Chinese House Guests + Tofino Trip
My mother invited my former MBA classmate Danna Zhu to our house in Deep Bay for a couple of days. She hinted she wanted to bring someone so I asked if that was alright. My mother consented and in an instant we had an entire car full of female Chinese MBA students.
They ended up staying a couple nights in Deep Bay with my mother and I. Danna took more pictures of the house in three days than I have taken in thirty years. They also got to meet some of my relatives. Huuna was a big hit and even mean old Fred had a few admirers. Huuna isn’t so popular with an asshole that lives up the street. If he needs a name you can call him “Ron“.
After I drove them to Nanaimo to catch the ferry I was walking the dog just like I always do. She was off her leash but she was just beside the rode in front of his house. She barked at his cat, who is a big fraidy cat anyway, but didn’t actually run at him or anything. The guy starts screaming and swearing at me to put the dog on a leash and keep it out of his yard. He called me a “stupid little idiot“. When I informed him that the dog was only about three feet into his yard. He said it didn’t matter he was calling the SPCA next time it was in his yard. I politely informed him that is cat was frequently in our yard and even our house, he said if it did so again I was to pick it up and bring it back to his yard.
The double standard was not readily apparent to me. After calling me stupid a couple more times he went back into his house. Needless to say that was the end of our walk. There are more houses on our street with dogs than without. Numerous people including tourists walk their dogs off leash. There is no law against it. It turns out that “his property” wasn’t his at all and I was merely on the road right away. Needless to say I suggested a brick should be politely thrown threw his front window at a later date as a hint on how appreciated he is in the neighborhood.
Besides walking the dog several times up and down the street, my classmates Danna, Karen, Ally, and Anni also went to Tofino. We stayed in Whaler’s Point Youth Hostel which was very nice. The nicest hostel I’ve ever stayed in and I’ve visited my share.
We also went whale watching. We saw two different types of whales, Grey Whales and Humpbacks. These were the first Humpbacks to be sighted off the coast of Vancouver Island this year. In addition to this lucky event they also had good weather for our visit to Long Beach and Cathedral Grove. It was even pretty nice when we drove to Campbell River to see my other Grandmother and to visit my aunty Helen.
Since Huuna was such a big hit and they could stay an extra day (except Anni) we went to Campbell River, which isn’t my favourite place to visit. The weather was really good, but we didn’t get to go to Painter’s Lodge because it doesn’t open for two more days. We did see some bald eagles and visit my Aunty Helen who is the Queen of dogs in our family. She currently has five. Two German Shepherds which she trains for competitions, a Jack Russell Terrier, a Poodle and of course a Rottweiler. She also lives beside a lake.
Everyone seemed to enjoy their time, but I was asked twice whether I would attend the graduation ceremony. I have not forgotten. I have remembered what happened and who did and said what, even if others prefer to ignore it or remain ignorant. I did not enjoy my time as a Sauder MBA student after the Core ended. And I and many others seem to have occurred a lot of debt with little to show for our sacrifices.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 at 4:16 pm filed under: BC, China, Depression, MBA and tagged: Chinese, Deep Bay, dogs, Family, Tofino. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
