Finding Home in Vancouver: A Korean Immigrant's Nostalgic Journey

I almost started this with the cliché "Vancouver in the 2000s was different than it is now..." but slammed the backspace key in a spasm. I don't want to be that kind of writer. Instead, let me tell you what feels the same, what persists despite the years.

Vancouver, back then... or at least the parts of the Lower Mainland I drifted through, felt more like a quiet, secluded town. You could hear the birdsong clearly in the mornings, a clean melody against the general stillness. Wildflowers bloomed vibrantly along the sidewalks and back alleys, their colours beckoning the busy bees.

There was a real sense of peace in that atmosphere,

a quiet comfort, especially significant for a boy like me, one of the few Korean kids around. Still, even feeling somewhat apart, connections easily formed. I found good friends, kids who understood what it meant to be displaced because they carried their own immigrant stories inside them. But those friendships were often fleeting, shifting with each move driven by my mother’s fierce ambition for my older brother—the one pegged early for Harvard, destined for greatness. His future seemed set, chosen from the holy trinity of immigrant aspirations: Doctor, Lawyer, or Dentist. That dream drove our constant migration, always searching for the better school, the next supposed advantage on a life path I had no say in charting.