“I come from High Level, Alberta....I was dancing in a really small town. I didn’t have any formal experience, I just watched TV shows, like So You Think You Can Dance. I thought I was hot stuff when I was there, but then I came here and realized that I actually sucked. I decided to stick to one style — locking, a style of street-dance — and one day I was just practicing on my own in Robson Square, and there was this guy behind me who was super good. My friends told me to go ask him to teach me how to dance, so I went up to him and said “Please, I’m so bad at this.” He was like “No problem, I’ll take you under my wing for two or three months.” He was from Japan and he was only here for like three months. Ever since then, I’ve been dancing.

“His name was Kentaro and he studied locking in Japan. He came here to learn English and I think he was also working at a restaurant. He only stayed here for a bit before he moved somewhere else. I haven’t talked to him in a while — maybe I should. He’s probably why I’m still here. If people weren’t that friendly, I’d probably move on to other hobbies. He’s why I stuck with [locking] for so long.

“What was life like in Alberta?”

“It’s definitely very different. I enjoyed my childhood and being raised there. There were a lot of nice people, but you do realize that culturally you’re different from a lot of the people there. There were a lot of Caucasians, Natives, and the population spread — there were not very many Chinese families. Maybe there were one or two at the time I was growing up. The two families would be my uncles and stuff as well. It was challenging, but I feel like it helped develop the character that I am today.”