Canada: No Yin in Yang. Asian group opposes hospice citing cultural beliefs.

A group of like minded Yang enthusiasts are upset that a hospice is planned to be built next door to their high end, $1 million per unit condo complex. Their objection? Dying people will emit bad energy, bad luck and leave behind ghosts ready to set their married children’s unions into chaos.

“In Chinese culture, we are against having dying people in your backyard,” said Janet Fan, who has signed a petition against the hospice. “We cannot accept this. It’s against our belief, against our culture. It’s not culturally sensitive.”

From CBC News

B.C. luxury condo owners oppose hospice

Opposition centres on cultural issues, owner says

Last Updated: Thursday, January 13, 2011 | 9:14 PM PT

A plan to build a hospice at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver has run into opposition from luxury condo owners nearby.

The proposal calls for a 15-bed palliative care facility, called St. John Hospice, to be built next to a high-rise condominium building called the Promontory.

One condo owner said most residents in the building are of Asian descent and believe living close to a hospice will bring bad luck.

“In Chinese culture, we are against having dying people in your backyard,” said Janet Fan, who has signed a petition against the hospice. “We cannot accept this. It’s against our belief, against our culture. It’s not culturally sensitive.”

Fan also said many residents worry about additional traffic and having to discuss the subject of death with their children.

A two-bedroom condo in the Promontory sells for almost $1 million, and people fear their property value will plummet if the hospice is built.

p_promontory01.jpg

Some residents of the Promontory condominium in Vancouver oppose having a palliative care facility nearby at the University of British Columbia. (IBI/HB Architect’s website)

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/01/13/bc-ubc-hospice-rejected.html?ref=rss#ixzz1B2TeIVyKFan said the land on which the hospice is to be built has been designated for research use.

‘Home away from home’

However, Tung Chan, former head of the Vancouver-based immigrant services group SUCCESS, said he doesn’t agree with the approach taken by Fan and other residents.

“I’m not sympathetic to the plight at all,” he said.

“This group of people may be very, very nice people, good people at their heart, but they are trying to use the cultural argument to further their cause, nothing more and nothing less than that.”

Former hospice operator Gay Klietzke said she is not surprised the planned hospice faces opposition. Klietzke said she has experienced protest before, but for different reasons.

“You know, ambulances blaring with sirens. They think there are going to be big trucks coming there with deliveries and these kinds of things,” she said.

“In fact, what we are talking about is a home away from home. When people can’t stay in their own homes, they can come to our home. So this home would fit into the neighbourhood.”

Klietzke, who now runs the Vancouver Hospice Society, said one good thing about the UBC petition is that it has put the issue in the public spotlight, providing a chance to educate the public about what a hospice actually does.

The target date for construction is July, but may be postponed.

Joe Stott, UBC’s director of campus and community planning, said that in light of the opposition, more consultation is needed.

“We’d be really interested in having conversations with the people who are concerned about the project,” he said.

Stott said it will be a few months before the university’s board of governors can review the proposal.

7 Replies to “Canada: No Yin in Yang. Asian group opposes hospice citing cultural beliefs.”

  1. Sounds to me like the people opposing the hospice are playing the race/culture real hard.

  2. The can believe what they want but this is Canada not China. They probably also believe in flying red dragons brething fire. Many would argue that rich Chinese from Hongkong brought bad luck to Canadians by artificially inflating real estate prices in the Lower Mainland. Just a side thought.

  3. I agree that too many chinese and other immigrants from asia, africa and middleast brought bad luck to the west.

  4. We use to be able to limit the number of immigrants let in every year, we limited them to the number that could be easily assimilated, then in the 1960s that was declared racist and we lost the ability to limit the number of immigrants. We need to regain that ability and cut the number drastically.

  5. Do you people have any idea how much the immigrants contribute to the Canadian economy annually? Aren’t your parents or grandparents an immigrant to Canada? Now that Vancouver is fast becoming an international city, you can’t blame immigrants from the Far East pushes up real estate prices. Besides, if you work as hard as the Asian immigrants, you could sell your property now and retire happily back in your hometown.

  6. The West built a pleasant environment for anyone that is even slighthly literate to survive and prosper. Is it fair for immigrants from asia or islamic countries to push up or manipulate real estate price so high to the extent that it caused other less wealthy westerners to be homeless?
    Westerners work hard to create an environment that any slightly hardworking individuals is able to prosper with just abit of opportunity and abit of hard work and therefore credit should be given to those westerners who work much harder.

  7. George is it fair that the immigrants refuse to assimilate into the base culture? They are the ones moving into the Western Nations, they are the ones who are suppose to change their cultures to fit into ours not the other way around.