Constance Collier, Osoyoos, B.C.

I looked up Constance Collier (1878-1955). Born in Windsor, England, Collier was "known to be very tall with a big personality." She was a dancer and actress of the stage. Later Collier migrated to Hollywood to become an acting coach. She collaborated with Ivor Novello to write plays and film. Novello starred in two silent films directed by Alfred Hitchcock: The Lodger and Downhill (both 1927). The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians writes of Novello he was until "the advent of Andrew Lloyd Webber, the 20 century's most consistently successful composer of British musicals." He was a trailblazer for other reasons. Hilda Hammerton postcards can be bought online.

My daughter found this postcard of Constance postcard (above) in a secondhand store in Osoyoos, British Columbia. There are a couple of lakes with nice beaches in Osoyoos, which is tourist destination in wine country on the US border. The store is a couple blocks away from the lake and owned by a man who migrated from Ontario a decade ago. We bought some cassettes from the eighties for 25 cents apiece (Whitney Houston, K-Mart Hits of the Year, etc.) for my daughter's Walkman II. I found some Beatles' fan papers as well. They cost $2.50 per. 

The postcard was sent from Newport, Wales to Brittle Cottage, Shatterford, misspelled as Shaterford, on September 10, 1909. How the postcard ended up in a little store in Western Canada for my daughter to buy July 20, 2024 is anyone's guess. Maybe Nell and Will immigrated to Ontario and were related to the proprietor. The postcard reads:

"Dear Nell and Will, [I] hope you are both quite well[.] I don't feel as though I have had any holiday now can suc friends name the I mean with much, love from Mark."

What Have You Done for Country, Enderby, B.C., Canada?

We drove up into the Okanagan region from Vancouver this summer. The Okanagan, set east of Vancouver, is the warmest area of Canada. Cache Creek, Canada's only desert, sits on the northern fringe. There are wineries throughout, winding, steep roads with speed limits that dip down to 20 km/hr. leading up into the Rocky Mountains. When I was a kid, I used to go down to the Okanagan from Prince George to play sports. I was impressed by the heat even then. Now it is similar to California. Scorching hot. Zero humidity. 

This is a record of men from Princeton, B.C. who died during WWII. This war took place in Europe, not Canada. Canada was a colony of Great Britain, so youngsters were dragged into war, half a world away. 

Enderby, B.C. The museums are so expensive in Canada now. I walk around the downtown Main Streets and hit the parks nearby to get a lesson. Who is going to pay $30 to go into a museum? 

The population of Enderby, B.C. is 2,947. The town runs between a ridge to the north and a river, for around twenty blocks. I bet Enderby was smaller eighty years ago. Fourteen guys died from Enderby in World War One. 

Here is the memorial for the men that fell in World War One from Richmond, B.C., Canada. Notice at the base of the memorial two people with Japanese surnames who died: Kazuo Harada and Hikotara Koyanagi. "They died for you," the memorial reminds us. This was a war that took place in Europe, not North America. I am not really sure why these two immigrants fought. To uphold inbred monarchs or stop Germany who was late to imperialism from achieving colonies of her own? They were not defending their homes or way life at all. In World War Two, 22,000 Canadians with Japanese last names, some undoubtedly related to Harada and Koyangi, would be interned in prisoner camps. Old people, kids, women. They were forced out of their homes. The businesses they had created and operated were smashed by mobs. Pretty much all they worked for was stolen from them and not compensated until 1988. In 1988, PM Mulroney signed a bill to compensate the survivors of the prisoner camps and Canadian mob rule $22,000 per.

Around 5,000 people of Ukrainian descent were interned in similar camps during World War One. This was another case of the Canadian government invoking the War Measures Act and detaining (not arresting as habeas corpus was not upheld) any one not looking right. 

Hope Is in B.C.

First Blood, starring Sylvester Stallone, was filmed in Hope, B.C. We are coming up on the 40th anniversary. First Blood has grossed US$150 million on a budget of 15. Hope is small, a mountain town a couple hours north of Vancouver by car. 

This cinema opened up in Hope in 1945. First Blood (above) was showing when we were in town. There is a walking tour Hope for the filming of First Blood that takes one around four or five blocks of the town, with 13 stops: 

1. Sheriff Teagle picks up John Rambo on Water Avenue, which runs along the Fraser River and serves as Hope's bypass. The Fraser River starts in Prince George, my hometown, around 1000 kilometers north. It empties out through Vancouver into the Pacific. The sheriff takes an immediate dislike to Rambo and his kind, although he has no idea about him because he has never met Rambo before. 

2. Rambo jumps tracks at Third Ave. 

3. Rambo speeds past the H tree on Hudson Bay St. An H tree has twin trunks.

4. Sheriff Teagle's police station was put up in front of District Hall. The actual police station in Hope is manned by the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), so that wasn't going to work. The town is supposed to be in southern Washington state, not southern British Columbia.

5. Mountain State Savings was supposed to be at 10-300 Third Avenue. There is no such place in Canada that I am aware of. Fake bank.

6. Realizing justice is something he cannot hope for, Rambo breaks out of jail and commandeers a motorbike. He speeds down the sidewalk of Wallace Street as pedestrians scramble to make way. Message to the town and especially its sheriff: I tried it your way and that did not work. Make a path. I'm coming through.

 

Rambo on the sidewalk in Hope.

7. The Outpost Gun Shop was made for the film. Rambo took it out.

8. Rambo walked under a "Welcome to Hope" sign at the start of the movie. Like lots of Canadian small towns of the eighties, he found out this one wasn't so welcoming. The sign is gone. I looked up the definition of hope. I found two noun classifications of hope and one verb: "A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen." Or, "a feeling of trust." For verb, "want something to happen" or "to be the case." To be the case to me means wishful thinking, which is good explanation for any destination or place we would like to settle down in. 

9. A gas station was constructed the Crowsnest Highway for Rambo to blow up.

10. Sheriff Teagle drives John Rambo to the other side of town and tells him not to come back because they don't like his kind around here. Rambo, mystified by the inhospitable behavior of Teagle, decides to circle back to figure out what's what. Actually, nobody believes that. This has become a dick-swinging contest between a small town sheriff and Vietnam vet. If Rambo had taken the sheriff's advice, the movie wouldn't have  had anywhere to go. First Blood would have been over after fifteen minutes. And Rambo absolutely did not draw first blood. The sheriff drew first blood by harassing Rambo and calling him a hippie. True, Rambo was looking shaggy and unkempt, but nothing could be further from reality. 

11. Rambo speeds through a Chevron Station. It's the Hope Pizza Place now.

12. Rambo Lane. There's a Stallone's Bar in town as well. One can order a Rambo Burger for $Cdn.25 (two burgers, eggs, pickles, onions, vegetables and bacon). 

13. Rambo blows out a transformer. A FIELDS sign is behind him. FIELDS is an old school five and dime, like a small town version of Walmart selling cheap shit before we importing it from China. FIELDS is still in Hope.

The downtown of Hope is ten avenues by fifteen streets. I suppose many people would consider it dated. I don't want to pay for museums in Canada because they are so expensive. I find a museum version of history on the streets instead. 

Queen Elizabeth Park

I took a few photographs at Queen Elizabeth Park in yesterday. I walked up to the park, which is at 29th and Cambie in Vancouver, with my wife and kid from the King Edward SkyTrain station. I worked near Queen Elizabeth Park in the nineties and used to go there for my lunch hour to read. Not much has changed. There is a food truck now at the top of Little Mountain. It sells those twirling fries (salt and vinegar, pepper, Sriracha) on a skewer, fried mac and cheese, wild cod tacos among other dishes. I see there is a disc golf course. Disc golfers have to throw a Frisbee instead of hitting a golf ball around a course of eighteen holes, like golf. Only the holes are baskets.  

 The clock, which needs a wind, was donated by the Lions' Mandarin Club, in 1991.

This was a quarry a century ago. The park is named after Queen Elizabeth's mother, Queen Elizabeth or the Queen Mom. She visited Vancouver as WWII was breaking out. 

My back is out again. I can't lift my arms easily. I was trying to get a shot of the West End from the park. Did not quite make it.

King George VI and Elizabeth (above center) visited Vancouver in 1939. Looking to shore up support among the colonials, they made their way into town from Banff via Kamloops. What fighting in Europe, half the Earth away, had to with Vancouverites is not clear. What was stirring in the Pacific would have probably more relevant.  

There is belief that George's older brother did not abdicate in 1936 because he wanted to marry a divorcee and foreigner. No precedent was set -- Prince Harry did the same a few years ago. He was a Nazi sympathizer and possible collaborator. The royals were in Canada for the England to get a better grip on Canadian sentiment obviously. 

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The Act Prohibiting Importation of slaves of 1807, 2 Stat. 426, brought to bear March, 2, 1807 became a US federal law prohibiting the importation of slaves to the country. The order, signed by Thomas Jefferson, third President of the US, took effect January 1, 1808. The short of this new law was anyone caught importing people to the US to be slaves would be arrested and subject to capital punishment. Here's the thing, every subsequent President up until the Civil War, including Jefferson. 

I just finished reading this book: 

I checked The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and Extraordinary Reckoning out of the Richmond Library here in Richmond a couple of weeks ago. The Clotilda is the name of the last slaving ship ever to run slaves into the US. The Clotilda sneaked into Alabama, near Mobile, in 1860. Timothy Meaher, the owner, did it on a bet. Meaher made the bet while captaining a steamboat. He strutted after a dinner party and told all he had nothing but scorn for the government. Then he had the Coltilda burnt and sunk to hide the evidence.   

It seems every single President from 1808 until the end of the Civil War categorically pardoned captains convicted of importing captives from Africa -- except one. Abraham Lincoln came down on side of the ruling judge, W.D. Shipman, who proclaimed the following in sentencing of Nathaniel Gordon to Gordon, captain of the Erie:

"Do not attempt to hide [slaving's] enormity from yourself: "think of the cruelty and and wickedness of seizing nearly a thousand fellow beings, who never did you harm, and thrusting them beneath the decks of a small ship, beneath a burning sun, to die of disease and suffocation, or be transported to distant lands, and be consigned to distant lands, and be consigned, they and their posterity, to a fate far more cruel than death," Shipman stated.  

We Went to See the Vancouver Whitecaps. We Tried that Is

I bought three tickets for the Vancouver Whitecaps v. St. Louis SC (MLS) for June 29, Saturday. When we arrived at B.C. Place Stadium, a dozen workers waved a warning sign at me. One cannot have a bag larger than five by eight. The dozen workers had signs to explain visually how big that is, five by eight. Five by eight is wallet size. My camera bag was deemed too large. My wife's backpack with our passports and documents was definitely too large. Here was the solution -- we could pay ten dollars to leave our passports and documents hanging on a rod outside of B.C. Place. I pointed out there was no notification on the tickets about this rule. "It is on the Vancouver Whitecaps' website" was the reply.  

My wife decided to go to a coffee shop. She opted out as she figured it was not worth it to leave our passports and documents dangling on a rod outside. Actually, I thought we would all leave, but she said she did not care, which was mostly true. She wanted my daughter and I to go. 

When we entered B.C. Place Stadium, I was asked about why there wasn't a third person. We had three tickets, you see. I told the woman checking the tickets the bs with the bags. She grimaced. Since then, I have received an email from the Vancouver Whitecaps asking me to confirm that it was a wonderful experience. This question was even asked: "Do you go to see the Vancouver Whitecaps as a way of family bonding?" Well, we were thinking about that, until the Vancouver Whitecaps broke up the plan. 

I went out at just before the game versus St. Louis SC started. My daughter wanted blue cotton candy. The sign gang was lingering inside the stadium now. They looked tired out. They looked like they did not give a crap about soccer. Ruining other people's day was the idea. They were on to that and it had invigorated them. 

Anti-Americanism in Taiwan 1932

On May 16, 1932, H.A. Graves, acting British Consul to Britain, wrote in his report to his Excellency of how he saw Formosa's response to their new Governor General from Japan, Hiroshi Minami: "Their attitude to existing conditions seems to be one of apathy rather than one of enthusiasm or gratefulment." Graves describes the situation, in other words, being colonized: "[Minami's] speeches differed little from his predecessors on similar occasions [of policy making], except perhaps, in the greater stress he placed on the development of educational facilities in the island." Graves is setting up a theme for Taiwan. He will develop how from the Formosans have not been melted into regular Japanese folk. "Possibly the measures are precautionary in view of the racial sympathies which the Formosans may hold for their mainland cousins." He argues Formosans sympathized with China, especially after a serious of violent outbreaks in Shanghai between the Chinese and Japanese living there, which he calls the Shanghai Affair (plus that year). There were at least two, in 1925 and 1927, in which tensions resulted in mob violence and death. With the censorship, illiteracy blanketing the island, and lack of radios and no TV at that time, perhaps Graves is dramatic about a place at the other side of the world, devoid of countrymen and hardly relevant to Europe. I wonder if Graves is whiling away the dull day or drumming up business. 

There is more to roll the eyes at. In 1932, the US was less the obnoxious world power and imperialist many believe it is today. America had an isolationist policy. Here's Graves: "There was a reputation of anti-American feeling from February onward." Amongst which group? The Formosans? First, Graves has suggested the Formosans knew what was going on in China. Americans, especially Christian groups in America, backed and financially supported the ROC. Or, he could mean the Japanese resented American behavior in China. The American Christian's point was to help Sun Yat-sen, who successfully campaigned for aid in the West, solidify China and pave the way for Jesus. Why would the Americans care if Sun and those coming after were harassing foreigners or driving them out? Graves finishes: "the attitude [toward] our own government has been considered sympathetic, and, in regard to Shanghai, distinctly helpful. The Tainan Shimpo--a newspaper with a traditional anti-British bias--has not for some time given new politically distasteful to us." What news has The Tainan Shimpo given about the world's superpower or country proud of its imperial record? The sun never sets on the British Empire.

"The authorities were, at the beginning of [1932], perturbed at the spread of dangerous thoughts amongst Formosans and an increase in police activities was decided upon. Mr. Sonzo Tomobe, and officer with special aptitude for this work, was appointed to Chief of the Police Bureau and, quite recently, 36 special police have been added to the force." It seems the martial law installed by the KMT after the ROC's invasion of Taiwan and the White Terror it wrought almost twenty years later was not new to the Formosans . 

There are many words that do not really make sense in the report. There was no spell check then and the pages have faded. In long letters, the first word of next page is printed at the bottom of the previous page to help the letter assembler get the correct chronological order. 

 

 

Tropic of Cancer Taiwan

 

The Provincial Highway 9 Ruishui Marker (above) marks the Tropic of Cancer, 23.5 degrees on the northern latitude, in Taiwan. The spot was developed in 1933 by the Japanese colonial government. This monument was finished 48 years later. It is on the side of hill. Trees and bush cover the area.

Provincial Highway 11 is Taiwan's easternmost highway. This is a newer marker. There are food and souvenir shops next to this 23.5 north and across the highway. Provincial Highway 11 is the fastest way to get from Hualien to Taitung driving.