Filipina Vancouverite wins design contest for Brain Awareness Week

Marianne Claire Bacani designed a prizewinning sticker for Brain Awareness Week 2018. Brain Awareness Week will be celebrated March 12–18. The event director for Neuroethics Canada wasn’t expecting that her design would be a winner. “[I was] so surprised and honoured to be picked as a design hobbyist to be the winner of this contest,”…

Black History in Vancouver

February is Black History month, giving an opportunity to discover the rich history of Black Canadians in British Columbia. According to the BC Black History Awareness Society (BCBHAS), the first recorded Black person in Canada was an African who went by the name Mathieu de Coste. Coste worked as an interpreter of the Mi’kmaq language.…

‘To be or not to be: a Nation of Immigrants’

‘How does the number of immigrants in a country influence the identity of a nation?’ is the central question of the lecture, Where are the Nations of Immigrants, that Donna Gabaccia, Professor of History at the University of Toronto, will give at the University of British Columbia on Feb. 13. “It is very interesting that…

A cultural approach to energy

Space travel, medical advances and the digital age are all trends we associate with the modern era. Yet an underlying theme, modern man’s access to energy, is rarely considered a major driver of history. Imre Szeman, professor of Communications and English at the University of Waterloo and co-director of Petrocultures, wants to reshape discussions on…

Augmented reality games as tools for social interaction

Video games have advanced significantly from the first generation of games, such as Pong and The Odyssey, which are now regarded as arcade classics. Developers have strived to make games more expansive, experiential and realistic. Through this process, developers have increasingly blurred the line between game and reality. In a study recently published online in Personality and Individual Differences,…

Celebrating a Scottish poet

Place Des Art will be holding a celebration of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns on Jan. 27. The event will include a supper featuring Tatties and Neeps, a Cranachan Sundae, among other Scottish dishes. Host Edward Mornan will recite Burns’ Address to a Haggis which will promptly be piped in afterwards. The event also…

Ancient routes and new directions: The 21st century Silk Road

Professor and Tier I Canada Research Chair in Political Economy of Global Communications at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Yuezhi Zhao will speak at the next SFU Presidential Lecture Series on January 31. Her talk, entitled China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’: A Critical Communication Perspective, examines the project’s challenges and possibilities.…

Gender identity in children and youth explored

How can families, schools and society in general properly support people with Gender Identity Dysphoria? This is a question that educational psychologist Dr. Wallace Wong, of Sand Story Psychology Services, has grappled with for most of his professional career. Dr. Wong will give a lecture at the Vancouver Public Library on Thursday February 1 on…

A Ukrainian New Year and its traditions

Malanka, or Old New Year, celebrates the warmth of the sun and the long days after winter. The traditional Ukrainian Orthodox New Year, celebrated this year on Jan. 13, in accordance with the Julian calendar, connects the younger generation to their cultural roots through folk dance, choirs and orchestras. Eaten at Malanka, kutya is a…

Design meets social issues

Recently, an SFU team, consisting of three students, have won the popular votes for User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX) design award at the 2017 Vancouver User Experience Awards. This award showcases a critical approach to an important social issue: women representation in sports. Kosuke Futsukaichi, a member of the group, has made a great contribution to…

The art of building trust

Yoriko Gillard, artist and PhD student in Language and Literacy Education at UBC, will be presenting KIZUNA: Past-Present-Future (A Tribute to Japanese Canadian Community) at the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre on Jan. 13. As part of the museum’s Hastings Park 1942 exhibit program, her presentation will examine stories of dispossession and incarceration of…

Refuel with Japanese tapas

An izakaya, which translates to “stay sake shop,” is a lively and informal bar that typically serves a variety of small dishes and alcoholic beverages. In Japan, they are particularly clustered around train stations. Izakayas are sometimes likened to Irish pubs or tapas bars, offering a place to restore oneself after a day’s work. Izakaya…

Christmas in a Filipino home

It is December and that means Christmas decorations are seen in the neighbourhood and those “fa la la” songs are playing in the mall. Families get together in this special season to enjoy their home-cooked meals, gifts from their loved ones and also family tradition. Filipino homes celebrate this special season with a little variance.…