2. Coyote Pedagogy is a term sometimes used to describe King’s writing strategies (Margery Fee and Jane Flick). Discuss your understanding of the role of Coyote in the novel.

“Because Green Grass Running Water is populated with both subtle allusions and overt references to a multitude of characters from popular culture, it is no surprise that students should, at first glance, attempt to understand this Coyote via the attributes of a cartoon character from their childhood viewing of American television (and there is little doubt in my mind that this first impression is one King would like you to think about).” – Paterson, ENGL 470A

There’s something about Coyote that I’d like to relate to Wile E Coyote in a sense that yes, he is a trickster and King seems to present him as the Native version of a God, and Wile E Coyote creates and builds contraptions to capture and control the Roadrunner, but it all has its consequences and downfalls. He can create earthquakes but it caused the dam to burst, his abilities with singing and dancing destroys the structures he created and brings upon terrible rain and storm upon everyone.  Much like Wile E, who has the power to create and put up the traps, still brings forth destruction (mostly to himself). With that much power, I think King is trying to showcase, comes a great responsibility and production of balance. Coyote’s creations has its negative effects, bringing his actions into a circle from good to bad, beginning to end, positive to negative. It’s a representation of how the Aboriginals value the symbolism of balance through a circle.

“Circles are part of the natural order of creation – from the water cycle to the seasons to the cycle of birth and death – and as such, the circle signifies transformation and movement. Aboriginal peoples in North America use the circle to illustrate their worldviews using models such as the medicine wheel, which illustrates the human journey through life and explains relationships between various aspects of creation, both seen and unseen. The circle is infinite and continuous. It is a way of understanding and explaining interrelatedness and interconnectedness (see Interconnectedness).”

This underlines King’s writing of the Coyote as the Native God. And his role as a trickster is not necessarily either an entirely good thing or bad thing, but a development of balance of his powers and creation. King also highlights the idea of retelling or updating the stories or mythologies in our world. From Christian to Native beliefs, King incorporates these different creation stories and revamps them a little, show how they can fix our world. The dam is a prime example. Coyote creates the earthquake that tears down the dam. He destroys what he creates. That beginning to end that, again, shows the balance. It shows the importance of balance in our lives. King somehow is able to tell us to break the dams in our lives, let that water flow down freely. And if something bad can come out of the good, then some good can come out of the bad. It’s a cycle, the way of life. It all comes to full circle.

The Coyote is King’s allusion to a mixture of both the Christian God that creates and the Native American God that practices though their unique dancing and singing.

Work Cited:

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3.2 Introduction to Green Grass Running Water.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres May 2015. UBC Blogs. Web. 16 July 2015.

“Aboriginal Worldviews.” Dragonfly Consulting Services Canada. 2012. Web. 16 July 2015.

Ziccardi, Andrea. “Wile Coyote e Road Runner – Catapulta.” Online video clip. Youtube. 24 May 2011. Web. 16 July 2015.

UPDATE: I completely did the wrong section at first (due to different editions – I completely ditz out and not even checked if I was doing the right one), so this post will be kind of long because I’ll be posting about the correct section while also leaving the wrong one since someone left a comment about it, so it’ll be included as a reference to that dialogue.)

GGRW start: This according to Hawkeye: …”[273]. End: “This is a lot of fun, Coyote says ….” [278]. – Paterson, ENG 470A

My section covers two parts: One is Hawkeye’s turn about his story of the creation. It involves an Old Woman that is looking around and finding things to eat, and that’s when she finds a big tree with a tender root. She finds it tasty and wants to eat it but the tender root jumps back into the hole and beneath the big tree. The Old Woman then grabbed a digging stick to follow the tender root, but she ended up digging so much that she fell into the hole and into the sky.

The story is a biblical allusion to the story of Eve. King effectively blends the story of Genesis (2:4-3:24) and Native creation stories. King writes the Old Woman as a native version of Eve, who wants to eat the tender root (forbidden apple) who then falls into a hole (like Eve was banished from the garden).

The mix between Christian and Native mythical stories is only underlined when Coyote interrupts Hawkeye’s story,

“Hey, hey,” says Coyote, “I know this story. I can tell this story.”

“Are you sure? I says.

“You bet,” says Coyote. “This is the same story.”

With the way Coyote has been portrayed as a possible allusion to God (his ability to create rain and storms through dancing, start earthquakes, etc) his claim that “this is the same story” highlights the way King mixes the creation story of both Christian and Native stories. There is a self-awareness there, called out by Coyote himself (the Native version of God, much like the Old Woman is the Native version of Eve) that confirms such allusions.

The next section shows everyone singing happy birthday to Lionel while Bill Bursum aggressively tries to replay the death of John Wayne and Richard Widmark in the movie. This is a pop culture allusion that King incorporates to deal with the tension in his book. There has always been the glorification of Western people killing the Native Americans in movies. But in the section, King writes John and Richard being killed off and with the Native Americans as the heroes, reversing the racist and stereotype of contemporary culture.

This connects to the way everyone is singing to Lionel, “There was no place for Lionel to go, and he stood there as the old Indians and Eli…sang four choruses of “happy birthday” (330). Lionel wants himself to be the John Wayne, but is of course a Native and is then trapped in his own culture and away from the Western. But the way this section is showcased, with John Wayne being massacred while Lionel is celebrated, shows how King is able to revise the Western supremacy and crush it, offering the leading role not only to the Natives in the intertextual movie, but to Lionel.

Bill Bursum’s refusal to join in as he “stood there and pushing buttons, cursing, pushing buttons” highlights his stance on his (even subtly) disrespect against the Native Americans. Not only does he not join in in celebrating Lionel’s birthday with everyone, he keeps trying to press at the remote, a probable allusion to his (a white man) need to control the movie or perhaps the situation (the Native Americans), and gets frustrated when he could not. Which of course reflects his name in allusion to the Bursum Bill.

Work Cited:

The Interntional Version. Ed. Susan Jones. New York: Doubleday, 1985. Print.

–

“The Lone Ranger, Hawkeye, and Robinson Crusoe stood outside Bill Bursum’s Home Entertainment Barn and watched Ishmael dance in a tight circle.”

The gathering of all the Old Indians outside Bill Bursum’s is an allusion to the Bursum Bill and the challenges faced by the Native Americans. There’s something about their presence there, all together, as well as the mention of their location that alludes to the belonging of Indian land to the whites – the fact that they’re outside the barn, I think is the main focus and vital mention.

“That looks more Kiowa to me.”

The Kiowa Nation, who practiced their Sun dance for over a hundred years, “was crushed by both military and cultural pressures from the United States in the later part of the nineteenth century.” Their land and lives were taken away. It connects to the allusion to the Bursum Bill and its representation in the section of the book. The four Aboriginal men are gathered together outside a place that embodies the bill that challenged the Native Americans, doing the dance of a nation that was overruled, similarly, by white people.

And of course, Coyote does the dance that produces rain, acting very much like God (much like how he’s been throughout the book – the earthquake, the dam) who can change the weather by his own “Indian” means through his own version of a dance.

This connects to the contrast of the mention of remote controls with Dr. Hovaugh and Babo at the hotel. While Coyote is able to control the weather by himself, the “white” people represented by Dr. Hovaugh rely on remote controls and other manmade devices (credit card, car). This scene and the contrast to the four Indians in the previous chapter represents colonialism and the stark difference of the way of living between the whites and the non-whites (with the luxury of a hotel and cars versus their dances outside the barn respectively). It is the representation of the differences between Western inventions versus the Native American practice.

This difference then is shown to be blended in the next chapter when Lionel decides to attend the University of Toronto, mentioning how he would attend the Sun Dance with his parents while also inviting him to go to the movies with him,

“Maybe you and Mom would like to go to a movie in town.”

“Are you it’s no trouble?”

“No trouble at all. I’m thinking I’ll go to the Sun Dance with you, too.”

The coexistence of tradition with Western practices are modelled positively by Lionel. It’s the effect of colonialism with postcolonialism, where the impact of Western culture delivered on Native Americans are seen, but their own practices have not been diminished and can be incorporated alongside a postcolonial environment. (Perhaps it’s even an allusion to pop culture reference of the Sundance Film Festival).

Reflection:

I think my section, even if it’s relatively short, perfectly encapsulates the allusions King makes to colonialism, its effects and the showcase of differences between Native American culture and Western culture by demonstrating their own practices by their own means. It’s been truly fun to read and analyze, even though I’m not really sure if I may have dove into it far too much or not enough, but I still found King’s historic and cultural allusions in this section really effective.

Work Cited:

A much more complicated cultural tension [more than two languages] arises from the impact of the sophisticated on the primitive, and vice a versa. The most dramatic example, and one I have given elsewhere, is that of Duncan Campbell Scott, working in the department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa. He writes of a starving squaw baiting a fish-hook with her own flesh, and he writes of the music of Dubussy and the poetry of Henry Vaughan. In English literature we have to go back to Anglo-Saxon times to encounter so incongruous a collision of cultures (Bush Garden 221).

It is interesting, and telling of literary criticism at the time, that while Frye lights on this duality in Scott’s work, or tension between “primitive and civilized” representations; however, the fact that Scott wrote poetry romanticizing the “vanishing Indians” and wrote policies aimed at the destruction of Indigenous culture and Indigenous people – as a distinct people, is never brought to light. In 1924, in his role as the most powerful bureaucrat in the department of Indian Affairs, Scott wrote:

The policy of the Dominion has always been to protect Indians, to guard their identity as a race and at the same time to apply methods, which will destroy that identity and lead eventually to their disappearance as a separate division of the population (In Chater, 23). 

For this blog assignment, I would like you to explain why it is that Scott’s highly active role in the purposeful destruction of Indigenous people’s cultures is not relevant for Frye in his observations above? You will find your answers in Frye’s discussion on the problem of ‘historical bias’ (216) and in his theory of the forms of literature as closed systems (234 –5).

–ENG 470A: Canadian Studies

Frye calls out the structure of Canadian literature as a voice of the known, established fact and history, and never from the imaginative sprouted from experience, “the form of [the Canadian writer’s] expression of it can take shape only from what he has read, not from what he has experienced” (234). With this, he further expands on Canadian writers only expressing through their “school books” and write for the sake of the “argumentative of language” (235). From my understanding, Frye views Canadian literature as a report, a newspaper article giving a review on a movie that they had recently watched, even though Canadians have dreamed of writing the best selling novel, “the feeling that somebody some day will write a Canadian fictional classic” (236). But it hasn’t been done. And it is because Canadians write from history books, not from the imaginative thoughts drawn from experience.

Falling under the criteria of what makes up a Canadian writer is Scott’s writing. His work speaks to fight for the Indians from what has been said in text, what is factual and historically relevant for years. But the discussion of the cultural tension as Frye observed, was limited by Scott by only seeing black and white, civilized and barbarians. “Right was white, wrong black and, nothing else counted or existed” (228). So even with Scott’s protection for the Indians, his writing only focused on the black and white, limiting himself to left and right, purely historical facts that did not even try to reach outside of the historical bias and form any creative thought that, as Frye said, would have “positive effects on intellectual life.”

Frye tells us that the mentality of seeing things as just “two solitudes” is problematic, “nothing original can grow” (228). And that’s what makes Scott’s role in the culture of Indigenous culture and its destruction irrelevant to Frye. His entire belief and critic of Canadian literature is the tendency of such writers to box themselves in what is traditionally known through Canada’s history, and that lack of imaginative growth and creative expansion, as well as the inclination of Canadian writers to zoom in on just either left and right, white or black, the loss of colour in writing, is why we have never been able to achieve the Canadian classic literature dream.

Scott follows what Frye criticizes as using words as an “argumentative” form, writing with “more conviction and authority than literature itself” (229). His protection of the Indigenous peoples are used as weapons (229), rightfully so as it is a fight to guard their identity in a colonial country, but if his writing is read through a Frye microscope, it highly negates what literature should be formed of. Scott aimed to fight and argue and protect, when Frye has been a critic of such ways as it strays away from what he values in the structure of actual form of literature.

Work cited:

Frye, Northrop. The Bush Garden; Essays on the Canadian Imagination. 2011 Toronto: Anansi. Print.

“In the early time, long ago, an Indian maiden was taken into the sky. When she came back to the land, the man who took her turned into a grizzly bear. Her three brothers searched for her but found the bear first and killed it without realizing that it was their sister’s husband. They brought the skin to where the river calls back the salmon every year. The Gitxsan people have been in Kispiox ever since.”

3] In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: “Contrapuntal Cartographies” (468 – 470). Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

As I was formulating my response to Sparke’s interpretation of “The Map That Roared”, I found The New York Times article that covered the news about the Supreme Court overruling the Delgamuukw vs. The Queen, which greatly helped me in understanding the articles and history better. From Sparke’s article, he understood the claim by Chief Justice McEachern as a proper retaliation, finally, against the colonials for the right to their land. The map’s coordination and presentation provided enough images to showcase their position on the land, where they hunt, where they fish, and have claimed their rightful place. And after reading TNYT article, it gave me more insight to the background story beneath Sparke’s article. TNYT explained how the Gitxsan fought their case in court using oral histories. It was new for the court to allow such evidences to be used; they even refused to let the Gitxsans to perform and sing their histories at first, but then relented and gave them permission to submit their stories orally as evidence. The court was able to back their claims up by having geologists and biologists “to search for historic concurrence. They drilled deep core samples and found evidence that a monumental mud slide leveled the area about 3,500 years ago, placing the event within the time frame of Gitsxan habitation.” It left me and many others in awe of this discovery, especially to find truth within such unique circumstances, which was what intrigued TNYT to write about in the news.

Relating the court story from TNYT to Sparke’s article, it holds testament to how vital art and oral was and is to the First Nations and their land. Like Neil Sterritt Sr.said at the court proceedings, “What evidence did we have to show them this land was ours? There are the names of the territory, the names of the streams, the names of the mountain peaks. This took thousands and thousands of years. These are our boundaries. You could not fake them.”

The title to their land does not have to be on paper, on legal documents or any hard copies of proof, but the upholding of tradition and oral history that keeps their history alive was what helped them kept their right. The colonial settlers didn’t win with their arguments and Exhibits of refute. The Gitsxans won because of their beliefs, their performances, and their sense of self, tradition, and home. The map represented their place on the land, it printed out their colourful images of representation and position and home, and the oral stories are what keeps their legacies and places alive, give meaning to their existence on the land that they belong in, and allows them to own what is and will always be rightfully theirs.

Work Cited:

DePalma, Anthony. “Canadian Indians Win a Ruling Vindicating Their Oral History.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 8 Feb. 1998. Web. 21 June 2015.

Hurley, Mary C. “Aboriginal Title: The Supreme Court of Canada Decision in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia (BP459e).” Parliament Government Canada. Library of Parliament, 1998. Web. 21 June 2015.

3. We began this unit by discussing assumptions and differences that we carry into our class. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes an assumption about his readers (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). He asks us to begin with the assumption that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties.” He explains that this is so because “one must of necessity enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans.” Here, Lutz is assuming either that his readers belong to the European tradition, or he is assuming that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances – than the other way around. What do you make of this reading? Am I being fair when I point to this assumption? If so, is Lutz being fair when he makes this assumption? – Erika Paterson, ENG 470A.

First contact – Juan Perez and the Haida – 1774

It’s quite interesting how seemingly contradictory I find Lutz’s readings to be. His assumption tells us that we must be of an alien culture, distanced from either Indigenous or European performances to properly understand their meaning, but then spends time in his article to note that similarities in both cultures are what contributes to their peace. He shares stories from both Indigenous and Europeans to demonstrate the similarity in their beliefs: spirituality and religion. And those two common aspects are what established a good middle ground that avoided violence from both sides. The belief in Europeans are “transformers” for example are told in many different stories across the Indigenous culture. Each is told with only a slight difference–the white men descending from the sky or from death with their pale skin, came from the salmon world, or similar other cosmology that resulted in the same conviction: Indigenous people believe in the spiritual world, and those different from them were/are seen as creatures of magic. On the other side, Europeans were heavily influenced on their religious beliefs, believing that God guided their missions across the seas and blessed their voyages (40). This, Lutz claims, “explains why they are peaceful” (41). The conjunctions between both cultures help either group connect and understand their ancestor’s stories. These similarities is what makes people understand, the shared stories and beliefs created connection and better comprehension rather than produce doubt and confusion.

I don’t necessarily think Lutz is making the assumption that it’s harder for Europeans to grasp Indigenous performances, since he shared their equally unique beliefs that somehow mirrors that of an Indigenous culture. Rather than further distinguishing the difference in either cultures, I think Lutz did a fairly good job of finding their commonality and connect the two groups, perhaps erasing some of the alienation attributed to either culture by either party. Though he did make a point to say that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties,” but he then shares the beliefs of Europeans that can be rather unknown to the Indigenous. It’s just a little unfair that we didn’t get how the Indigenous would find the European culture from his article. But I assume he wrote that assumption towards his Western readers who can relate more to the world of Christianity and religious beliefs than that of the existence of a spiritual world. The divide comes between the reader and the telling of Indigenous culture, rather than the European and Indigenous. Though still, It’s not entirely fair for him to assume that Indigenous performances are more difficult to understand, not everyone feels the same way about Christianity or God’s presence in retaliation. But given that if his target audience for his reading are towards the Western culture, it would make better sense to offer this conjecture.

The biggest takeaway from Lutz’s reading is at the very end; that despite these distinctions, alienation or connection in cultures’ stories, the time it takes for any culture to be familiarized in the unfamiliar.

“The place of the European stranger has shifted in indigenous cosmology, but probably not as rapidly as some have suggested. Likewise, the place of indigenous people in European cosmology has shifted, but slowly, unevenly, ad incompletely” (43).

It is in the nature of belief systems, no matter how similar or different, that they change overtime. The strength in this is precisely what is incorporated into the familiar.

Below is a performance of a Potlatch in the villiage of Wuikinuxv, Rivers Inlet BC. An example on one of their performances to spread gifts and wealth among their culture.

“The potlatch is a traditional gathering held by many of the coastal aboriginal groups. The word itself (may be derived from the Nootka word pachitle) is a Chinook Jargon word that means “to give”.”

Works cited:

Lutz, John S. Myth and Memory Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. Vancouver: UBC, 2007. Print.

“Potlatch July 2009 by RdCdrCarver.” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube,  10 Jul. 2009. Web. 6 Jun. 2015.

Myers, Mark. First contact – Juan Perez and the Haida – 1774. N.d. Index of uploads/images/ouevres/20s/Myers. Artetmer.com. Web. 6 Jun. 2015.

“First Nations Potlatch.” Potatch – First Nations in B.C. – BC Archives Time Machine. British Columbia Archives, Royal BC Museum. Web. 6 Jun. 2015.

Home where my thought’s escaping,
Home where my music’s playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

The reason I chose these three blog posts is that their sense of home can relate to mine. Us four have moved from one place to another and had to adjust, find a new sense of home in a new environment. But what I really admired about their outlook of moving and home is that they found a silver lining in the change. My three peers have found something beautiful about their new place and let that define their renewed definition of home. It’s very admirable and inspiring.

“It just goes to show that stories can diverge, parallel, and intersect.” – Evan Franey

“In my twenty years of life, I’ve realized that home is not a house. Home is the people you love, it is the moments you cherish, and it is the places you’ll never forget. Home is a feeling.” – Alishae Abeed

“Places are always connected, because “there” is what creates “here”. “ – Sarah Steer

Evan, Alishae, Sarah, and I have all moved from one country to the next. Much like myself, home is not a specific space, a distinct house or a permanent address. Home is fleeting, it moves when we do, changes when we adapt, grows when we age. It’s pretty much what I expected, seeing as Canada is a very multicultural country and it has welcomed a diversity of immigrants and travelers from across the world. Sarah went through “the process of migration created a feeling of in-betweenness, stuck between “there” and “here”, slowly at first, accepting her surroundings before letting it sink in with the rest of her memories of home. But Evan and Alishae both felt at ease and free the second they arrived at a new space, because they carried with them their sense of home within and that allowed them to feel at home much more easily.

Their stories are the same, their values of coming from different countries are the same, and they all shared my common assumption of migration. But while we all have our similarities, it’s still important to acknowledge the differences. Even when all four of us had to move and find a new home, we’re all moving at a different pace in accepting it. One could be an Evan who adapts quickly, noting the diversity and using that in a positive light to belong with others who are different, much like him. One could be an Alishae, carrying home with her every step, connecting herself with every corner to feel welcomed and at ease. One could be a Sarah, afraid and reluctant at first, needing time to adjust and feel comfortable even if it takes all the time in the world to do so. Or could be like me, still longing for my sense of home that I feel like I’ve lost, but every day is a new day in trying to find and pursue where I really belong.

Work Cited:

Franey, Evan. “Home In Transition. ” Liminal Space Between Story And Literature. UBC Blogs. 05 June 2015. Web. 08 June 2015.

Abeed, Alishae. “Home Is A Feeling.” ENG 470A: Canadian Studies. UBC Blogs. 05 June 2015. Web. 08 June 2015.

Steer, Sarah. “Wherever I go I carry home on my back.” ENG 470A: Canadian Studies. UBC Blogs. 04 June 2015. Web. 08 June 2015.

Rene. Welcome Home Doormat. 2010. Pottery Barn. Mighty Goods.com. Web. 08 June 2015.

You know those scenes during Home Alone when Kevin hated his family but after spending days without them he ended up missing having all of them around? Or in How The Grinch Stole Christmas, he loathed everyone in Whoville, but seeing them all singing around the giant Christmas tree, holding hands despite their stolen presents and broken ornaments, made his heart grow two sizes too big? Or in every Christmas movie really, from Ryan Reynold’s comedy Just Friends to Disney’s heart wrenching tales in Mickey’s Christmas Carol, everyone valued the presence of family, friends, and the warmth from having the people you love surround you during the most wonderful time of the year.

My life every December was just like a delightful Christmas movie. Up until I moved to Canada.

Christmas is and will always be my favourite holiday. If not my favourite everything. If Christmas were a person, we’d be wearing matching BFF necklaces that I handcrafted myself, and I’d always pick Christmas first in gym. And what shaped my relationship with it was the way my entire family – parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, quite literally the entire family tree – celebrated it over the years as I was growing up.

Whenever people here in Vancouver would ask me, how does your family celebrate Christmas?

Well…

Every year on Christmas Eve, my mom, dad and siblings and I would drive all the way to my (now late) grandmother’s house a good two or so hours away from where we lived. But it didn’t matter because it was tradition. So we drove there always excitedly. Every single year everyone would drive there, no matter where my aunts and uncles have ended up living (one lived a good three hours away), and we’d place our presents (one for each kid (the adults ended up doing Secret Santa to save money)) under the giant Christmas tree in the living room. Then we’d all break out into groups; the kids would play, the adults would smoke outside, drink and chat, and some of the moms would help out in the kitchen. Right before midnight we’d all gather around the dining room and help ourselves to Noche Buena with tradition Filipino food plus Filipino specialties reserved only for Christmas time (again this was tradition. Law, almost). After so, we’d all sit around the tree and the kids would grab presents, read the cards attached and hand it to whom it was for. We did this one a time to document each surprised (some glad, some disappointed) face after unwrapping their gifts. Then the adults would take over but us kids would stick around and watch (mostly because it was way too hilarious – the amount of times my dad got socks from his siblings, not the mention the word ‘SALE’ still attached on the price tag). Then we would all break out again and play with our presents, parents laughing at each other when one demanded for their gifts to be exchanged, and some to even have some more food.

The decorations, the music, the laughter and warmth and presence of my family around me that was what shaped my meaning of Christmas. Highlighted with the way Philippines just highly valued the holiday in general. A countdown would start on our local news even before Halloween ended (All of us already brimming with excitement even when the bold numbers still read ‘81 DAYS!’). Lights all over the trees decorating the highways, the malls, houses and even lamp posts. Christmas music (both English and Tagalog versions) on loop on the radio and blasting from people’s houses. Christmas really was the best time of the year for them, for us. For me. Christmas was our favourite break, our favourite chance of reconciling with family, our favourite feeling that even now I can never put into words. Christmas was home. Or at least, it defined home. It represented home.

I wish I could pluck a specific story from fourteen different Christmas Eves I’ve had back home. But they have managed to blend together. I’m no longer sure which present was from when I was eight or which year was when my aunt laughed so hard she fell so far back on her chair, she toppled to the floor as my mom told some ridiculous story about my dad. It was basically the same every year. But it wasn’t the boring kind of same. It was the anticipated kind. Like how you’d get excited when there’d be a Harry Potter marathon on ABC despite having seen each at least eight times. It was the kind of tradition that we celebrated, loved and enjoyed. Each year was different but still the same and all of each I’ve grouped into this one giant story I love to always think about when I miss home, make me smile when I’m sad because I haven’t seen any of them in six or so years.

Since we moved to Canada in 2009, my family of six would celebrate with just each other. Sometimes with friends, but we’d rather keep it in the family (That sense of tradition followed us all the way here). From a group of twenty, only six now gather around the tree, only six presents to pluck instead of a ball pit of them, and only about two dishes sat on the dining table rather than the whole feast we Filipinos loved.

It’s still family. It’s still Christmas but this is where we live, not what we can really call our home. It’s sadly lonely despite our attempts to try something to make it bigger each year (more presents or food or inviting friends). It will never be the same.

There’s just quite no place like home.

(We unfortunately left our photos back in the Philippines, so these ones are from Christmases we celebrated here. I also included a Youtube playlist of Tagalog Christmas songs in case you guys wanna hear them!)

Works cited:

Olivares, Angela. “Christmas in Canada 2012 (1).” 2012. JPEG.

Olivares, Angela. “Christmas in Canada 2012 (2).” 2012. JPEG.

Panales, Rodel. “Part 1: Paskong Pinoy OPM Christmas Song Collections.” Online video clip. Youtube. 6 November 2013. Web. 5 June 2015.

I want to write my take on King’s story with a combination of Isaac Asimov’s short story, The Last Question.

So my version goes like this…

In a given year that’s too hard to place, a computer roams around a dark planet. It slides away from a fellow computer, coloured red and built taller, before passing by another, blue with a wider compact disc set on its side. As it continues to roll down the black patch, millions of memories and programs sliding through its system like the Star Wars opening introduction, it suddenly processes a thought: Will there be a new universe?

Beep.

It hits a small bump. Data calls it a rock.

Beep.

Something sloshes against its body. Data calls it water.

Insufficient data to provide an answer.

Impossible. They are supercomputers, built by so called humans a number of years ago that was so far back, it will even take them about three seconds to—billions. Data says billions of years ago.

Can the possibility of a new creation, a new sun, new universe exist?

Beep.

A purple comrade with HD surfaces rolls past him, carrying what data calls a pot of plant.

Beep.

Insufficient data to provide an answer.

Impossible.

Each supercomputer holds thousands if not millions of a human’s memory before they ceased to exist. They held on to their every information, every trick and treat, from how to plant a seed to who Beyoncé was. It was their plan. They molded Earth. And they wanted it to be carried on by A.I’s to preserve their every thought. And now their transferred minds are being carried by supercomputers attached to bots, rolling down Planet XDERF. The green and blue globe long left behind.

With all these information, the supercomputers regenerated each planet they inhibited. From one to the next, transported in capsules to travel through galaxies, they all remade a black matter, a blank canvas into what humans had back in Earth. This one is new, they’re just starting from the basics.

Water. Life. Air. And no sooner, they have managed to complete the itinerary in record time, way better than they did at Planet E4RT6. Trees. Dams. Herds. Mountains. They molded it themselves, robotic arms reaching out, doing whatever their data processed for them.

Dig a sea there. Mold a hill here. Resculpture these golden triangles that data calls Pyramids. Condense for a sky. Spark a fire. Turn energy into reusable light, electricity, and so on.

From Planet XDERF to Planet YY678, supercomputers suddenly came to live with these so called animals. Beavers that would build dams for them. Fish that would inhibit the ponds and rivers that the pink bot accomplished to create. Bears that would always roar at any of them just because they can.

But with every progress came setbacks that not even supercomputers could control. Animals would run too wild, fires getting caught in the forests they planted side by side, storms that no amount of data forewarning or information on how to survive hurricanes 101 could stop.

Hurricane Katrina data processing…

9/11 response plan processing…

Tsunami survival facts processing….

Beep.

Beep.

Data calls it destruction. Data calls it evil.

New planet. New start.

And then there are data that was terrible to begin with. Some bots processed information about wars and burned what they created. Some bots found files about hunting and killed helpless animals. Some bots accumulated human thoughts on hatred, destroy destroy destroy.

Beep.

Beep.

Data calls it destruction. Data calls it evil.

Reprogram. Reboot.

New planet. New start.

Supercomputers processed, discovered life, created an environment and molded a planet. It was a system. Like breathing in and breathing out. Data calls the process a basic human experience.

Beep.

Beep.

But even after hundreds of planets they’ve inhibited, even longer time has passed, billions after billions, supercomputers processing data after data, rediscovering and reinstalling new information as they go along (they can do that, humans built in a program where they could, as they call it, adapt), that question still remains unanswered.

New creation? New universe?

Beep.

Beep.

Insufficient data to provide an answer.

Impossible.

But as every galaxy progressed, every supercomputer took in the changes. Energy and matter getting weak, some planets too dangerous or bleak to inhabit. The universe is shifting. Time is passing. Bots ceasing to work, but supercomputers still computing for data.

And as it goes on, that question still up in the air, it’s starting to show how the expanding of this universe is slowly dying. Everything was getting darker and darker.

Hyperspace.

Beep.

Beep.

Matter and energy dying.

Beep.

Beep.

Space and time ceasing to exist.

Data calls it the end. Insufficient data to provide an answer. Beep. Beep. Information. Facts. Knowledge. Beep. Beep. Data.

Gone.

Black.

Beep.

Beep.

Sufficient data. Providing an answer.

Beep.

Beep.

And then supercomputer boomed, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

New sun. New universe. New creation. New light.

Beep.

Beep.

Data calls it the beginning. Terrifying experience. A matter of light and dark. Existence or death. Creation or destruction. Beginning or end.

Beep.

Beep.

Data computes and reveals that it is vital to be careful about the stories told the stories listened to—because once a story is told it can never be taken back.

–

It was really fun trying to write this. After I read Asimov’s short story, I was pretty shaken up thinking oh man, is this real? Is it possible? Could we be living from a second, third, fiftieth universe? Did one exist before us? Is it all the same? It begins then it ends. We live and then we die and then the universe goes dark and then comes to life again. Good, evil and every other dichotomy in between. It’s interesting, but moreso terrifying. At least for me. And my sisters. They stared at me in awe after I shared them my story, tying in with King’s and Asimov’s own stories. I also got a similar reaction when I sent it to my friend online. She read it and told me it knocked her mind a little. So telling it both orally and written gave the same mind opening shock value. Something to really consider.

Work Cited:

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2003. Print.

“Supercomputer ‘Bhaskara’ to Give Boost to India’s Weather Forecasting.” NDTV Gadgets. Press Trust of India, 29 May 2015. Web. 29 May 2015.

Asimov, Isaac. “The Last Question.” The Last Question by Isaac Asimov. 1996. Web. 29 May 2015.

Rath, John. Supercomputer moon. 28 September 2012. Data Center Knowledge. Web. 29 May 2015.

1. Explain why the notion that cultures can be distinguished as either “oral culture” or “written culture” (19) is a mistaken understanding as to how culture works, according to Chamberlin and your reading of Courtney MacNeil’s article “Orality.

As Chamberlin effectively explains, society has dismissed the two cultures as either barbaric or civilized depending on whether they practice either the oral or written (respectively) word.  Communities that rest on oral culture are cooed almost patronizingly for their “naturalness or naïveté,” (Chamberlin, 19). It has come as an insult as they sum up “oraliture,” the oral equivalent of literature, as simple and natural in regards to the basic skills of speaking and listening. While the written culture is praised for the intelligence and sophistication they bring forth (by exploring more thought and experiences), deeming the ability to write a more superior talent than of spoken words.

MacNeil expands this argument more elaborately in her article, focusing on the problematic aspects of Western societies’ view of oraliture. She counters by emphasizing the different cultural practices surrounding the world. Global is nothing if not the differences of the people it shelters, representing diverse kinds of societies that are neither better or lesser than others, but simply different. She also explores the consideration regarding the fact of some cultures’ inability to write themselves, not because they are uneducated and second to the Western’s capabilities, but because these cultures express themselves through art or oral like some would through writing. An example is the Haitian culture observed by Edouard Glissant. In his article he discusses the painted symbols done by the Haitians, marking their “memor[ies] significant through symbols: the essentials of a kind of historiography of the community.” In another argument is Glissant’s observation of the Haitian’s exemplary talent through their painting, “This ability to create fantasy from a difficult, even wretched, reality is the principle that J.S. Alexis had called the marvelous realism of the Haitian people.” This emphasizes that it is simply not a matter of who could write and who could not, but the importance of understanding different forms of expression.

MacNeil ends her article by pointing out how diverse the functions of communication have become, especially in the contemporary world. While storytelling began with oral and is now more popular through writing, there’s a line in between that interconnects the two forms together. In an article by Petrilli and Ponzio, they explain how global communication is now serving different kinds of purposes due to the emergence of media and new forms of technology (ie internet and cinema). They also highlight that storytelling is no longer just about one person speaking and the other listening, but the power it holds,

“This aspect distinguishes what we intend by storytelling from the type of narrativity that serves power: the power of control and punishment (the story told to the judge or police commissariat), the power of information (journalistic chronicles), the power of healing (the case history, the story that interests the psychoanalyst), the power of redeeming and saving (the story told at confession), the power of registering and of establishing the Sense of History (reconstruction of the facts by the historian, etc.).”

MacNeil addresses this similar claim by Donald Wesling and Teudeuz Slawek, “orality is not what is spoken, but what allows one to speak.”

Culture works differently through different practices and beliefs, especially on how they are expressed. Separating them in matters of what we can and cannot is not how we will be able to understand the difference. It comes down to diversity, and what we are willing to adapt to. A given society is not barbaric simply because we cannot understand their way of communication. And we are no more civilized than those who cannot practice the culture of writing. It does not make one smarter or the other stupider, it just makes us different.

Work Cited:

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Reimagining Home and Sacred Space. Toronto, Canada: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.

MacNeil, Courtney. “The Chicago School of Media Theory Theorizing Media.” The Chicago School of Media Theory RSS. The University of Chicago. Web. 25 May 2015.

Glissant, Edouard. “Glissant on Art.” Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays. University Press of Virginia, 1989. Web. 25 May 2015.

Petrilli, Susan, and Augusto Ponzio. “Storytelling and the Great Narration of Global Communication.” Annali Della Facoltà Di Lingue E Letterature Straniere. Schena Editore, 2000. Web. 25 May 2015.

Hey, everyone! My name is Angela Olivares and I am a third year English Literature Major at UBC. I’m really big on writing and reading, especially on both the classics, recently finished reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and contemporary Young Adult novels, currently loving John Green’s Paper Towns. So my taste in books and interests definitely varies, but I’ll admit I’ve been very weak regarding topics of Canadian Literature, or anything Canadian studies in general. I was born in the Philippines and migrated in Vancouver about six years ago with my family. So I wasn’t raised in the culture and history of beautiful Canada, unfortunately. And it seemed that no amount of Socials Studies classes in high school or even Canadian Political Science courses have made me knowledgeable enough on Canadian studies.

But Dr. Erika Paterson’s ENG 470 Class on Canadian Studies and Literature Genres promises a look into the works of First Nations in the land of Canada. With insights of Indigenous Peoples and their colonial relationships with European settlers, tying in their relationship to give us a better understanding of the history that made Canada’s culture today. It gives importance to the stories about and told to by the Indigenous settlers in Canada, including those who were silenced, allowing us to learn and understand their background, journeys, and the literature they have shared, as well as the literature about them to fully educate us on their culture.

From my very limited understanding of Canadian history, the Indigenous settlers are the very backbone of Canadian history and they make up the foundation of our home and native land today. With this course, I’m hoping to fully learn more about Canadian histories regarding the early settlers; their journeys, struggles with oppression, and the distance that has come about between them and Canada itself, that wishfully would find true peace soon.

First Nations chiefs, 1867. (Click to enlarge)
Photo: Archives Canada (F. Dally)

I’ll admit how scared and intimidated I am by this class. Mostly because, again, I know little to nothing about Canada and its history or its people. (Also because I have never taken an online course before, so this is all very new to me).  But I am very excited to learn about them, especially with a more authentic form of educating myself, with articles written scholarly about and by Aboriginals themselves. I’m thrilled to immerse myself in a whole different literary genre than I’m used to, to challenge myself more and expand my horizons and knowledge on all sorts of literature.

It’s been easy for me to define Canada’s culture as beautiful and unique, but in reality when asked, I’ll have very little to offer on what I really do know about it. I want to see and understand Canadian background as richly as possible, to truly grasp what the stories of First Nations are made up of.

Work Cited:

Paterson, Erika. ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres — May 2015. The University of British Columbia Department of English, 8 Jan. 2015. Web. 11 May 2015.

Mackarel, Kim. “Close the Gap between Canada and Its Aboriginal People: AFN Chief.” The Globe and Mail. Web. 14 May 2015.

“Indigenous Foundations.” University of British Columbia. Web. 15 May 2015.

Dally, F.. First Nations Chiefs. 1867. Archives Canada. Indian Land. Web. 14 May 2015.