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The Loop Transcript for March 26, 2021

Host: Clare Bonnyman

CLARE BONNYMAN: Hey, I'm Clare Bonnyman, and welcome to "The Loop".

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

CLARE BONNYMAN: The last two weeks of headlines have held a lot of pain for Canadians of Asian descent. But it's not new. It's something they've been feeling for an entire year. Reports are actually showing a really steep rise in hate crimes against Asian-Canadians since the start of the pandemic, ranging from online and verbal abuse to actual physical attacks. So CBC reporter Min Dhariwal spoke to a bunch of Edmontonians who've experienced anti-Asian racism, and he's going to share some of their stories with us. Plus, if you imagine spending the majority of this past year in a single room, it feels really stressful. But that's the reality for so many Edmonton seniors who are living and have lived through the entire pandemic in long-term care. So I called up one of my friends, who's in his 80s, to talk about being on the inside while the pandemic rages outside of his assisted living home. And where would we be this last year if we didn't have food? CBC's Madeleine Cummings is going to take us behind the scenes of food blogs, where we're going to discover why sometimes you have to go on a long journey through someone's childhood memories before you can ever start baking.

[Music: Theme]

Anti-Asian racism is on the rise in Edmonton

Guest: Min Dhariwal

ALICE YANG I think it terrified us because we couldn't do anything about it. And like no one reached out help us. And all we could do is just run away when this man started like chasing after us. And it's very scary when it's like... like it's normal for people to start, like, coming up to us and like whisper coronavirus as I pass them.

SIMMEE CHUNG: Mommy, why are some people calling Chinese people coronavirus? I'm not coronavirus. So try explaining this to your children. I feel like I always keep my guard up at all times because no one is safe or exempt from ignorance, racist, and violence.

CLARE BONNYMAN: That's Alice Yang, a 16-year-old Edmonton student and Simmee Cung, an associate professor at Concordia University and a mom. They're talking about experiencing anti-Asian racism. For Asian-Canadians, a year of COVID has been more than a time of isolation. It's been a year filled with online abuse, verbal abuse, physical attacks, acts of hate. Anti-racism organizations have tracked the sharp rise in hate crimes since the start of the pandemic. And CBC's Min Dhariwal looked at what this means in our city. Hey, Min.

MIN DHARIWAL: Hi, Claire.

CLARE BONNYMAN: So, I mean, let's start with what organizations have actually recorded over the last year. What's happened?

MIN DHARIWAL: Yeah, you kind of touched on it in the intro, but there's an association, the National Association... Chinese Association, that was tracking, you know, how many times people have been, whether it be physically, verbally attacked because of their race. And I think in the past year, it's over a thousand different incidents. Which really, I mean, it blew my mind. And that wasn't the reason why we... we went to talk to some of these people. It was a former colleague of mine who put a post up on her Facebook. And she's Asian-Canadian, and talking about the the rampant racism that she's facing, that her her son was facing. And... and it just kind of hit me, maybe because I know her and, you know, there was that connection. And then, as soon as I started just talking to some people in my network, the numbers and names started flowing in. And I was just I really was overwhelmed.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Yeah. These issues in the news, right? The second, you know someone, and you start opening your eyes to it.

MIN DHARIWAL: Yeah.

CLARE BONNYMAN: It's so much more personal than any of us realize.

MIN DHARIWAL: Yes.

CLARE BONNYMAN: We heard Alice off the top. Can you tell us what her experience was and what she talked to you about?

MIN DHARIWAL: Yeah, definitely. So Alice is a great young girl. I mean, she's 16 years old. She goes to Old Scona. A great head on her shoulders. She, you know, told me about her experience in the past year and what it's been like during the pandemic. And she alluded to an incident on White Ave. So, Old Scona is right near White Ave.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Yeah!

MIN DHARIWAL: So, you know, her and her friends were hanging out and they were going for a walk. And she said all of a sudden, this guy, you know, Caucasian male, started running towards them, threw a rock, you know, and started calling them names and then chased after her.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Oh my gosh!

MIN DHARIWAL: And so as a 16-year-old, I mean, I remember when I was 15 and 16, I mean, you know, I'm a guy, a little different, but, you know, talk about being intimidated and something that'll stay with you for... for life, really. You talk about the impact it will have on you mentally, physically. It was something else to hear her tell that story simply because she is an Asian-Canadian.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Yeah.

MIN DHARIWAL: You know, that's why she was targeted. Because of the pandemic.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Yeah, incidents like that are shocking. Did she say that this past year has felt worse or are things changing in a way around the kind of racism she's facing?

MIN DHARIWAL: You know, I asked her that. And she said before the pandemic, you know, acts of racism, you know, derogatory names being thrown out there amongst teenagers. It happens. It it's been happening. But before the pandemic, it was kind of some people would laugh it off. But she said in the past year she's really noticed, like some allies who come from all different backgrounds, you know, in her... in her group of friends. And so, you know, now if someone uses the N-word or says something derogatory towards an Asian-Canadian or somebody Black or, you know, any... any minority, people will stand up for... for them. And she's noticed that quite a bit. So that was, you know, at least something optimistic that people can kind of hold on to that, you know, a lot of people are kind of saying enough is enough. And if they hear it, they're saying something.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Yeah, they're seeds of change.

MIN DHARIWAL: Right!

CLARE BONNYMAN: But on the other side, we look at events like that of Atlanta, right?

MIN DHARIWAL: RIght.

CLARE BONNYMAN: The killings in Atlanta. Eight victims, six of them were women of Asian descent. Even different violent attacks we've seen across North America. There's a social media video out this week of a young Asian couple in Canmore that overheard a racist conversation.

MIN DHARIWAL: Right.

CLARE BONNYMAN: How are all of these different things affecting how people feel here at home?

MIN DHARIWAL: Well, I think for the groups that... that, I mean, you know, Asian-Americans being killed has a direct impact on on Asian-Canadians, Asian anywhere, you know, people like Alice and Simmee, and, you know, Jing, who I spoke to, all females. Yeah, they feel vulnerable, and they should be. They should feel that way. I mean, you know, having someone kill you because of what you look like or where you're from, I mean, that attacks you to the core, right? And I mean, even in this city, we've seen Muslim women being attacked who wear hijabs. I mean, why is that happening? You know, I've grown up here my entire life. I can't remember a time when that ever happened, let alone happened two, three, four times within a couple of weeks. You know, people didn't say anything. They may have said stuff inside their homes or whatever, but to your face, they were fine. And for me, the disappointing thing out of all of this is that here we are in 2021, like my family came here in the mid-70s. To me, I didn't see people looking. They might have kind of looked and wondered, hey, this guy looks different.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Yeah.

MIN DHARIWAL: But they never said anything. They didn't tell him to go back to where he came from. But yet here we are 40 years later, 45 years later, and it feels like we've regressed. You know, before, these kinds of beliefs existed in small pockets, wherever they were. But there wasn't a platform to kind of, you know, put it out there and speak... speak to it. And now, all of a sudden, you can pick up your phone, and you can just see something about someone as hurtful as you want, and there's no ramifications. You know, there's nobody knocking on your door or calling you out on what you're saying. That all of a sudden gives people a green light.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Another conversation you had that you said stuck with you was with Simmee.

MIN DHARIWAL: Yes.

CLARE BONNYMAN: As a mom, right? What did she tell you about the experience of raising two daughters in a world that feels like this?

MIN DHARIWAL: Yeah, that was another eye-opening conversation. And these all happened one after another. So I was just... I felt so, you know, I felt so helpless for these people. Like, I wish I could... there's something I could do. But yeah, Simmee was, I mean, she... she spoke from the heart. She has a six-year-old and an eight-year-old daughter. And... and she spoke about conversations that she has with both her daughters. I mean, her and her husband have kind of battled about whether or not they should protect their kids from racism by maybe not talking to them because they're too young. But Simmee feels that she has to have those conversations with them. And not just kind of conversations that say you have to watch out for this or whatever, conversations about what would you do in a situation if someone called you that name?

CLARE BONNYMAN: Yeah.

MIN DHARIWAL: Or if you saw somebody else being bullied. Or you saw somebody being racist towards somebody else. You know, what can you do to help that person? So, you know, those are... those are heavy conversations for a six-year-old and an eight-year-old to have.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Absolutely.

MIN DHARIWAL: But it sounds like her kids are open to it. And I think a lot of kids, you know, I think we underestimate how, you know, kids can handle those kinds of conversations. I mean, you know, in our house, I have an 11-year-old and a 14-year-old. I've had those conversations with them, too, because I think, as you know, a visible minority, I think you have to prepare your kids for that. Because if you don't and they go out there and all of a sudden they hear it, you know, you almost have to arm them in a way with... with the knowledge of you can't take it personally. You have to thicken that skin a little bit. It's going to happen, right? It's going to happen. And it's all in how you react to it. Yeah.

CLARE BONNYMAN: You talk about wanting to help, right?

MIN DHARIWAL: Right!

CLARE BONNYMAN: Hearing all of these stories. What is being done to help to change the situation? Are there support groups coming up? Are there different community groups and supports for Asian-Canadians right now?

MIN DHARIWAL: Definitely. Well, I think what we're doing right now, helping these people share their experiences, share their stories, I think it'll open people's eyes, their ears, to what's really going on out there. I think that's, you know, a huge step. You know, for instance, Alice is part of a group that's called COVID, then the number nine-dash-teen. And so this is a group that they've put together over the last year. And it goes across the country, Asian-Canadians, teens who have a platform where they can share their experiences and support each other. Because, you know, this is... this is their experience here in Edmonton. You could probably go to any city across North America, across Canada, and there will be people sharing similar stories of, you know, people spewing hate or experiences of racism. So you know what? I think people like Alice and Jing and Simmee and Jason sharing their stories and standing up to it. I think that's... that's what we have to do now, right? We have to do that now. I mean, these people are all born here, right?

CLARE BONNYMAN: They're Edmontonians.

MIN DHARIWAL: Yeah, they're Edmontonians. They're Canadians. They just... they just look different. They may speak a different language. They may share a different culture. That's the only difference. But other than that, they're the same as you and I. And I think, you know, by... by talking to people and explaining that to people, you know, if you can... if you can change one person's mind, I think you've you know, you've met a goal there for sure.

[Music: Folk]

Life in COVID lockdown in a retirement village

Guest: Hubert Honeycott

CLARE BONNYMAN: Back in the fall, I received a call from a listener of CBC who was reaching out about a story that we did on seniors. That listener and I have since become sort of friends. Hubert Honeycott is 82 years old. He'll be 83 in September, and he lives in the Summerwood retirement village in Sherwood Park. And while so many of us have experienced lockdowns and isolation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Edmonton seniors, especially those in assisted living, have experienced that on a different level. And it's a place the rest of us, save for care workers, haven't really been able to go. So I reached out to my pen-pal Hubert to talk about his experience and lessons from a COVID year in continuing care. I called him up just a few days after he came out of a strict lockdown, where his care homes saw nine deaths.

[a phone connects]

HUBERT HONEYCOTT Hello.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Hi, it's Clare calling. How's it going?

HUBERT HONEYCOTT Very well. Very well.

CLARE BONNYMAN: When did COVID actually start changing things for you? Was it this time last year? Were things a little normal for a bit?

HUBERT HONEYCOTT Yes, it was... there was a lull in there, right? And then we had the lockdown for whatever it was, several weeks. And that wasn't bad because even though we had a quarantine or a lockdown, whatever you want to call it, we were still able to use the exercise equipment. The exercise rooms were open. We were allowed out. Although we weren't allowed to go off the premises, we were allowed to go outside and walk around and all these sorts of things. So in actual fact, the quarantine didn't seem as if we were quarantine. We had meals in our rooms. But other than that, that was the majority of the extent of what we were doing. In January, of course, we had our first vaccination. And then, several days later, we had an outbreak of... of the virus. And from mid-January now until now, then, we've been quarantined and confined to our suites. And the only contact we would have had was with the people who were delivering meals. So that was a real kick in the teeth, no doubt about that.

CLARE BONNYMAN: I mean, I feel like that's such a tough situation. Vaccines come. It's hopeful, right? When... when you see them coming through and people in your community start to receive them. But then, right away, you've got a case.

HUBERT HONEYCOTT Oh, I tell you, Clare, that was just unbelievable. I was under the impression and, you know, rightly or wrongly so, but I'm thinking that if I get the virus or if I get the vaccination, I can, you know, meet with our friends, meet with our family, all these sorts of things, maybe even go and have a coffee with someone, you know, that I haven't done for six months. But then, you know, the virus came on and it was just like a tidal wave that washed over us. And I don't know the total number of cases that we had. But for me, it was just devastating. I don't know how much longer I could have taken and not... not gone over the edge in terms of a nervous breakdown.

CLARE BONNYMAN: That's so hard to hear, Hubert. I'm so sorry.

HUBERT HONEYCOTT Well, you know, it was.... but, yes, it is hard to hear, but it was a fact of life. You know, I'm an active person, and I just wanted to do my exercise. My normal schedule is I get out of bed in the morning, shave, shower, haircut, whatever, and then I do my yoga. I do my exercise. I go for breakfast. I read the newspaper, do the sudoku, do the crossword puzzle. And then I sit, and I write for an hour or so. You know, so I've got something going all day. And now, all of a sudden, my exercise program is taken away. My walking is taken away. I can't go and have coffee with my friends and neighbours and family. So it, for me, it was really a kick in the gut.

CLARE BONNYMAN: And I know, too, speaking of some of the deaths that occurred, one of them was very close to you physically, right?

HUBERT HONEYCOTT Well, my neighbour. My next-door neighbour.

CLARE BONNYMAN: What's that experience like? Because I feel like that's something many of us have a hard time imagining.

HUBERT HONEYCOTT You know, I... I saw in the morning... it was early in the morning when they came to take the lady away. Now, she didn't die in the residence here. She died at hospital. Nevertheless, I mean, when they took her away, I was... it was a flood that came over me, no doubt about that. It was a veil that was just I was just devastated for a number of days. I just wanted to... I didn't want to do anything or see anybody. But, you know, and then, of course, a few days later, I find that not only did my next-door neighbour die, but the neighbour across the corridor, she also came down with the... with the virus. So now I'm really caught. [chuckling] So it's not... it's not a good feeling at all.

CLARE BONNYMAN: No. Although, I mean, you do have both of your vaccinations now, right? How does that feel?

HUBERT HONEYCOTT Oh, yes!

CLARE BONNYMAN: How does that factor into where you're at right now?

HUBERT HONEYCOTT Well, it did. It factored in quite well, actually. And again, I guess I look back at it and I come to think about because I went and I had my first one, and we were told that within three or four weeks we would have the second one, and we did right on schedule. But when I came back after receiving my vaccinations, I came back to my condo, and I'm thinking am I selfish or greedy that I've got two and there's a lot of people who have none? And that... that played on me for a while, until I came to realize that I had no control over what was given or the schedule that they made. So then I sort of said, OK, well, if that's mine, well then, I'll take it. But all these things play on your mind when you're alone. And I find that, at the end of the day, it was quite devastating, to say the least, for a number of weeks here.

CLARE BONNYMAN: What has the relationship been like with your family throughout this, not being able to see them the way you normally would?

HUBERT HONEYCOTT Thank God we have a system where we phone every day. I talk to both my kids every day. That I think is one of the big things about life is you have to... you have to be dependent on people. You can't be... you can't be an island onto yourself. You've got to depend on other people.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Hubert, I mean, I know it's a big question, but what's changed for you in the past year, and what do you think will continue to be different going forward?

HUBERT HONEYCOTT Well, in my thinking process, I don't think anything is going to change drastically. How I do things will always be, well, always or forever, I should say, will be changed. Because right now, no matter where I go or who I talk with, I'm always going to be aware if the person beside me has COVID or not. And that, I think, is going to stay with me until the day I die. And the other thing, I think, is that I'm not going to be as aggressive in terms of accepting offers, invitations to go different places, you know, we would... we were... we did a lot of travelling. And so those things are over for me. I don't think life will ever be the same as it was. I just can't see that taking place.

[Music: Folk]

Why food bloggers put the recipe deep in the text

Guest: Madeleine Cummings

ALEX TOM: There are pop-ups to navigate. There are ads in the middle of a narrative. There's a whole pile of scrolling that has to happen through a storyline that leads up to an eventual recipe. It's very distracting, or a pop-up to request that you join their mailing list. And... and it's... it's overload. You don't know which things you're supposed to be looking at. And there's pictures everywhere. Is that something I'm supposed to be, you know, is it relevant to my recipe? Or is it the pop-up for something? And, yeah, it's pretty confusing. It's a whole sensory experience that happens before you actually get to make the recipe.

CLARE BONNYMAN: That's Alex Tom, a former blogger and home cook, talking about the intros to online recipes. If you use Google in the kitchen, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You start the hunt for chocolate chip cookies, and you end up reliving someone's childhood summer camp memories. CBC's Madeleine Cummings looked into these nutritional novellas. Hey, Madeleine, how's it going?

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: Hey, Claire. How are you?

CLARE BONNYMAN: I'm good. I mean, are you big on cooking and using kind of new recipes from the web?

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: Yeah. You know, this has been something I've been doing a lot of this year during the pandemic. We're not going to restaurants right now. So like many people, we're cooking a lot more at home. And just to stick with the cliche, we've been baking a lot of sourdough.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Oh, yeah?!

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: And, Clare, like I've come so far with my sourdough. Initially, I was making these dense, dark footballs,[both laughing] but now I'm actually getting to the stage where I have a respectable boule with actual air pockets. And part of that has been watching videos on food blogs and reading super long stories and steps. And it's definitely been a part of my journey.

CLARE BONNYMAN: I mean, one, I'm really proud of you.

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: Thank you!

CLARE BONNYMAN: But, I mean, then these stories, these kind of prologues recipes, do they bug you at all then, too?

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: You know, I kind of always thought they might have something to do with advertising and be sort of connected to the way food bloggers make money. So while I find them annoying, I always figured they were kind of doing something for food bloggers, but I wasn't sure what.

CLARE BONNYMAN: So then how did you start looking into this and why were you so intrigued?

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: Well, I kind of noticed over the years people complaining about this, about having to read through a childhood story and trying to kind of hunt for the actual recipe. And I thought now is kind of a good time to explore the economics of food blogs because so many of us are cooking at home. And I've heard stories of so many food bloggers seeing incredible traffic boosts right now. And there were a lot of different things I wanted to look into when it comes to food blogs. You know, I could have done a whole story on marketing or on social media, [Clare chuckles] the advertising part of it, the fact that most food blogs you find are made by women. But I set out to kind of answer this question, why are the recipes buried, and how does that connect to how food bloggers make money?

CLARE BONNYMAN: And there's kind of a local connection when we look at berried recipes, someone trying to, quote/unquote solve it, right?

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: Right. So Gazim Hoja runs this startup called CommerceOwl. And he's right now developing this platform that would allow food bloggers to charge readers for exclusive access to their recipes. So it would be kind of like the Substack of food blogs. And he said the platform is just in the beta testing phase right now. But his dream is that food bloggers could make even more money than they do from traditional ads this way, especially if they build a big audience.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Oh, yeah, everyone kind of creates their own subscriber group kind of thing?

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: Yeah. And it would work really well if you're really popular and have a lot of people contributing.

CLARE BONNYMAN: Were you surprised about some of the stuff you found when you started digging into the behind the scenes of food blogging?

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: You know, I think that the thing that surprised me the most [chuckling] was just how lucrative this can be if you're good at it. So the food blogger I talked to, Rosanna Velasco, she's been doing this for years, and it's taking a while to get to this point. But she's now earning 6,000 dollars a month. So that translates to more than my salary. And this is really a full-time job for her. And I always thought food blogging is more of a side hustle for people, but really the famous food bloggers can make a lot of money through advertising as well as sponsored content, too.

ROSANNA VELASCO: I'm know going to add the rest of the dough ingredients.

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: Rosanna Velasco is hard at work in her Winnipeg kitchen.

ROSANNA VELASCO: Cracking an egg. [an egg cracks].

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: She's making Korean style garlic bread stuffed with sweetened cream cheese.

ROSANNA VELASCO: Just going to pour the yeast in a bowl.

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: This treat will go farther than feed her husband and three kids. It's going on her baking blog, Woman Scribbles, where she expects it will reach thousands of people.

ROSANNA VELASCO: Take a snapshot of the formed shaggy dough to give the readers an idea of how a dough that is ready for kneading looks like.

[Music: Rock]

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: Like many recipe posts, this one will have a familiar structure. The recipe will be buried at the end of the post. The strategy behind this structure is all about search engine optimization, or SEO. The Stuff that makes any content, recipe or otherwise, land on the front page of a Google search. Here are three things Google likes: expertise, authority and trustworthiness. There's even an acronym for it, EAT. No pun intended.

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: So posting a recipe alone doesn't cut it. Daniela Furtado is an SEO consultant in Toronto. She says food bloggers use keywords to impress the Google gods.

DANIELA FURTADO: So a keyword is pretty much a query. So, for example, if I'm looking for chocolate chip cookies on Google, then the blog post and the recipe has to include chocolate chip cookies throughout the article. And so they want to be able to use that as often as possible so that they can get on the first page.

[Music: Funky]

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: If food bloggers didn't structure their cookie recipes this way, they would drown in a sea of other cookie-related content, cookie listicles, cookie jars, Cookie Monster and so on making the search for recipes harder for everyone. And if no one found those recipes, bloggers wouldn't earn much from ads. Bottom line is, you might think online recipes are free, but like everything else that's free on the Internet, Gmail, YouTube, Facebook, you're paying with your attention. When it comes to food blogs, there are real people behind the stories doing real work.

ROSANNA VELASCO: Initially, the hope then was to to have something... to work on something that's my passion and potentially make it a career.

[Music: Funky]

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: The more traffic, the more ad revenue, and in Rosanna's case, it's adding up. Nine years ago, her blog was just a side hustle. Now it's her full-time job.

ROSANNA VELASCO: My blog increased its traffic by more than 300 or 400 per cent. Like, yeah, everybody... everybody wants to bake bread.

MADELEINE CUMMINGS: As Canadians scroll through sourdough recipes, food bloggers are cashing in. The best ones know what we're searching for and how to package it.

[Music: Theme]

CLARE BONNYMAN: “The Loop” is a weekly podcast from CBC Edmonton, and our team is:

JAMES EVANS: James Evans.

KRYSTINA SILVA: Krystina Silva.

CLARE BONNYMAN: And I'm Clare Bonnyman. Thank you for joining us this week. There's always so much more to know, so you can get into "The Loop" with us every Friday. Or you can get in touch. You can send us an email: theloop@cbc.ca. You can leave us a rating or a review wherever you found us, or give us a shout on social media using the hashtag: #TheLoopCBC. And help others get into "The Loop". Share us with your friends, your family, your senior pen-pal. You can find us on the "CBC listen" app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

JAMES EVANS: And don't forget, if you're driving to Jasper for spring break, it's a great way to pass the time.

CLARE BONNYMAN: [chuckling] Yeah, kill half an hour on the road.

JAMES EVANS: Exactly.

[Music: Theme]

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Transcript: The Loop Transcript For March 26

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