While this relationship might as well have been Jennifer’s first, it appeared that a number of girls fell for Daniel. By grade ten, he had collected a memory box of letters, many folded intricately, passed between teenagers in class, from at least four girls. It was this same memory box in which police later discovered Jennifer’s love letters from prison the day they raided the home of Daniel’s parents. In one, a girl writes hundreds of times, but with far less artistic flair than Jennifer, “I Miss You” over and over again. Another girl is seemingly overcome with emotion for Daniel. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she writes. “I don’t feel worthy.”
Daniel spent a lot of time with his tight-knit family. As far as his parents were aware, outside the home, Daniel was the same rambunctious but innocent boy he was inside. And to a certain extent, he was. But eventually he started living a double life himself. Like Jennifer, he was so good at it that, when things went bad, his family was utterly astonished to find out what he was really up to. One online commenter, who describes himself as one of Daniel’s closest friends in high school, gives some insight into the kind of person Daniel was to his buddies in those days: “I loved that guy like a brother in high school. We were very close friends and hung out every day. I truly respected him. He was honestly the nicest guy I knew in high school. Always smiling, laughing, cracking jokes, lighting joints … I smoked a lot of pot in high school.”
Schoolmate J.B. almost refuses to believe that Daniel was guilty of the crimes with which he was eventually charged. “Daniel was very much into trumpet,” J.B. says. “Daniel was a very enthusiastic guy, always a smile on his face. He was very open and had lots of friends.”
Eventually, as Daniel’s focus on school began to dwindle and his marks fell, he and his parents agreed that he would change schools to focus more on his studies as he prepared to enter university. Since he wanted to pursue music, he attended Cardinal Carter Catholic Secondary — an arts-centred high school on the other side of Toronto — for grade thirteen. Although the move made it harder for him and Jennifer to spend time together, the pair was already used to keeping their relationship under the radar and conjuring up ways to meet up without arousing attention. Jennifer started skipping school on a regular basis, which revealed just how far removed she had become from the elementary school student who wouldn’t have dreamed of ditching class, even in cases of illness.
This was the beginning of the slow drift away from the girl her father thought she was. By this point, what was meant to be her main focus — her education — had become a minor detail in the face of the head-over-heels emotion she felt for Daniel. She was gradually drifting away from her parents’ sphere of influence into his. This isn’t to say the couple was up to no good; Jennifer remained a good girl who was risk-averse. She didn’t drink, engage in sex, or smoke pot.
“Once [Daniel] left for Cardinal Carter … it was harder to see him, so that’s when more hidden secrets and lies would come out,” she said. “He transferred out, but he’d come … see me. I would skip school sometimes and go see him and in the summertime when my parents weren’t home, before or after. Or, if I didn’t have skating that day, I’d call him up and ask him if he could come over and we’d just watch TV.”
Daniel was eighteen at this time, but because of a somewhat sheltered childhood, he had never learned certain life skills or experienced the hard lessons some of his friends had by that point. It’s those very lessons that can come in handy, especially when teenagers start to drift from their comfort zone into activities that are more dangerous. In this sense, Daniel’s ambition outweighed his good sense. Wanting extra money (eventually spending it on a flashy new car), he began selling weed. Always one to have some sort of pastime, he started hanging out at a popular run-down pool hall and bowling alley called Club 300, just north of Scarborough, in a heavily populated Asian part of Markham. The hangout was open twenty-four hours and was large enough so that the owner never minded stragglers loitering around even though they weren’t spending money.
Back in those days, Club 300 was on the police radar. It was frequented by all sorts of people, many with little else to do but hang around. In this environment, there was always someone looking for pot. It was Daniel who decided to fill this void. It didn’t take long for him to gain enough customers to earn decent coin. However, he knew what was at risk and, although he could have grown his business exponentially, he used his street smarts to figure out a safer path to prosperity. He decided to keep it small and local, only dealing with those customers he was well acquainted with. “The people I dealt [with], I know who they got it from,” he later said. “I know their families. It’s not just buddies that I just meet.” He revelled in the role of dealer, always in demand by someone, able to do his close friends favours, his cellphone always blowing up. He was doing well, and it wasn’t long before he was able to score that high-end car he’d always wanted — an Audi.
Jennifer spent her fair share of time at Pacific Mall, near the pool hall, but she frequented Club 300 far less and denied ever taking part in the illegal trade, saying this was Daniel’s business and his alone. “I wanted nothing to do with it,” she said. “So I refused to know what he was doing. I don’t go around him when he’s doing that kind of stuff. I don’t like it and I refuse to be a part of it.” However, when she felt that someone else might tell the court about her activities, Jennifer admitted to delivering weed to at least one high school classmate and being present for a number of drug deals. Although she remained conflicted about the activity, there was a part of her that found Daniel’s business exciting. If Daniel was playing the role of drug dealer, Jennifer herself didn’t mind the increased influence, occasionally taking on the part of a drug dealer’s girlfriend.
Despite Daniel’s cautious approach to dealing, it didn’t take long for the authorities to catch on to his business venture. He always figured dealing drugs was a calculated risk, assuming that if his customers stayed loyal to him and no one squealed to the police, he’d be safe. What he never figured into his plans was the possibility of being nabbed by the police with product on or around him. But that was exactly what happened one night when he was arrested by Toronto police. It was the worst time to get caught, since he was on his way from his weed connection to his friend’s house to unload it. Investigators discovered a pound of marijuana in his car. Because of the sheer amount, he was convicted of possession and intent to traffic. Since he pleaded guilty right away and gave up his source, he was spared jail time and took great care to hide his new rap sheet from his parents, Darwin and Evelyn. Considering that his parents would have hit the roof if they ever found out what he was getting up to, Daniel was buoyed by his ability to keep things on the down-low. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t take the hint. A short time later, he was awoken in the middle of the night when his friend got caught by police in his car with a quantity of the drug ketamine, also known as “Special K” — a horse tranquilizer and party drug. The incident occurred, Daniel later said, when his buddy promised to get his Audi detailed, but instead went “gallivanting off” trying to “pick up girls.” During this escapade, Daniel said his friend was nabbed for possession of between a half ounce and an ounce. His friend’s indiscretion led to yet another entry in Daniel’s growing profile on the police database. That same friend eventually ended up in jail.
Daniel’s car was impounded, and he had to fish it out of lockdown at the Markham police station — the same place he’d years later be interviewed as part of a murder investigation. This event cemented things in Jennifer’s mind: Daniel had to get out of the game. With Jennifer worried, Daniel figured it was high time he reconsidered his involvement in the criminal world. “For Jen’s sake, I stopped as soon as I got in trouble. I didn’t really do anything else after that,” he said. “When I got arrested, reality hit me in the face that I shouldn’t be doing it … it was just friends who asked. I would say, you can call this person.” He also distanced him
self from the negative influences in his life, including moving his hangout from Club 300. “I [didn’t] go to the places, and I [didn’t] talk to the same people that I used to hang around with,” he added. “I got a new group of friends. When I got out, I got out completely.” With Jennifer’s support, he switched gears and settled into a more legitimate lifestyle with a brighter future. He started attending York University for music, with aspirations of becoming a performer or music teacher. Eventually, the transmission on the expensive Audi he’d worked so hard to buy blew, and he had to junk it. He bought a new, and more practical, Toyota Corolla, then landed a job at Boston Pizza where, after eight short months of hard work and dedication, he parlayed his dishwasher job into a kitchen manager role.
Jennifer, seeing her man succeed in such remarkable fashion, especially given what he was rebounding from, got a job herself at the East Side Mario’s in nearby Markville Mall. Hann appears to have been skeptical of this employment at first, but Bich convinced him to encourage his daughter’s pursuits rather than stymie them. Only wanting the best for his daughter, he not only agreed to the job, but also gave her access to the family car to get to and from work. The likely compromise was simple: if Jennifer’s marks started falling or her piano playing suffered, she’d have to stop work and refocus. To make Hann happy, Jennifer also redoubled her efforts in figure skating. Because skating remained the weakest link, Hann encouraged her to sign up with a new coach he had heard about at the York Region Skating Academy, Katerina Papafotiou, who was considered a top coach in Southern Ontario.
“They were looking for something more serious,” Katerina says. “They … wanted her to improve. Ninety-nine percent of my students come from that background [Asian].” She says, while this sort of upbringing can lead to dizzying success on the ice, it can also lead to parents meddling with students training inside the rink. “I have seen parents be very, very strict in different manners. I do hear stories of high-performance skating where parents are aggressive with kids if they are not performing. And you have to be the top, or you’re not good enough.”
Jennifer continued to underachieve in figure skating in comparison to her other pursuits, and eventually her dream to compete at a higher level was cut short. “I tried to go to Canadians [national figure-skating championship], and I had plans when I was near the end of my career — before I tore my ACL — that I would be going to the [Vancouver] Olympics. That was one of the goals.”
Not long before her switch to the new figure-skating club, Jennifer and her family moved north of Scarborough into the middle-class suburb of Markham. After years of hard work, her parents had finally saved up enough to take the plunge and make the move to the wealthier community. The house at 238 Helen Avenue, a new construction on a new street, was in accordance with two significant Chinese superstitions: it didn’t have the unlucky number 4 associated with it (in fact, it actually benefited from the lucky number 8). And the home faced due south rather than north, which Chinese custom says brings ruin to a family.
But the catalyst for the move wasn’t something positive. After years without any problems, the Pans’ Scarborough home was burglarized days after they purchased a new TV. The thieves also stole some jewellery and gold the family had hidden away.
Bich was always convinced that it was the television box that had been left outside that prompted thieves to target their home. After working tirelessly for so many years and raising plenty of money to start fresh, the family decided the risk was simply too great to remain. Hann and Bich resolved to leave the neighbourhood Felix and his friends used to call “Scarlem.” The Pans weren’t alone. Markham was the community Asians wishing to improve their lot had been increasingly flocking to for years, and movement of Chinese families from Scarborough to Markham increased significantly around this time. When the Pans moved to Markham in 2005, the Chinese population in the town was just under 34 percent; by 2013 it had reached 53 percent.
Soon after the Pans moved north, the Luong family followed, buying a house less than a mile away. The Pan home soon became a hub of activity, with the family leaving their patio door open during the day so family members could walk directly into the eating area. At different times, young relatives also came to live in the home. Despite this, Jennifer also described the new home as a place where the family appeared to grow apart, explaining how her mother regularly slept outside the matrimonial bed. During dinner, the television was on and there was very little conversation around the supper table. Although Felix says he didn’t want to move from his old neighbourhood, he stresses his parents were adamant and no longer felt safe in their Scarborough home. “It’s where I grew up, so I did not want to move,” he says. “My parents didn’t like bad elements in Scarborough, and they did not like being broken into.”
Hann had the benefit of being financially secure while looking for the house near Markham’s historic downtown, known as Unionville. He finally felt secure in choosing a home that would best display the family’s newfound image and the hard work they’d engaged in for almost thirty years, according to his son. “Impressions were important to father,” Felix says. “Basically, my dad likes to keep a higher status, so we got a nice house, a nice car; we just got a TV. [My] dad had the greenest lawn and did buy the house because of the giant lawn.”
Despite Felix’s comments, it’s important to understand the cultural instinct that might have led to Hann’s behaviour. If taken in the context of Asian culture, it could properly be identified as an exercise in status fulfillment rather than an ego stroke. Hann was hoping the elevation would cement the family’s status, help the Pans gain acceptance, and signal the family’s class distinction in the wider community. That is to say, rather than Western displays of wealth — often referred to as conspicuous consumption — that might include flashy cars, high-end labels, excessive luxury, or gigantic homes, Hann’s intention was that, with displays of status and wealth, his family would achieve acceptance in middle-class society. For Hann, keeping up appearances was all the more important for the sake of his children’s future, rather than for his own purposes.
“We’re a little bit lower in society than a lot of families we try to associate with,” says Felix. “[He wanted to] portray to the community that success [with a big] lawn, [a big] house, and two nice cars. [He] liked higher status, big-ticket items.” Felix explains his father’s philosophy like this: “If my dad did better than his dad and I did better than my dad, it’s just building up the family as a whole. So that’s why my dad, although he’s a tool and die maker, he kind of liked the image thing. He wants to keep it like a higher image. Because he wants me to hang out with a better crowd. So I was sent to private school. He just wants me to be successful.” Felix adds that, although he had always wanted to be an engineer, as his father wished, he would often kid around with Hann that he might attend George Brown, a Toronto college, for culinary studies. “But it’s just a joking thing,” he says. And, although he adds that at times he didn’t feel like his family was doing very well financially — including soon after his father and mother were let go from Magna years before — the Pans were always keen to project success. “The persona is that we’re still doing well,” he says.
In her online article “On Tiger Moms,” Julie Park says that for many Asian families, rather than focusing on upper-middle-class cultural achievements such as visiting Paris and Rome, which Amy Chua was keen to do with her children, Julie’s parents paid more attention to “bourgeois consumerism.” “Instead, my parents spent money on objects,” she writes. “A brand new house in a brand new neighbourhood was the ultimate purchase. ‘Used’ houses were inferior. To buy a used car was unthinkable. Luxury sedans — a Benz or a Lexus — were a non-negotiable necessity (we did live in Southern California). When I dared question this mentality, my mother patiently explained, ‘The kind of car you drive shows the world the kind of person you are.’”
Of course, the type of car one drives goes fa
r beyond Asians and is a commonality in many communities across North America, although it appears to be particularly pronounced in certain Asian circles. Julie’s family weren’t the only ones with a Benz and a Lexus. This instinct to show the world something that didn’t necessarily exist went far beyond Hann and Bich. Jennifer also engaged in plenty of dishonesty to keep up appearances. “I was very good at putting on what I call a happy mask,” she said. “Where everything in the world seems fine to everyone around me, but at the end of the day, I feel disgusted with myself. I feel miserable. I feel as though I was judging someone in my shoes. I wouldn’t want them as my family or friend or anything like that. I tried looking at myself in the third person and I didn’t like who I saw, but rationalizations in my head said I had to keep going. Otherwise I would lose everything that ever meant anything to me: my family — my mother, my father, and my brother.”
Dr. Helen Hsu claims this is a common sentiment among children, especially girls, when leading a double life — outwardly showing they are happily obliging parents’ wishes but privately suffering under the weight of expectation. “[Children] are expected to stuff it and endure and deal with it privately until they grow up,” she says, explaining how their upbringing might lead them to believe this behaviour is immoral while simultaneously feeling they have little choice given the assumed repercussions of not following their parents’ guidelines.
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