Merdeka 曖昧

Tsawassen doubles up as a border checkpoint to the little USA enclave of Point Roberts, an little peninsula extended southward from Tsawassen, which is separated from the US mainland by the Boundary Bay. As it lies to the south of 49′ N parallel, it is belonged to the state of Washington. A satellite photo from the Aug 2004 issue of National Geographics shows its location…

The 56th Street runs throughout Tsawassen all the way to the checkpoint with Point Roberts. As a small community, a lot of things can’t be found in Point Roberts, such as, according to a local resident interviewed by National Geographics, a bra. Thus, many of its residents come shopping in Tsawassen. When US dollars is weaker, the opposite takes place.

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Tsawassen, in the southern end of the District Municipality of Delta, is about an hour away from Richmond by bus. It is most famous for the main terminal of BC Ferries, the gateway to among others, Victoria, Vancouver Island, the provincial capital of British Columbia. However, this ferry terminal is quite a distance away from Tsawassen town centre, and I will only visit it next Tuesday when I am scheduled to take my ferry to Victoria.

Unlike Vancouver or Richmond which are full of checkerbox streets, Delta comprises three small townships and vast farmland in between. Its town centre, located at where 56th Street meets 12th Avenue, boosts a small cosy shopping mall with no more than 20 outlets. The only coffee shop here is run by a Chinese woman from Beijing, whose daddy, according to her, was born in Johor, Malaysia. They have a keyboard in the coffee shop, where kids will meet and sing together every weekend.

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