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Memoir: when my husband and I defected from North Korea, we made the biggest sacrifice of all

Memoir: When my husband and I defected to Toronto in search of a better life, we made the biggest sacrifice of allI met my husband, Oh-jooyean, in 1996, while working in a market near my hometown of Yonan, North Korea. I was 22 years old; he was 26. A year later, we went to the police station to get married. We stood before an officer and pledged to love each other, live peacefully together and forever love and respect our eternal leaders, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.

We settled in the northern province of Yanggang-do, not far from Baekdu-san, a famous snow-topped mountain that’s mentioned in our national anthem. Like everybody in our town, we lived in a “harmonica” townhouse—a type of building consisting of a long line of attached one-room cells. We didn’t have a fridge in our room, and we rarely had wood for heat. My husband and I worked in a factory or farm field—wherever we were assigned—and we survived on rations and a measly wage that was barely enough to buy a kilo of rice. We grew whatever vegetables we could in a small plot in front of our house and foraged for plants in
the mountains.

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My Doomed Marriage: Leah McLaren on why divorce runs in the family

The kids of divorce are far more likely to get divorced themselves. How I tried and failed to beat the odds

My Doomed Marriage

Leah McLaren and her husband married in August 2009 and split up two years later (Image: courtesy Leah McLaren)

My husband and I spent the last eight months of our marriage in couples counselling. We were in London then, splitting our time between the U.K. and Toronto, where I kept a house. Our therapist was a tall, bald man in his 50s with doleful eyes and a propensity to blush when he was trying not to laugh. We agreed he was gay, though it’s often hard to tell with the English.

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A new mixed-raced generation is transforming the city: Will Toronto be the world’s first post-racial metropolis?

I used to be the only biracial kid in the room. Now, my exponentially expanding cohort promises a future where everyone is mixed.

Mixe Me | By Nicholas Hune-Brown

Click on the image for 10 interviews with mixed-race Toronto children

Last fall, I was in Amsterdam with my parents and sister on a family trip, our first in more than a decade. Because travelling with your family as an adult can be taxing on everyone involved, we had agreed we would split up in galleries, culturally enrich ourselves independently, and then reconvene later to resume fighting about how to read the map. I was in a dimly lit hall looking at a painting of yet another apple-cheeked peasant when my younger sister, Julia, tugged at my sleeve. “Mixie,” she whispered, gesturing down the hall.

“Mixie” is a sibling word, a term my sister and I adopted to describe people like ourselves—those indeterminately ethnic people whom, if you have an expert eye and a particular interest in these things, you can spot from across a crowded room. We used the word because as kids we didn’t know another one. By high school, it was a badge of honour, a term we would insist on when asked the unavoidable “Where are you from?” question that every mixed-race person is subjected to the moment a conversation with a new acquaintance reaches the very minimum level of familiarity. For the record, my current answer, at 30 years old, is: “My mom’s Chinese, but born in Canada, and my dad’s a white guy from England.” If I’m peeved for some reason—if the question comes too early or with too much “I have to ask” eagerness—the answer is “Toronto” followed by a dull stare.

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My Cheating Heart: lessons from my year on Ashley Madison

I was bored with my husband, resented my kids and yearned to feel sexy again. I was ready to have an affair

My Cheating HeartEverything you’re about to read is true. I’m withholding my name to protect my marriage, but the people, the places and the dates are just as I describe. It all began in the spring of 2011, after several bellinis at a Milestones with my best friend. She giddily whispered in my ear that she was having an affair with someone she had met on AshleyMadison.com, the hook-up website targeted at married people. She pulled out her iPhone and surreptitiously showed me a picture of her paramour. He was attractive, with a chiseled face and a broad smile. He’d ended their first date by kissing her passionately—something she hadn’t experienced in years. I felt a pang of envy.

She and I had met years earlier while working for the same PR firm and had bonded over a shared crush on an extremely handsome younger colleague. We spent many lunch hours discussing our interactions with him and laughing over what we’d do if we ever found ourselves alone with him in the backseat of his silver SUV, parked in a dark corner of the company’s underground garage. Sometime after that, we started to share pulpy erotic novels with titles like Wicked Ties, Fantasy Lover and Strange Attractions.

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Maple Leaf Foods CEO Michael McCain must pay $175,000 to his ex-wife every month

The lesson from the latest, almost uncomfortably intimate details to emerge from the divorce proceedings of Maple Leaf Foods CEO Michael McCain: being rich can be very complicated. In 1997, more than 15 years after Michael married his wife Christine, patriarch Wallace McCain threatened to disinherit his married children if their spouses refused to sign a contract waiving most of their claims in case of a divorce (a move Michael attributes to his father’s “unshakeable desire to pass on his wealth through generations of his bloodline, not fragmented by marital breakups”). When the couple did indeed break up in June 2011, Christine got $5 million, the family home and two cottages—a fortune to the average Joe, but a pittance compared to Michael McCain’s reported net worth of $500 million, and to Christine’s lavish monthly expenses, which included $2,600 for pilates and yoga training, $1,500 in club fees and a $13,000 clothing allowance. Lucky for Christine, the latest ruling, from Judge Susan Greer of the Ontario Superior Court, found that upholding the contract would be “unconscionable” and ordered McCain to pay $175,000 a month in spousal support until a settlement, arbitration or a trial determines appropriate long-term support. [National Post]

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Memoir: when I moved away from my overprotective parents at age 17, I was primed for trouble

Memoir: I spent my teen years willingly obeying my conservative, overprotective parents. When I left home to attend university at 17, I was primed for troubleI grew up in sleepy, suburban Calgary. My parents are conservative, first-generation immigrants from India—hovering, hyper-vigilant, you-can’t-go-to-the-mall-without-me parents. I spent my teen years obeying the rules; recklessness was something I always admired in my classmates but never dared myself. I didn’t have a sip of alcohol until my last semester of high school, and my parents never even bothered to give me a curfew. I was always home.

At 17, I was accepted into the journalism program at Ryerson University, a school with enough legitimacy that my parents were okay with letting me move to a faraway city unsupervised. For me, it meant an opportunity to finally rebel. And yet, when I arrived at Ryerson, I mostly kept to myself. I got into a relationship with the first boy who looked at me twice and rarely left his side. I called my parents once, sometimes twice a day.

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Memoir: when my deadbeat dad had a stroke, I finally learned how to forgive him

Memoir: UnforgivenIn the spring of 2006, I sat in a padded metal chair and watched my 63-year-old father wake up from a Demerol sleep. He was lying in a bed in the intensive care unit at Toronto Western, recovering from a stroke that, quite literally, had knocked him off his feet. There was damage to his spinal cord; now, his doctors were saying, he was permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

“I dreamed I could walk,” my dad said. There were several people in the room, including two nurses and my grandmother, but his blue eyes snapped right on mine. “I can’t walk, can I?”

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A Life Interrupted: Hassan Rasouli’s journey from an earache to a high-stakes battle over end-of-life decisions

Two years ago, Hassan Rasouli checked into Sunnybrook hospital to have a brain tumour removed, fell into a coma, and provoked a Supreme Court battle over who decides to pull the plug. Then, one day, he awoke

A Life Interrupted

For the past two years, the Rasouli family has visited Hassan daily at the Sunnybrook ICU (Image: Christopher Wahl)

Early in the summer of 2010, Hassan Rasouli, a 59-year-old engineer, had a problem with his right ear. He noticed sounds were coming in muffled and indistinct, as if through a ball of cotton. By August, his hearing loss was getting worse. The ear was slightly numb, too, and at times Rasouli caught himself feeling dizzy. He didn’t think much of it. He had moved from Ishfahan, Iran, to Toronto just four months earlier with his wife, Parichehr Salasel, a family doctor, their 27-year-old daughter, Mojgan, and their 22-year-old son, Mehran. They’d come to Canada with the capacity for risk particular to the new immigrant, the kind that leads someone to abandon a life of familiar comforts for an uncertain world where the possibilities might open up a little wider. They were excited about creating a new life.

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Dear Urban Diplomat: My sister gave me opera tickets. Am I obligated to take her as my date?

Dear Urban Diplomat: Sour Sibling

(Image: Nestosjp)

Dear Urban Diplomat,
For my 40th birthday, my sister bought me season’s tickets to the Canadian Opera Company—two seats in the centre orchestra section. I was thrilled, and I took my husband to the season opener. I later learned that she was offended because she had assumed we’d share the seats. Giving a gift and then expecting to use half of it strikes me as a tad gauche. I don’t think I should be obligated to take her with me all season. How can I tell her as much without igniting a family feud?
—Sour Sibling, Lawrence Park

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Today in Toronto: Free Flicks (The Karate Kid) and ROMwalk

Free Flicks: Rise of the Underdog All summer, Harbourfront hosts weekly free screenings of films celebrating the triumphs of losers, nerds and the generally undervalued. Tonight, the audience choice winner, The Karate Kid. Find out more »

ROMwalk The ROM’s history-themed neighbourhood walkabouts continue with guided tours into the wilds of the Annex, Yorkville, St. James’ Cemetery, the Distillery District and more. This evening’s walk goes through Cabbagetown. Find out more »

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Today in Toronto: Ashkenaz Festival

Ashkenaz Festival: The biennial celebration of traditional Jewish cultural staples lives on through the contemporary mediums of jazz, giant puppets and stilt walkers. Find out more »

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Today in Toronto: BuskerFest, Dead Can Dance and Jamelie Hassan

Buskerfest Performers from as far away as Spain and Japan tumble, juggle, ride and generally turn the entire St. Lawrence Market area into one big open-air stage. Find out more »

Dead Can Dance You’d be hard-pressed to find a less summery band than this Australian duo. Find out more »

Jamelie Hassan This Lebanese-Canadian artist calls her show At the Far Edge of Words, an allusion to a poem by the Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish. Find out more »

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Jan Wong: the simmering class war over basement apartments in Brampton

The Urbanization of the Burbs

(Image: Getty Images)

I once moved into an illegal basement apartment in Toronto for a newspaper series about working undercover as a maid. At $750 a month, it was the most affordable roach-free dwelling I could find. What’s more, it helped my landlord, himself a cleaner at the Four Seasons, pay his mortgage. Secondary suites are mutually beneficial for renters and homeowners. So I applaud the controversial new legislation that has finally legalized the subterranean world of basement apartments. The province-wide law, which took effect in January, overrides any municipal bylaws prohibiting them—bylaws that were typically passed due to residents’ complaints about traffic congestion, overcrowded schools and, though less often vocalized, there-goes-the-neighbourhood fears.

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The Cult of Pastor Song: a religious sex scandal in Toronto’s Korean community

The sex scandal consuming Toronto’s Korean community began when six international students said they were repeatedly gang-raped by members of their small church. The accused allege that their eccentric pastor brainwashed the women to deflect attention from his own transgressions

The Cult of Pastor Song

Holy orders: Jae Kap Song, the founder and pastor of Jesus First, encouraged his flock to wear church uniforms and live together in six shared apartments

One July day in 2007, an 18-year-old woman checked into her Toronto-bound flight at South Korea’s Incheon Airport. She was travelling light—she had with her one suitcase containing clothes for a range of seasons, some books and a favourite brand of face cream. She had been living with her grandparents in South Korea and was joining her mother, who had split with her father and moved to Toronto to study acupuncture three years earlier.

A court-ordered publication ban prevents me from identifying the woman, but I’ll call her Yeri. Her plan was to learn English at one of Toronto’s hagwons, Korean-run cram schools that cater to the thousands of young men and women who come to Canada on student visas each year. With command of the language, she would get into a better college in South Korea and ultimately, her family hoped, receive coveted job offers at multinationals.

From the airport, Yeri headed to a Bloor and Islington apartment building where her mother lived in one of six units leased by members of Jesus First, a Korean Presbyterian church run by a pastor named Jae Kap Song. Her mother belonged to the church and expected her to join, too. They’d share one of the apartment’s bedrooms. A second bedroom was shared by two male members of Jesus First.

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The Weekender: Luminato, Woofstock and six other items on our to-do list

1. LUMINATO
Art, theatre, film, dance, books and music—the arts are everywhere in the city this weekend. Clearly, Luminato has arrived. On our radar: Friday’s First Night concert featuring rapper K’Naan; Sunday’s Rufus to the Max program, a two-parter that includes a one-hour tribute to Rufus Wainwright and a concert with the man himself; 1000 Tastes of Toronto, a President’s Choice–sponsored food extravaganza; a late-night performance of Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony by the TSO; and t
he New Yorker lit series, which features talks and panels by author Annie Proulx, theatre critic Hilton Als and food critics Calvin Trillin and Adam Gopnik. June 8–17. Various prices. 416-368-3100, luminato.com.

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