Platform 7 Coffee

“I think my mom had been really looking forward to [coming to my graduation]. But my dad, I’m not sure.

Being an only child and being away, I think it’s really hard for my mom. I think she maybe puts too much focus on me. It’s good and bad, but as I grow older, I start feeling that the attention sometimes becomes a burden and prevents me from doing things that I want to do.

My dad, though, he’s always given me a very distant feeling. As weird as it sounds, when I’m interacting with my dad, I feel like I’m interacting with a colleague or a classmate. When I’m talking to someone really close, I wouldn’t necessarily stop and think about what I’m saying and how I present myself, but I do with my dad.

Maybe on mom’s birthday or around Mother’s Day, I wish I [was close to home]. All the people I know are posting photos with their families, and that’s the time when I feel like she would be really lonely. And that it would be good if I was there.”

March 12, 2021

“In Ecuador, there is a big malnutrition problem. One of two Indigenous children experience malnutrition. And in general, a big portion of children in my country faces the issue of malnutrition.

[…] We already have some contacts with some neighbourhoods in the capital’s suburbs. What we’re going to do in the next couple of weeks is to visit the neighbourhood to make direct contact with the families. Because we have this priority for pregnant women and families with children under 5 years of age, we’ll need to gather this information.

What’s important is that we don’t want to just give food baskets to the families. We want to help in a more holistic way, and support them for an extended period of time. And that will depend on each family and their needs. We look at how to help each family. We need to see if they have a fridge, because if not, it would be hard for them to store food items that are perishable. So that’s part of the process.

We’re very happy that we work with nutritionists who are there to help develop a diet for the families. In Ecuador, it’s pretty common during Christmas or for a special day to collect non-perishable food products and visit communities in rural areas with food baskets. But these are one-time activities, and it could be just things like flour, which is not nutritionally balanced on its own. With the nutritionists on our team, we really try to develop the best diet for each family.

Right now, there are many NGOs that are focusing on the issue of malnutrition here in Ecuador. It’s really nice to see that there’s a lot of people worried about what’s happening in our country, and trying to find ways to support communities. It would be really hard for one NGO that’s just starting to supply everyone who needs help. So it’s better that there are many people and organizations helping different communities in different parts of the country.

A big vision that we have is that one day, this project can be replicated in other countries in South America and around the globe.”

January 23, 2021

“I’m a physical therapist at a skilled nursing facility here in Nashville, Tennessee. Well, it’s not just skilled nursing. I actually work for assisted living and independent living as well. Usually I see people who are 60 plus, and I’ll see anyone from stroke patients to a hip replacement surgery, heart surgery, patients with a total knee replacement. I’ll see people who have had dizziness, and treat them for their balance and dizziness. There’s a lot of things we do in physical therapy.

Our new patients get referred from the hospital, and they go through quarantine until they have two negative COVID tests. We have to wear gowns, gloves, face masks, and a shield to see them. And we treat them in their rooms until they test negative twice. If they test positive, then they go into an isolation wing. But thankfully, we don’t have anyone who’s positive right now. We had a whole wing of positive patients all through November into the beginning of December.

So that was kind of scary, working with COVID positive patients. But it was scary for them too, cause they weren’t sure of their outcome. And it was hard. We were like their family, because they couldn’t see their family. We weren’t allowing family members into the building, unless they were getting ready to pass. So that was really hard. We ended up losing some of our long term care residents to COVID. It was very disheartening and discouraging.

But I’m glad that things are kind of back to normal before the outbreak. Well normal, since I started working. We still get COVID tests twice a week, and we got the first dose of the Moderna vaccine. All of our residents got vaccinated, as well. So I’m hopeful for the future of this pandemic.

Modern medicine has advanced so much, too. We can find antidotes, we can find vaccinations. It’s still not perfect, but there’s a lot more that we can do now, verses, even when we were kids, twenty years ago.

But It’s been hard. It’s been overwhelming and there are days where I go home and I’m just drained and don’t want to do anything. Sometimes it’s hard to even stay hydrated. It’s hard to remember that you need to drink water when you’re wearing a mask.

I’m thankful for all my coworkers that stuck through it, and I’m thankful that we’re doing what we can to help patients, because that’s what we signed up for. Pandemic or no pandemic, we’re trying to help people heal.”

January 19, 2021

“As a kid, the goal was having a nice job, with a wife and kids. But as it currently stands, I don’t have a whole lot of big, concrete plans. I might have my own dance studio. Or maybe I eventually do settle down with wife and kids. Or I do dance and travel around. I’m cool with either option. I’m sort of going with whatever I end up with. Right now just thinking about what’s my next step.

It’s kind of weird. I used to have this youthful kind of energy, but there is this pressure to settle down. The stuff I’m doing now is fine, but that’s not what I want to do forever. I don’t have a whole lot of plans for 60, which I feel like I should probably have some semblance of. So that’s I guess my one concern. What’s a sixty-year-old Pranil going to do? Do you ever feel like that way at all?”

November 1, 2020

“Moving in and out of places is not easy, and sometimes it is really heartbreaking because you get to a place and you call it home.

So you feel like your heart breaks in a way, cause you’re leaving a place that has become home to you. But at the same time, it becomes filled with the people that you met, the experiences that you had that you couldn’t have had back home. You know, back home, for example, I could have never gone dog sledding! And all the people I met were very inspiring, and they pushed me to pursue my dreams.

So it’s heartbreaking to leave places that you’ve called home and the people you’ve met, but they fill your heart, and your heart becomes bigger. And you feel like you’re more enriched.”

October 16, 2020

“When I first started working [in the US], I was talking to a coworker, and he was trying to explain to me how health insurance works here. It’s super complicated. And the cashier lady at the cafeteria said, because she’s not a full-time employee at the company, she pays something like $400 a month in premiums. I was just like, that’s crazy.

I’ve known about the US healthcare for the longest time, because we talk about it in Canada as well, but when you live here, it’s crazy. My company supposedly has a really good healthcare plan, and I still have to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket to see outpatient doctors. I think that’s a deterrent for a lot of people to see a doctor.

It makes you appreciate what we have in Canada more. I think it speaks to different priorities as a country. Canada doesn’t have the dynamism that the US has, but I think that’s a feature, not a bug.

But I think it’s also critical not to delude yourself into thinking that Canada is this wonderland. When I first joined, it was right after Trudeau’s blackface scandal. A few of my teammates from India came up to me, and said: Erik, I’m so surprised. I thought Canada was a post-racial wonderland.

Clearly, Canada’s PR department has done a good job. Speaking as a Chinese Canadian, I’ve faced a level of casual discrimination [in Canada]. I haven’t felt the full weight of systemic discrimination, but you hear certain words here and there. It’s very subtle, but it’s there. And there’s always those who remind me that they don’t think I’m an actual Canadian.”

August 11, 2020

“People are more inclined, over the last few years, to be interested in politics in a way they haven’t been in the past. There are many issues that are galvanizing people to become far more active and interested in politics. I think that’s a very positive thing.

I think a silver lining of what’s happening around the world is that it’s pushing people to understand that if they don’t do something, nothing will be done. In the US and outside, the election of Trump has galvanized people in our generation to engage with issues and say what they believe in, far more than if Hilary Clinton had won the election. There are far more people of colour, sexual minorities, women, who are pursuing office at higher levels or engaging in grassroots levels in politics.

The debate about race and structural racism have come to the forefront. Many people who might not have seen themselves in the curriculum and have not been interested in hearing about the history of white people around the world in the last few centuries are now engaging in these protests, or simply reading more about it. And I think that can only be a very positive thing.

The fact that climate change has become a big issue. Many young people take a more activist approach, and read more about it. A more informed society is a very healthy society. And I think the more we are informed and more engaged with each other, the more we can change things, and change things for the better.

So teaching politics in a way is easier now, because they’re more interested in what’s happening. Again, they might not be interested in the way we were in the past. They might not be here to talk about the cold war. But they want to hear much more about what’s happening with regards to climate, the environmental issues, talk about the history of racism, structural racism, inequality, and colonialism. I think that’s a great thing, simply wanting to be more engaged and wanting to understand what’s happening.”

July 21, 2020

“Both of my parents are very well-versed and trained in the pastry chef experience. They are both immigrants. My dad is from Belgium, and apprenticed in a lot of Belgian bakeries.

My mother is from Hong Kong. She wanted to be a hotel manager, but she discovered pastry cheffing, because that was an aspect of being a hotel manager. You had to know how to be a chef and a pastry chef, and she was just totally entranced by the pastry chef experience!

They met in San Francisco at a culinary school. They both trained for a lot of years, and after they graduated and apprenticed in several other bakeries, they decided to come to Vancouver and open up their own store. And they’ve been doing pastry since we opened in 1995.

[…] I’ve gone to Belgium three times, I think. My grandparents lived in Tubize, which is a small town about an hour away from Brussels. My family is a little bit stereotypically Belgian in that my grandfather was a beer brewer and my dad owns a waffle place!

Fun fact, Belgians love Canadians. Canada helped out Belgium in World War II. So there are many Canadian monuments in Belgium. It was very funny because my grandma was like, this is my granddaughter and she’s Canadian! She was very happy and super proud to show me off.

I think I’ve been to Hong Kong three times, as well. My mom’s family is all there. We always went in the winter, thank god. I don’t know how I’d do in Hong Kong in the summer. Even in the winter, it was still quite warm. It was really fun.

Hong Kong is very diverse, and really has its own culture. It’s both British and Chinese. A little bit Portuguese because of Macau, too. I always say my favourite Hong Kong breakfast is macaroni noodle soup. It’s a big thing in Hong Kong. Ham and bits of corn and macaroni noodles in a soup, and it’s so good!

I’m very proud of both [Belgian and Hong Kong] cultures, cause I’ve had to explain them a lot to people.”