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Dance sensation
Rising star
Arthur Gulkarov is able to move his body like few others, performing as the sole male dancer in Bombay Bellywood.
Richmond’s 12-year-old Nam Nguyen looks ahead after winning the national junior championship, the youngest skater to ever claim the title.
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Robbed blind Pretending to be electrician, man steals from Richmondite BY ALAN CAMPBELL
acampbell@richmond-news.com
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CHUNG CHOW/RICHMOND NEWS
Johnny Tai, who has been blind since he was three-years-old, was robbed by someone claiming to be a repairman.
“I want to let people like this know that they can’t get away with it and I won’t take this lying down,” he said. “But it’s a very jumbled feeling when someone screws you over and you can’t even tell the police what they look like. That plays hell with your self-esteem. “I feel very angry, because I’ve managed to defend myself all my life. This time I didn’t even get a chance to do that.” Tai said he has his suspicions of who it might have been and has passed that information to the police. Cpl. Sherrdean Turley, of Richmond RCMP, confirmed the incident was reported on Saturday night and that they’re still investigating it.
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Jasmine, a dancer with the Richmond Youth Dance Company, rehearses ahead of the final show to be held Jan. 28-29 at the Richmond Cultural Centre. She will join 20 other dancers ranging in ages from nine to 17 in their first public performance called First Wings. For more photos look online at www.richmond-news.com.
He’s been blind since he was three and has repelled more would-be robbers in his 29-year-old life than he cares to remember. But Johnny Tai didn’t expect a crook to stoop to a new low by tricking his way into his rented basement suite and stealing a precious martial arts knife collection from right under his nose. The thief rang Tai’s doorbell around 8 p.m. Saturday night, purporting to be helping the new tenant upstairs and an electrician with a hydro problem. He told Tai — who was aware a new tenant had moved in upstairs — he needed to inspect his suite for any electrical problems. The stranger’s story made sense and, while he moved around Tai’s home, he asked all the right questions and appeared to know a lot about Tai himself. “The person that came to the door addressed me by name, knew all the right things to say and knew there was a new tenant upstairs,” he said. “They had a lot of information. All the while, I could hear him on the phone to someone and he was using a strange accent. It wasn’t Mandarin or Cantonese though.” After about 20 minutes, the man told Tai he couldn’t find anything wrong and left. And it wasn’t until later the same evening that Tai began to suspect something was amiss. “I phoned my landlord and asked him about the utility bill and he said he hadn’t even received it yet,” Tai told the News on Monday from his Seacliff Road home in Richmond’s Shellmont neighbourhood. “I quickly went through the place and realized that four or five of my knives had been taken. “It makes me wonder if I should answer the door at all and whether I should be friends with my neighbours.” Tai said that he’s now dealing with a range of emotions, from disbelief to anger.