After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!

Cathi Atmadjaja

Cathi Atmadjaja completed her MA from SFU in International Studies: Psycholinguistics, and is a graduate student at UBC, aiming towards a MSc in Speech Language Pathology and being clinically certified from CASLPA. She currently works as a Behavioural Interventionist for autistic children and, having lived abroad in Jakarta, Los Angeles, Nice, Heidelberg, Yokohama and most recently Taipei, has distilled a socio-cultural fragment of each country within her.

Top 5 Christmas tree farms?

Shopping for Christmas trees can be so much fun, but where to get the best deals and the best trees? Here are five great places we selected last year for you to shop for trees.  Check out our...

Osaka brings Asian gourmet food to West Van

Osaka Market opened in West Vancouver this week, bringing a taste of Asian culture to what has been a predominantly white suburb of an ethnically diverse city. The 37,000 square-foot high-end...

Campbell's expensive autism center is money misspent, advocates say

In the weeks leading up to the premier's resignation, the Ministry of Health and Education was urgently fast-tracking construction on a 20 million dollar building for children with autism spectrum...

Dalai Lama gives peace a chance in Toronto

With simple humour, his Holiness put on his visor, complaining that “the lights are too bright.” He was greeted by the Toronto Tibetan Community with performances. His Toronto visit at the Rogers...

Citing national paranoia as her foe, Vancouver activist seeks help for Tamil refugees

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews saw “the [Tamil] Sun Sea passengers as terrorists and criminals,” Leslie Hammond, a refugee activist, said, adding that “his eyesight must be remarkable if he could s

Walk Now to raise money for autism research

Autism is the most common neurological disorder. One in 165 children suffer from it and epidemiological studies show a progressive trend of autism in Canada---60 per 10,000 people suffer from it...

Incinerating Metro Vancouver's garbage

The lower mainland is no stranger to incinerators. The Waste-to-Energy Facility has been operational (PDF) in South Burnaby since 1988 and has turned approximately 280,000 tonnes of garbage...

Protestor Adam Quirk to use Vuvuzela's sound pollution on BP hq

If Adam Quirk has his way, protestors in London will soon have a new weapon against the British Petroleum Corporation: the Vuvuzela. The Vuvuzela, in case you haven't been watching the World Cup in...

Che's daughter, Dr. Aleida Guevara, speaks at International Che Guevara Conference at Russian Hall

Dr. Aleida Guevara speaking to an audience at the 3rd Annual Che Guevara Conference said respect and solidarity were the two most important qualities in her life. “It is not about giving what you...

Between the law and the people: BC Compassion Club Society makes a place for medical marijuana

In 2006, 93 percent of Canadians polled nationwide said they approved of medical marijuana. "It's a matter of the law catching up to the society," said Jeet-Kei Leung, Communications...