Archives: February 2016

Contact: Land and Stories, The One “True” Version

Unit 2.2, Assignment 2.4 – Origin stories

Q1) …Why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What is he trying to show us?

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In The Truth About Stories, King tells of the two creation stories of the pregnant Charm falling through the sky, and of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis. He distinguishes the two stories by describing how he tells them differently and pitches the two against each other as representations of two separate ideologies of religion or thought processes inherent in the natives versus the Europeans. I think King presents this dichotomy in an effort to have his readers consider the ideas beyond––a way of saying that the dichotomies exist, I have shown them to you, now what is underneath that?

King talks about the authoritative voice he uses in his retelling of the Genesis creation myth, and how that is the basis of the European thinking related to hierarchies and power dynamics evident in the culture associated with royals and nobles versus peasants and slaves. On the topic of authority, there has been psychological studies which have identified individuals feeling powerful when in an authoritative position. Studies such as Milgram’s Shock Study and Zimbardo’s Standford Prison Study presents authority as being an idea which could cause people to act wildly out of the norm. In Patros et. al’s report of the “Underlying Effects of Authority: Past to Present”, they state that “[a]n unequal balance of power in a group setting can lead otherwise normal human beings to behaving tyrannically”. If, in such extreme cases, authority has been proven to have such adverse effects on people, then the effect of the “authoritative voice” used by King to tell the story of Adam and Eve is one which establishes power and dominance over the more peaceful and balanced Charm creation story. As Lutz writes in “Myth Understandings: First Contact, Over and Over Again”, “stories function to redress power relations between the native and newcomer” (13), and this is made apparent in King’s address of the difference in style of the telling of the creation stories.

The dichotomy between the two is not so much as a dichotomy but rather, perhaps, a pyramid, because there always needs to be one “true” story, and the one with the most authority, the one which seems to hold more power and command sits at the pinnacle whilst the plethora of other tales are spread underneath and creates a base of which the authoritative story has power over. In short, because of the nature in which the Adam and Eve story is told, it is unconsciously being labeled as a “true” story for containing authority.

King uses this distinction to highlight the inherent differences in the stories and therefore the opposing ideologies of a power driven culture versus a balance driven culture. Through the dichotomies he presents to readers, he is able to also emphasize the parts which do not fit so tidily into the row of dichotomies, of the influences and interplay of histories and stories of natives and Europeans outside of the obvious contrasts. By doing so, King paints the larger picture of the dynamics of the relationships between the two different peoples and the complexity of maintaining and managing such relations when the other is presented as otherworldly.

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Works Cited

Cherry, Kendra. “The Milgram Obedience Experiment.” About Psychology. about.com, 16 Dec. 2015. Web.

     19 Feb. 2016. <http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm>.

Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indignenous- European

      Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 1-15. PDF.

Patros, Jennifer, et al. “Underlying Effects of Authority: Past to Present.” URC. Undergraduate

     Research Community, 5 Nov. 2006. Web. 19 Feb. 2016. <https://www.kon.org/urc/v6/

     patros.html>.

“The Stanford Prison Experiment.” The BBC Prison Study. N.p., 2008. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.

     <http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org/bbc-prison-study.php?p=17>.

Revelations of Home

Assignment 2.3 –– Read at least 3 students blog short stories about ‘home’ and make a list of the common shared assumptions, values and stories that you find.

After reading the posts of my fellow students, I realized the ones I read focused on the idea of home as constantly moving, or rather, uncertain. Because I am an international student, that idea resonates with me, as there is always a discrepancy between the “home” in Hong Kong and the “home” in Vancouver. There is the struggle where family or friends try to assert that one place is your home, but you’re not sure yourself, because you belong to both places yet neither of them at the same time. There is also the knowledge of a distant home, but not being able to identify with it or being unable to feel comfortable because there isn’t the same sense of security as opposed to the one you grew up in, even if that “home” is supposed to be the home.

My Sense of Home

Unit 2.1, Assignment 2.2 –– Home and what it means to me.

February 8th is the first day of the Chinese New Year of 2016 , and this is the time of year where my homesickness is at its worst. I’m not talking about just missing home, but aching for home, for Hong Kong, or as some of my friends have called it “Home Kong”. I remember my first year away from home I was experiencing that longing so badly that as soon as I heard gongs and drums from outside I immediately ran to my window to try and hear it better. Chinese New Year for me is like Christmas for some people; I get good food, see relatives I only see once a year, get caught up in the festive atmosphere, and most importantly, I get lai see (red pockets). But now, being away from all that, I’ve realized it’s more than just what we do, but it’s more the tradition of it––everything from preparing the house and the food, the fortune box, the red banners with golden imprinted letters of some auspicious phrase… The feeling surrounding Chinese New Year, the sense that “home” is more than place, that it includes traditions and culture, but also the people that celebrate and help create the festive, joyful atmosphere where I can fully immerse myself in.

Hong Kong New Years Fireworks Celebration

Hong Kong New Years Fireworks Celebration

Then these same people go on and cause something like the #fishballrevolution. The immediate reaction and the initial thought is: “This isn’t home. How can this be Hong Kong?”

Many of my friends have been posting on social media sites about this riot over fishballs and commenting that this is not the Hong Kong they know, nor is it the place they grew up in. But it is one and the same, just that circumstances have changed. When people talk about Hong Kong, we talk about the people of Hong Kong like they are an entity separated from the mainland China. Talk to any Hong Konger and they will tell you vehemently that we are not a part of China. We are, but we aren’t. We are more polite, more proper, more “civilized”, more free. The discrepancy between the peaceful civilized identity we built and the violence during the fishball riot is hard to reconcile, and so our response is that of denial. How can this be Hong Kong when we have always boasted of our civility to only act like barbarians over fishballs? Granted, this is a result of the #umbrellamovementHK and its unresolved tensions between the government and the people, but still.

I made a post titled identity crises back in 2014 for another class, talking about the colonization of the city I grew up in and how that has affected the people and their perceptions of their home. Hong Kong is an international city and the most visited city in the world, but underneath all the glamour and bright flashing neon signs is the identity that is shifting constantly, balancing between becoming the international city from Chinese backgrounds. That is who I am too. An international student from an international school, not quite local enough to be truly a Hong Konger, but not really Canadian enough to be Canadian either. So what is my sense of home? I’m not really sure anymore, but I feel it’s beginning to shift too.

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Works Cited

Chor, Laurel. “Graphics showing why ‘Hong Kong is not China’ go viral.” Coconuts Hong Kong. N.p., 2 July 2015. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.
<http://hongkong.coconuts.co/2015/07/02/graphics-showing-why-hong-kong-not-china-shared-widely>.

Iyengar, Rishi. “6 Questions You Might Have About Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution.” Time. N.p., 5 Oct. 2014. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.
<http://time.com/3471366/hong-kong-umbrella-revolution-occupy-central-democracy-explainer-6-questions/>.

Kwong, Vincent. 元旦日旺角舞獅2015. Youtube. N.p., 1 Jan. 2015. Web. 9 Feb. 2016.<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obEB6gT9YbA>.

Moss, Stephen. “Is Hong Kong Really Rioting Over Fishball Stands?” the Guardian. N.p., 9 Feb. 2016. Web. 9 Feb. 2016. <http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2016/feb/09/hong-kong-fish-ball-revolution-china-riot>.

How Evil Came to the Little Boy’s World

Lesson 1.3, Assignment 1.5 –– This week is story time! I have a great story to tell you. It begins like this:

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived a little boy. Now, this little boy was very naughty and he loved pranks, because he loved to have fun. To other people though, they saw him as nothing but trouble.
He would leave the shepherd’s gate open and let the sheep run loose, watching as they ran all over the place. He would let the pigs run through the streets with paint buckets tied to their necks so it dyed the town in all colours of the rainbow. He would take the baker’s bread and put it in the most innocent people’s baskets just to cause a scene. This little boy was not bad by nature, but he just loved to have fun, though he would always come home with some prank played on him. Not that he minded though, as long as people were having fun, right?

He wasn’t really afraid of getting scolded either, because the villagers would never get seriously mad, and surely they know he means no harm. It’s for the fun of it, you know? And so the boy kept doing what he was doing, each prank more elaborate and diabolical than the last.

But one day, after the boy played a particularly bad prank that resulted in some people getting hurt, the villagers have had enough. They refuse to keep up with his antics any longer, and anything they did to give him a taste of his own medicine was met with either laughter, a smile, or went completely unnoticed. So the villagers consulted the wise woman of the town, because she was the eldest, the wisest, and the mother of many. The wise woman listened to the villager’s complaints, nodding at appropriate times and waited for them to finish. When they have said their piece, the old woman thought and thought, and decided the best way to deal with the little prankster boy was to tell him a story.

“A story? What good would that do?” criticized a villager.

“Stories are wondrous things,” replied the wise woman, “And they are dangerous.”

So the old woman invited the little boy to her cottage one evening, after he had successfully pulled another couple pranks during the day, and gave him some dinner and a little dessert as well. Then, she started telling her story about a little boy in a land far far away, once upon a time, that loved to play pranks on people. The story included some details of pranks, some antics and some fun, but those things did not last. The story was overrode with misfortune and misery, accidents and injury, pain and trouble, and suffering and sadness shadowing any fun the pranks could ever provide. The little boy put his hands to his ears and shook his head, refusing to listen to the story, but the old woman continued anyway. Her voice reached the little boy through his closed ears, and when she was done, the little boy, crying, said “Okay, I understand. But what you said was not very fun. Take it back. Call the story back!”

But, of course, it was too late. For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world. And the little boy dared play a prank again.

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When I began the story, I feel like I assumed a persona, or a type of storyteller-vibe. I could tell I was speaking softer and with more clarity than I would normally in everyday conversation. I was also speaking slowly and more articulate than usual. The story isn’t very flushed out, and I’m not sure if I represented it in the right way, but the “evil” was the little boy’s realization of his actions through listening to the old woman’s stories. Though the one written by King is about how evil came to the world as a whole, I think everyone also realizes and recognizes a sense of “evil” themselves. In their own world, when evil came, whether through criticism or self reflection; the evil that is entirely their own.