On The Road, Conversations With People

For people I met in Toronto and Montreal.

I. Introduction and Toronto

25th of April, 2023, Toronto.

Around 9p.m

 After spending a whole morning and afternoon on the little precious gem Toronto Island, walking the seashores and gardens, and visiting the poet couple Acorn and Macewen’s historic house site, I was ready to submerge back into the city’s dimmed streets. I headed to a jazz bar hotel on Queen Street W that night. The bar was quite dark and empty by the time I came, with musicians sitting on the stage, trying to tune their instruments. There was just me and another guy in the audience, he was sitting at the corner watching something on his phone. It was a typical cozy jazz club, until it got more crowded. A group of tourists ordered fish and chips left and right and started chanting as if they were in a goddamn football stadium or something. I gotta say the jazz performance that night wasn’t very mesmerizing to me, they played Micheal Dease's Blue Jay and some other pieces I didn’t know the name, with some jamming session near the end. I only had Diet Coke with lemon slices (mind you, I dislike both the burning sensation and the taste of alcohol), and was kinda bored. I didn’t leave early, though. You see, I have that terrible fear of unfinished things, cause I still had hope for some pleasant surprises at the end, so I kept hanging around and waiting. Anyway, it was not that terrible after all,  being sober with my own companionship. 

On my way back to the hostel near Clarence Square Park, I stumbled across a blue-neon light convenience store. Its door was wide open, so I went inside. There I met Frank, a Chinese immigrant, and the owner of the store. I couldn’t recall his face, but he had that feeling of a next-door neighbor, who would wake up early to water their flowers and wish you a good morning every time they saw you. And apparently, I wasn’t the only one to feel that way about him. Customers kept coming in and they were all happy to see Frank was there. He welcomed each of them with a bright smile and a genuine, humble manner “Please let me know if you need anything specific, pal”. There’s something in him that makes me wanna stay and talk to him a bit longer. Now, before this summer trip, I was going out and writing stories in Vancouver where I live, about people with different jobs and different walks of life, to see what it’s like to be a human experiencing life. So I asked my friend if I should do the same thing on my vacation, or should I just enjoy the break, and they told me to enjoy the break, “But, remember to observe”. So there was me, standing inside Frank’s convenience store, wondering what it’s like to work until 3 a.m. every day, and still be that happy, or at least, pretending to be happy to your customer. (Trust me, I have seen enough people working a graveyard shift, looks like they're gonna eat the customers alive, and there’s nothing wrong with it, as long as they don’t actually eat the customers alive, of course).

So I paid for my stuff and made a mental note to come back the following night, to see how it went. Frank recognized me immediately “Ah it’s you, still buy the same drink, huh?”.  We made small talk for a while, then I told Frank about what I was about to do, and that I would love to hear his story about his life in Toronto. Frank was hesitant at first, probably cause there were a lot of customers around, and then Frank told me “Your writing seems very interesting, and I would love to take part in some way. But are you sure you want my story, cause I know my son, and my other co-workers, will have a lot more cool stuff to tell than I ever could, and I can refer you to them, so are you sur… What, you still want to hear mine? Okay great, so let’s do it, I’m sorry, the store is kinda busy right no.. Hi, good evening sir, anything more I can get for you?” 

So that’s how it went that night. We talked whenever there were no customers at the checkout desk. Frank knew how to tell a story, and just once in a while, I sneaked in some questions here and there to further clarify his answers. And I am fully awared that, in order to understand a city, any city, and its people, you need to spend a lot of time living and mingling with different people in that city. Someone would go even further to say that you also need to learn about the history of that city, how the downtown was formed, how the road was built, how the first election was held, and more. So unlike my long-term project I write about Vancouver, where I’m spending a lot of time living, a few day trips to another city, just talking to some random strangers that I have a chance to meet, is not going to be enough in any way to deeply understand the essence of that city, nor the life of people in it. But I still write this article, as a kind of my personal traveling trip journal, of the places I’ve been to, and most importantly, the people I’ve met, cause I would love to share this with any of my readers who are interested. And plus, I have a lot of downtime during my trip, so why not, right? 

Below is Frank’s story, and Frank, as I promised to send you the article when I finished, if you are reading this, thank you so much for letting me hang around and be my companion for a night while serving a lot of customers, it was truly pleasant to talk to you. 

II. Frank, a convenience store owner

I arrived here in 2002, along with my wife and my son. We migrated through the Skilled Worker Program since I was qualified as a graduated electrical engineer from China. I have a friend living here in Toronto, so we migrated to Toronto. Newcomers came and stayed in whenever their support system was, that’s how we stayed alive and survived the first couple of years. I was having some trouble finding jobs with my degree, because of the language barrier. I didn’t understand them, and they didn’t understand me. It was very tough at that time, I and my wife only had a few thousand dollars saved up from China. She went to Chinatown to ask for a job at a dim sum restaurant. I finally got my first job to work in a tuna can factory. You just stood and packaged hundreds of tuna cans every day, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m, with some bathroom breaks in between. I did that job for a couple of years. Then, in 2006, I opened a cafe right over there on Queen Street W, for 10 years. Opening a cafe was trendy, I don’t know if it’s still now, but it was back then. We served everything, from cake, coffee, and tea, to ice cream and gelato. 

I remembered the face of every regular customer and their favorite drink. They were residents around the neighborhood. Doctors living up the tenements, advertising men in well-tailored suits, and university students with their huge backpacks. They came in with different shapes and styles, and I remembered every single one of them. This city didn’t slow down, and neither did the people. They always needed to go somewhere in the morning. So I wanted to make sure that, the moment they came in, the milk was steaming and the coffee bean was ready to roast and blend. In the service industry, you have to make customers to like you, cause that’s the only reason they’ll be coming back. 

I ran mostly everything at my small cafe, especially at the beginning stage. I hired one bookkeeper, cause finance and payrolls and taxes drove me insane. I would make coffee, scoop ice cream, wait on the table, take out the trash, and clean the windows. My favorite chore was writing our daily special menu on the blackboard outside the shop with red chalk. We had pies and gelato made with seasonal fruits as our signatures. The cafe was quite a big hit, how funny life turned out, wasn’t it, that I never made use of my engineering degree again. 

in 2016 we closed because the rent skyrocketed, and the gentrification around the neighborhood. More chained Tim Hortons were around, and there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t afford the rent anymore. 

This convenience store is quite new, I opened it just before last Christmas. We open till 3a.m, cause we have a lot of people coming in every day. Sometimes, they shoplift, you know. They come in the store, and just take things and leave. I never stop them. I see it, but I don’t stop them. Once a woman came in late at night, with an infant stroller. She looked tired and messy, with her blonde hair tied in a bun. She bought a bag of chips, and she put a pack of diapers and napkins into the stroller. The baby started crying a bit, and I watched them leave.

Our customers are very diverse since this neighborhood is quite a touristry, near Queen Street W and Clarence Square. This store has everything you need. North American snacks like chips and candy bars make up the most part. We have Korean and Chinese instant noodles next to the American aisle, then we have an aisle in the back full of Latina food and condiments. And there are refrigerators for ice cream bars, coke, and protein milkshakes. 

About my family life, we keep and preserve most of our chinese tradition, like celebrating Lunar New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival with moon cakes. My wife and I teach my kid Chinese very seriously. He can read, write, and speak Mandarin fluently. I’m from a small city in Southern China, and we speak our local language, Hakka. My son came to China and visited grandma, and he learned Hakka just by listening and talking to her. He’s 24 now, and he’s graduating from UofT, and I’m so proud of him. He makes me happy. You know, on his graduating day, I saw him holding his degree, with his regalia costume on, and he smiled so brightly. Then I think of a picture of an 8-year-old boy that I keep in my drawer. Time passes by so fast. 

It's home now. Toronto is home to me. Toronto is multicultural, with different people.

I like going to Chinatown, there’s a restaurant on top of the Dragon City, to enjoy some traditional Chinese food. The restaurant is a kind of place with holes in the wall and sticky, dirty chopsticks. But the food is just so good. My favorite dish is fried rice. Other people like noodles, but I love the texture of fried rice so much. The restaurant is extremely well-known for its dimsum and dumplings. The waiter will bring out a stroller, with all the dim sums on, so people can see and order. And at midnight, they gonna serve some ‘cold tea’ in a teapot. It’s just malt whiskey from China. 

I’m lucky that I always have my family and friends with me. My mom is one of the most important people in my life. She passed away a few years ago, during the pandemic. I couldn’t come home to visit her for the last time, and it still haunts me to this day. Before the pandemic, I came back home quite frequently. And she always came to the airport to pick me up, as if I was just a little kid. You know, you never get over the death of your parents, no matter how old you are. But you gotta be strong, for your son and your wife. 

I bought a house back in 2007. It was $300,000. But now, you are never gonna find any real estate with that price. Toronto has very expensive housing and real estate. Everything is cheap back then. 100 bucks for a whole grocery haul for 3 people in a week is absolutely doable. Now, not so much!

III. Montreal

That’s the end of my trip to Toronto, which is kinda rush, to be honest. There are still some neighborhoods I wanna check out, like the Financial District and Little Italy, but in general, I don’t feel too impressed about Toronto. I had my train ticket to Montreal that morning, it only took about 5 hours from Toronto, and the seat on the train was very comfortable. Everything is good. I remembered Lana Del Rey just released There’s a Tunnel at the Blvrd, and I think I had Let The Light In on the loop for 5 or 6 hours. 

When I arrived in Montreal, the transportation was very much the same as in Vancouver, so it was easier for me to figure things out and arrive at my hostel safe and sound. Throwing all my shit into my room, I went for an Italian deli sandwich place, which wasn’t very tasteful. There’s this brunette girl, she was the server, and she complimented my perfume with her Quebec French accent. I told her it was my signature scent and I was glad she liked it. I blushed a little bit, I think, and it was very nice. 

Then I spent the rest of the night walking Old Montreal. I haven’t been to Europe so I couldn’t compare, but there’s definitely some European vibe there. Then I went to a queer pub on Beaubien Street, Bar Notre-Dame-Des-Quilles, where I met two interesting people, and we had some cool conversations. Then, the same thing happened in Toronto, I told them about the project I was writing and asked them if they were willing to participate. 

Below are two stories, one from a photographer, Jeremy, and later one from the bartender, who’s also a drag queen.

IV. Jeremy, a photographer

I got a diploma in Photography, not a traditional college degree or something, but it prepared me very well. Then I applied to the MA Fine Arts program in Wales and got into it because of my experience and portfolio. Before that, I was a full-time photographer from Toronto for 15 years. For 15 years, I shot commercials and in-house products at studios, for Bell Canada, Billboard, and other similar brands, they are like bread and butter clients for me. 

Even though my photography career is mostly about products, it also involves working with people. As a photographer, you are standing there, holding a camera, and staring at a person, in a very intimate,  and sometimes vulnerable position I would say, and try to get them to feel comfortable. So to do so, we have to have some strategies and techniques, to make them open up. 

Normally, I would bring models into studio, or my apartment. I got a big loft space where I set up lighting. The best strategy for me, is to set up the camera on a tripod and frame it, so I know the composition of the image. I would stand behind the camera, keep the thumb on the trigger, and have conversation with the person, such as explaining to them what are we going to do now, and I basically just interview them, and snap the shutter real fast, here and there. I always try to capture their unique moment where they are articulating something they care about, which is very interesting. 

I really wanna shoot more portraits, but majority of my work was product-based, cause they pay very well, it’s good money. The process of shooting is tough and challenging, but also very interesting, very much the same as problem-solving. Very much like building something, fucking it up, and making it weird, you know. Let say you have a subject, an object, within a controlled environment, and you gotta think about how you are going get the light to reflect at a certain angle. The light, it’s very important, it is truly a make-or-break deal. When I was at school, some professors would define photography as  “painting with light”, that’s how you know how essential light is for photography. 

Both my dad and grandpa worked as a photographer in a local small town, my grandpa had a darkroom in his basement, back in the 90s, when I was very young. I was interested in drawing very first, but  I figured I wasn’t that good, so I got into photography, cause the subject is right in front of you already. I learned to shoot on 4 by 5 cameras in my first year in the darkroom when I started the Photography diploma, It was an amazing medium to work in because the camera allows you to manipulate focus and the depth of the objects. Then in the second year, we played with the digital camera. 

Personally, I like shooting with digital camera the most, even more than film camera.   Film camera is absolutely stunning, they have their own energy, but I just don’t have the instinct to work with film camera. But you know who has it? My sister, who is also a professional photographer. In contrast to me who build my own set where I can control everything, my sister is kinda a street-style photographer. She sees the world in her special way, really, and she does far more portraits than me. She works with musicians, brings them to the location, and just starts playing with the environment, maybe trying to get the reflector to bounce light in some different and unique ways. 

So all of my previous photography jobs, mainly shooting in studio with strict lighting, are quite sustainable I must say, of course, until COVID hits. I took a break from photography from then, and I started drawing, trying to teach myself how to illustrate during quarantine. I made a lot of progress in those 3 years, and I got a handful of editorial jobs through drawing. I’m just returning to school this January actually, Concordia University, to study Psychology and Studio Art. I feel like this is the experience of undergrad study I never had, and I’m very excited to start pivoting my career into teaching. To be honest, when COVID hit, I was working as a retoucher for Canada Goose, and it was not a good time. It took forever for them to pay. Usually, it takes 30 days to get paid as a freelancer, and 90 days is the final limitation. And they always exceeded the 90 days. Things like that make the working relationship very stressful, as a freelancer, cause you don’t have a steady income, you do gig-based, and you gotta jump from job to job. And you also have some other clients as well, so there can be a lot on your plate. So if you don’t follow up closely and pay attention, then you can actually forget about the pending payment. So Canada Goose, they told me they couldn’t pay me for a year, so sweet, I’m gonna quit, enough with this shit show. 

I want to make art from now on, as a means of expressing myself only, and I have another career, the teaching one, to sustain. I’ve been pursuing art as bread and butter for over 15 years, and it really hurts my heart. I’m hoping I can start teaching in the next 4 years. So far I’ve enjoyed Concordia very much. It is an interesting school, very community-focused, they have a garden on campus, where they grow local food. They have a rooftop to grow fresh products like tomatoes and basil. Then they sell them at the stores across the streets, at a discounted price for people. 

So far my education has been a hell of a ride, too! I switched from MA in photography to MA in Fine Arts, cause my thesis is way broader than just photography. The difference between Fine Arts and Photography programs is that photography is limited to camera as medium, whereas Fine Arts is everything, sculpture, painting, and studio. Fine Art is multidisciplinary of art. I would say Fine art is the big umbrella, and photography lies under it. For me, switching from just Photography to Fine Arts is opening door to a more superficial and abstract world of art. 

Oh…I think I forgot what I’m about to say, am I rambling a lot, cause I feel like I do. I feel bad cause I’m not asking about you anything, and that’s how we get to know each other, right? I know this is not a formal interview, more like casual conversation, but you still not talking! 

V. A drag queen and a bartender.

I was born and bred here in Montreal. I went to an English school, not a French one, so I speak mainly in English. My French is enough to get by tho. I started as a musician, I made some music videos, they probably flowing around somewhere on Youtube by now. I'd beet-boxing with friends outside the metro, the Berri-UQAM one. I know it smells like piss, it's always been smelled like piss, mind you, but it was quite busy. I also tried to pick up rap, but then I realized I couldn’t rap at all, so I gave that up. Later on, I met this guy, a friend of a friend of a friend, and we did a song called “Fuck being Subtle”, it was a rap EDM song, it was stupid, but it was fun, then the pandemic happened, and I returned to making samples and beats on my own, that’s how I put out my first album. 

I’ve been working for a long time in the kitchen, and front-of-house, and the money is slightly better here as a bartender.  I was meant to make my art, be creative and stuff, and this job allows me to have a lot of time, and enough money to do that, which is good. And people in this bar, particularly, are alright. I don’t like pretentious and rude people, I have a low tolerance. You can just tell a person is phony, insincerity, with bad sense of humor, and a lot of self-interested behaviors, sometimes I can tell from small interactions, but sometimes I don’t. 

// Another guy, a friend of the bartender, he've been sitting there the whole time and listening to our conversations. He was a fun guy, too, and he started sharing some more experience of people coming into the pub.

Finance bros come in sometimes, and they are like “Oh YOU DON' T TAKE CARD?? oh well fuck you, you hippie scum.” Sometimes other queer stuck up in their ass, and they think they fucking special, almost like anal-phobic 

There's this guy, he came here a few weeks ago. He came in, and started yelling at me. He’ve been threatening us with all the legal and stuff, and complaining about the noise, the noise from the pub, but this time is the first time I met him, and he started yelling, so I did what I normally do, is that when someone acting crazy, I take them outside, but he was very beleaguered and upset, and angry. But I was able to get him outside by myself, he is much larger than me, and I shut the door on him. But he came again, another night, stormed into the bar, and tried to steal a laptop with a karaoke setup, and yelling about the noise, which is kind of ironically, cause he’s the only one yelling and making fuss.  

It took 5 people to take him out, and he swung on somebody, a lesbian, he tried to punch her. And someone tried to call the cops, but we actually didn’t even have a chance to call the cops, cause HE started calling the cops on us, after everything he did. So the cops came, and they like “I get a lot of complaints from this guy” but they were finally on our side that night, so yeah. The guy is a douchebag, and oh yeah, the lesbian, she’s fine, don't worry. 

So besides all these crazy stuff that happen, another good thing about this job is nightlife, and being around nightlife culture. This is the job allows me to talk to a lot of people, artists, promoters, so it’s been very useful making events, and shit, and being able to work on projects with other people. 

My drag career started like this. One time I went and watched a drag show, at another pub, and it changed my life, I was thinking to myself, oh yeah, I wanna do that shit. I have some confidence issues growing up, and for me, drag is like being inside a robot. You put on flamboyant costumes and makeup and wigs, and you can be anything, anyone you want, and you don’t feel anxious or embarrassed or something. It’s like an alter ego of mine. I collaborated with other promoters and drag clubs, KGB, the dupe of the real KGB in NYC years ago, LOL. They are both closed now. But still ,during that time, we started putting on shows. But recently, I feel like drag shows are becoming repetitive and too clique, and boring. Like the alternative drag scene,  I don’t know, I feel like people aren’t thinking outside the box, and I have a different vision for my drag shows. That’s why I don’t lip-sync, I use my beat for my shows.

Some other drag queens say who am I to judge, what do I know, I’m just a bartender doing drag, and I’m not an artist, but I don’t care. My show is memorable and chaotic. 

I like Montreal, it’s like a city of extreme. It can be the most isolated place, or you can be absorbed in social Interaction, and it has a lot to do with the weather. Extremely cold, or extremely hot, not so much inbetween. The last few days have been very nice, and balanced, we got that like 2 or 3 weeks, and that’s it. In the winter is lonely, people get trapped in house, nothing much to do. I get lonely, really. And if you go out and stuff, you caught the goddamn fever, but it’s very sociable in summer. In the summer, things are sexy, fun, weird, and fuckable energy, and people like to party and drink at the patio at 3 in the afternoon.

Dating life here in Montreal is suck, suck balls. And straight men like to act gay here in Montreal, I don’t know why. No one committed. It’s intense, and weird. For people who want to commit, they want it quick, intense, and they want a goal like married right on. There’s no problem with breaking up if we find out it doesn’t work, after a month and a half, right? Even if we committed, we still need private space, to like, you know...I’m big on private space. the more you learn about each other, the more space you gotta give each other space.