Q&A: Ken Sim on dodging gangs in school, failing Grade 11 French, tracking his sleep, and how they'll all shape his new job as Vancouver's mayor
To learn more about the man who will be the city’s next mayor, we first spoke with several people who have known him for years about his childhood, his careers and his campaigns. Then we asked Sim about the things we discovered, which range from rather silly to quite serious.Article contentPhoto by . Source: Ken Sim campaign team
Q: You’ve spoken about your parents immigrating to Vancouver in 1967 with $3,200 to make a better life for their three children, and after arriving here they had your sister and then you in 1970. Paint a picture for me of that Sim household when you were a young boy, both from a financial and emotional perspective?From an emotional point of view, I think it just sort of seemed like a normal childhood, because I didn’t have any reference points. So it was normal.
Q: Is that why you went to five different elementary schools, because they were concerned about paying rent?Yeah, we couldn’t make rent. And you know, it was challenging back then to find a place that would take on five kids and a dog.You’ve spoken about making money when you were in Grade 5 by buying 10-cent comic books in east Vancouver and riding the bus to a shop on the west side, where you resold them for 25 cents.
” I’ll think about that. I still remember that song as a 52-year-old. It’s quite brutal …. We’ve gotten a lot better but, at the same time, it’s still out there, for sure. Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School yearbook photo of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim in Grade 9 in 1985.You’ve said gangs targeted Chinese teens when you were a student at Churchill Secondary, and as a result a friend picked a fight with you. And that the school liaison officer helped you?Article contentIn Grade 8, we’re in French class together and we were buddies. And then by Grade 10, he joined either the Lotus or the Red Eagles, two prominent gangs at the time ….