Thank you to all those who shared your stories with me: Katrina Lu, Sean Dyer, J.T Bae, Maxwell McEachern, Suzanne Rae Cobb, and Dana Tru
Shared Thoughts
Home is a dream
Katrina’s short story about a group of friends searching for the sea was a beautiful read. Her writing allowed me to feel the characters’ strong desire to see the clear blue ocean, all the while experiencing the bliss of having a shared a dream with the people around you. The characters have all encountered many difficulties, but what gave them the strength to push on was this brilliant, vivid image of the ocean they dreamed of. Home, in the same way, is an image that promises comfort, safety, and happiness. For some of us, it may be something we have already grasped. For others, it remains a dream that we chase after through self-reflections, through confusion, and through conflicting emotions. However, no matter how many complexities we may associate with our definition of home and where our home is, the dreamlike image of it hangs in the back of our minds somewhere—a place of rest we are constantly striving for.
Home is a word that carries immense weight
Reading Tony’s and Suzanne’s stories made me realize that I was not the only one who struggled with this assignment. They had the courage to share their very personal stories, and I am very grateful to have had the privilege of being an audience. Home is a word that has a positive connotation, and is often associated with delightful emotions. This is also the way I approached my sense of home while doing assignment 2:2. I searched for those feelings of joy and happiness, and was very bothered when I didn’t find much. I didn’t realize that it was okay if the word home reminded us of things that may not always be positive. It may bring us bittersweet thoughts, worries, or complex emotions. But whether positive or negative, home is a word that is laden with memories, and we carry it with us wherever we go. It is the part of us that we are unable to detach from, and the weight of it acts as a reminder of who we are.
We experience home with all of our senses
Dana’s and Sean’s blogs both contained wonderful, sensory images of their homes. Dana described the smell of her Grandmother’s bread, crayons, and the sound of rusted, squeaky swings. One of Sean’s descriptions of his home is “a perfect bite of a peach”, and how the peach juices should run down your chin, or it will be considered to be a bad peach. For someone who has never been to Penticton, even I can have a clear image of how delicious those peaches might be, and I was struck with craving for some good-quality fruit. Reading their blogs, I realized that the things I miss about China, my first hometown, are all in my senses. I miss the grey mornings and dusty streets when my mom would send me to school on her bike. I miss the sound of loud traffic and the ringing of bike bells as everyone tries to rush to work or school. I miss the smell of greasy street food coming from tiny, unsanitary vendor carts that my mom would never let me eat. All these descriptions may not give the most pleasant image, but these are the feelings I long for the most when I think of home.
A difference in perspective
As for different perspectives, this passage from Maxwell’s blog intrigued me:
For me, being from a town called Wahnapitae made me special and different. I moved to Peterborough and needed an identity I told teenage self. Wahnapitae is a small town, “deep” in northern Ontario. This meant that I was a small-town kid with a heart for the outdoors. I had to like country music, drive a four-wheeler and wear cowboy boots and jeans. The small town also meant that I was grittier hockey player. I grew up in old hockey arenas and coaches wanted me to hit and force my body along the boards.
That is what home meant to me.
It’s a common notion that the home environment shapes the way we are, but in Maxwell’s case, he describes his identity as something that is consciously constructed because of his environment. It may have been a misreading on my part, and perhaps it was not what he meant, but I thought it was interesting because I have never been able to do that. Even though I had wanted to, I was never able to construct my identity to fit into the context of my home. Back in Tianjin, China, I was not the “good daughter” or “smart student” I should have been and here, in Canada, I had a lot of trouble fitting in with my other Asian-Canadian classmates. Therefore, I feel quite fascinated by this blog and the way home and identity is presented in it.
Commentary
A song blew up last year in the Chinese community. It was a collaboration between a well-known American-born Chinese singer and Malaysian hip-hop artist. The song, titled “The Stranger in the North,” is set in the context of a time when groups of Chinese would leave their homes and move up North to search for jobs in order to provide for their families. After revisiting it, I feel like the song embodies my three thoughts after reading my peers’ blogs: home is a dream that we chase, home carries the weight of our memories, and home is an experience that engages all our senses. The lyrics spoke of the misery and struggle in the North, the worries and hopes for those at home, and the lonesome dream of being able to return home one day. The music video shows various clips of a place I miss very much, and watching them, I feel like I could smell and taste the images.
Here is the song, and there are English subtitles already provided in the music video.
Lastly, I would like to end some questions. When I said home is a word that carries immense weight, I also meant weight as in the obligatory feeling that home should evoke a positive emotion. What if it doesn’t? What if home reminds us of negative memories, and are we responsible to search for a new home that no longer gives us the “right” emotions? If the word home is not associated with feelings of comfort, safety, and rest, then does it lose its meaning?
Works Cited
Bae, J.T. “Home.” UBC Blogs. 30 January 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/golgiapp/2019/01/30/home/?fbclid=IwAR0KpbBcdYeOE_T5y3uzsMezdWut1OLzCgUaq4gkw3mVYxtYh_A2E351TXU
Dyer, Sean. “Penticton: Peaches, Beaches, and the Sylix Nation.” Sean Dyer’s Canadian Literature Blog English 470. UBC blogs, 28 January 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/seanlitblog/2019/01/28/penticton-peaches-beaches-and-the-syilx-nation/?fbclid=IwAR0DUFMpEmgPX97xukol1cvtKzUeWrMTQmQKsFsd7uZt8twixVVq5d_wFoA
Lu, Katrina. “Assignment 2:2-The Terrifying but Beautiful Sea.” UBC Blogs. 29 January 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/katrinalu470/2019/01/29/assignment-22-the-terrifying-but-beautiful-sea/?fbclid=IwAR1c38KwH8OmJ44Aywest3tg7Pq7vIYucxmfUPgBomdQLOYoBsjGP1Qv5fY
McEachern, Maxwell. “Grocery List of Home.” Maxwell McEachern’s ENGL 470 Canadian Literature Blog. UBC Blogs, 29 January 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/mjmengl470/2019/01/29/43/?fbclid=IwAR1kIISH-usc8MWHDIz5e4DGthVoR-20hiZz3pPTL9Ysr5CgC-kvZKk09kk
Namewee. “Stranger in the North.” Youtube.com. Youtube, 4 March 2017. Web. 3 February 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIF8xvSA0Gw
- Cobb, Suzanne. “Rooms and Buildings and Squares of Land.” Reading, Writing, Listening-Canadian Literature. UBC Blogs, 29 January 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/suzannecanlit/2019/01/29/rooms-and-buildings-and-squares-of-land/?fbclid=IwAR27311A-Xt2pk5l5cn8GQKmsPkVmAucVo8xUpRTQeS5bjdO38zY9az2fNg
Tru, Dana. “Assignment 2:2-My Home Story.” Dana’s CanLit Blog. UBC Blogs, 28 January 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/canlit470dana/2019/01/28/assignment-22-my-home-story/