Culture Is Extraordinary

The highly controversial Woodwards project

The Pantages Theatre, being demolished for Condos

“I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I've never met an ordinary man, woman or child.” ― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Twice a week I get the opportunity to travel by transit from the Downtown Eastside (DTES) to the main campus of the University of British Columbia. It is an interesting journey, from one extraordinary neighbourhood to another, while traversing the ordinary. While I do believe Vancouver to be an amazing and unique city, it is mostly full of so-called ‘ordinary’ people living ordinary lives, living in ordinary neighbourhoods (where every single house costs over a million dollars!).

There are however, a few neighbourhoods which are not-so-ordinary. The DTES is one of them. UBC would be another. At UBC, this extraodinariness is fully embraced and promoted - across the globe! In the DTES, the flavor of the extraordinariness is not so loudly heralded. Both neighbourhoods are seeing considerable amounts of money being spent on renewal with various constructions sites visible throughout the community. At UBC this is driven by the need to maintain this extraordinary flavor, to ensure their place on the world stage as a place of innovation and discovery, as a place where culture is defined, discovered and disseminated. In the DTES these expenditures seem to many to be driven by the need to transform, comodify, and suppress this flavor. It seems to be a little known facet of the eastside that what makes it such a great community is that is has an authentic (or real) culture all it’s own (which is why it is so easy to sell condos down here, plus the ‘undesirables’ keep property values a little more reasonable). It’s not just the down-and-out junkie that finds the DTES a comfortable place to live.

Many ordinary people find themselves drawn to these neighbourhoods, and by living there, become EXTRAORDINARY. Someone who is a student (or faculty member) at UBC is no ordinary Vancouverite, British Columbian or Canadian. They are a member of one of the most prestigious, hardest to get into, schools in Canada (the world even). Most such people are quite proud of this fact, and are rarely shy or ashamed to wear various symbols announcing to the world their status as extraordinary. Their friends and family are usually just as proud and more than willing to tell all who will listen about their extraordinary friend or family member who lives on the cultural edge. Those who live in the DTES are also extraordinary, whether they ended up there by choice as a homeowner, or as a result of poverty and addiction. Those who end up here by choice are generally more proud of their status. By choosing to live here, they are able to proclaim that they are less conformist, more independent and more willing to strike out on their own. They are more alive to culture, and generally get to be a bigger part in defining it. Those who end up here out of necessity, are rarely held in much esteem or regard, and are often shunned and ostricized. And yet they are important to our society and culture. Without them, the DTES wouldn’t really exist, it would just be part of the downtown, and Gastown and Chinatown would have been modernized and gentrified long ago. The Eastside, I would argue, has more living culture than any other neighbourhood (although the same could be said about the Drive, but I consider the Drive part of East Van). The culture here, is born here, not imported. It is not critiqued and analysed to death here. It is created and performed here. The analyzing and critiquing is done elsewhere, by others.

The trip from the DTES to UBC, is a trip from the extraordinary, through the ordinary, into the extraordinary!
Ordinary:
1. of no special quality or interest; commonplace;unexceptional: One novel is brilliant, the other is decidedly ordinary; an ordinary person.
2. plain or undistinguished: ordinary clothes.
3. somewhat inferior or below average; mediocre.
4. customary; usual; normal: We plan to do the ordinary things this weekend.

Extraordinary:
1. beyond what is usual, ordinary, regular, or established: extraordinary costs.
2. exceptional in character, amount, extent, degree, etc.; noteworthy; remarkable: extraordinary speed; an extraordinary man.