EBOOK
About
Vancouver journalist Christopher Cheung has spent most of his career chasing the stories that no one else was covering, taking readers beneath the surface of the "city of glass" to expose the beating, multicultural heart of a place that has too easily been characterized by multimillion-dollar condos and yoga pants. In 15 deeply human and well-researched stories, Very Vancouver tours the city to reveal how families, businesses, and individuals are just trying to make a home in this beautiful, and challenging, place of plurality.
There are the families who were the first to mass-produce Canadian tofu and put beef balls in the earliest bowls of Eastside phở. There is the diligent population of binners who scavenge alleyways for refundable cans and bottles. There is the roller-coaster story of how migration has shaped the kaleidoscopic menu - with bear claws, bánh mì, and tamales - of the legendary late-night Duffin's Donuts. And, of course, there is the mysterious Baklava Man, who sold his treats on downtown streets after a career as an outspoken politician in Syria led to his exile.
Very Vancouver is a tribute to the city's diasporas and examines the inequalities and fractured histories that mark every backyard vegetable garden and ubiquitous Vancouver Special, the boxy and derided design that housed newcomers. Vancouver is renowned for its natural beauty, but it's also a place built on a foundation of migration, colonization, the working poor, and families who woke up every morning hoping for better. Vancouver journalist Christopher Cheung takes readers beneath the surface of the "city of glass" - the land of multimillion-dollar condos and the birthplace of yoga pants - to tell real stories of survival and multicultural mingling that could only happen in this Pacific metropolis.
Christopher Cheung is the author of Under the White Gaze: Solving the Problem of Race and Representation in Canadian Journalism. He has worked as a reporter at The Tyee, Metro, and the Vancouver Courier and has received two Webster Awards, BC's top journalism prize. He was born and raised in Vancouver, where he still lives.
Sales and Market Bullets
• FOR FANS OF: 99% Invisible (podcast), Denison Avenue by Daniel Innes and Christina Wong (novel), City of Glass by Douglas Coupland (non-fiction), Chop Suey Nation by Ann Hui (non-fiction), Crackdown (podcast), and listeners of CBC's Early Edition, On the Coast, and Our Vancouver.
• A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR, JEN SOOKFONG LEE: "I first came across Chris's writing when I read his article on Crystal Mall, perhaps the weirdest mall in Metro Vancouver. At that time, I really wondered who Chris was and kept looking for his articles, and they did not disappoint. Everything from urban immigrant gardens to food security in Vancouver's poorest neighborhoods to an excellent piece on whiteness in Canadian media. Vancouver is desperate for a book that speaks to the real lived experiences of BIPOC communities, the working class, and the unhoused. Very Vancouver reads as especially true to my formative years and to the lives of so many of my friends, people who buy books if they seem relevant to them."
• CELEBRATING VANCOUVER: A way for readers familiar with Vancouver to celebrate what makes the city special, as well as those unfamiliar with Vancouver to get to know the "real" people, places, and quirky phenomena that make the multicultural metropolis what it is. Stories include Cheung suiting up to visit a big, steamy tofu factory, befriending a Syrian politician-turned-street vendor who fled the Assad regime, and hunting down the survivors of a Downtown Eastside hotel fire who rescued their cats from the flames.
• THE RIGHT AUTHOR FOR THE JOB: Christopher Cheung was shortlisted for the BC and Yukon Book Awards (2025), won the Digital Publishing Award for Best Arts and Culture Storytelling (2024), and won th
There are the families who were the first to mass-produce Canadian tofu and put beef balls in the earliest bowls of Eastside phở. There is the diligent population of binners who scavenge alleyways for refundable cans and bottles. There is the roller-coaster story of how migration has shaped the kaleidoscopic menu - with bear claws, bánh mì, and tamales - of the legendary late-night Duffin's Donuts. And, of course, there is the mysterious Baklava Man, who sold his treats on downtown streets after a career as an outspoken politician in Syria led to his exile.
Very Vancouver is a tribute to the city's diasporas and examines the inequalities and fractured histories that mark every backyard vegetable garden and ubiquitous Vancouver Special, the boxy and derided design that housed newcomers. Vancouver is renowned for its natural beauty, but it's also a place built on a foundation of migration, colonization, the working poor, and families who woke up every morning hoping for better. Vancouver journalist Christopher Cheung takes readers beneath the surface of the "city of glass" - the land of multimillion-dollar condos and the birthplace of yoga pants - to tell real stories of survival and multicultural mingling that could only happen in this Pacific metropolis.
Christopher Cheung is the author of Under the White Gaze: Solving the Problem of Race and Representation in Canadian Journalism. He has worked as a reporter at The Tyee, Metro, and the Vancouver Courier and has received two Webster Awards, BC's top journalism prize. He was born and raised in Vancouver, where he still lives.
Sales and Market Bullets
• FOR FANS OF: 99% Invisible (podcast), Denison Avenue by Daniel Innes and Christina Wong (novel), City of Glass by Douglas Coupland (non-fiction), Chop Suey Nation by Ann Hui (non-fiction), Crackdown (podcast), and listeners of CBC's Early Edition, On the Coast, and Our Vancouver.
• A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR, JEN SOOKFONG LEE: "I first came across Chris's writing when I read his article on Crystal Mall, perhaps the weirdest mall in Metro Vancouver. At that time, I really wondered who Chris was and kept looking for his articles, and they did not disappoint. Everything from urban immigrant gardens to food security in Vancouver's poorest neighborhoods to an excellent piece on whiteness in Canadian media. Vancouver is desperate for a book that speaks to the real lived experiences of BIPOC communities, the working class, and the unhoused. Very Vancouver reads as especially true to my formative years and to the lives of so many of my friends, people who buy books if they seem relevant to them."
• CELEBRATING VANCOUVER: A way for readers familiar with Vancouver to celebrate what makes the city special, as well as those unfamiliar with Vancouver to get to know the "real" people, places, and quirky phenomena that make the multicultural metropolis what it is. Stories include Cheung suiting up to visit a big, steamy tofu factory, befriending a Syrian politician-turned-street vendor who fled the Assad regime, and hunting down the survivors of a Downtown Eastside hotel fire who rescued their cats from the flames.
• THE RIGHT AUTHOR FOR THE JOB: Christopher Cheung was shortlisted for the BC and Yukon Book Awards (2025), won the Digital Publishing Award for Best Arts and Culture Storytelling (2024), and won th