Author Archives: Cherie

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.

Chamberlin: “Different Ways” Leading To The Idea Of Complete Denial of Others

Assignment 1.3–– This weeks question:

Figuring out this place called home is a problem (87).  Why? Why is it so problematic to figure out this place we call home: Canada? Consider this question in context with Chamberlin’s discussion on imagination and reality; belief and truth (use the index).Chamberlin says, “the sad fact is, the history of settlement around the world is the history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages” (78).  Chamberlin goes on to “put this differently” (Para. 3). Explain that “different way” of looking at this, and discuss what you think of the differences and possible consequences of these “two ways” of understanding the history of settlement in Canada.

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Chamberlin discusses many different perspectives of looking at the history of settlement in Canada. The “different way” of looking at how displacing people from their lands, “of discounting their livelihoods and destroying languages” is that they are also “dismissing a different belief or different behaviour as unbelief or misbehaviour, and of discrediting those who believe or behave differently as infidels or savages” (78). This reminds me of the sociological concept of the “other” and of the fear or apprehension associated with the unknown, the unfamiliar, the strange. By taking away or dismissing the Aboriginals’ belief and behaviour, the settlers have effectively eradicated their identity (because that is what defines people, of who they are: their behaviour, their beliefs), writing off complex history and culture by slapping “laws” and “treaties” across their faces.

The two ways of understanding the history of settlement in Canada, then, following Chamberlin’s description, has more to do with the complete disconnection of every aspect between people and place. The eviction of Aboriginals from their homes not only took their land, or as W. E. H. Stanner puts it, their “hearth, home, the source and locus of life, and everlastingness of spirit”, but also their identity and their very existence as a society and community. Not only does it remove them from their land, but it also labels them as being “wrong” or “unnatural” because of their different beliefs and behaviours. This kind of unsettlement of the Aboriginals truly marks them as “homeless”, as they are forcibly removed physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally from their homes. They are, in a manner of speaking both literally and figuratively, denied the essence of their being. And yet, the idea of home still has lingering remains in their language, their stories, and their songs.

Chamberlin says on page 81 that “[a]boriginal people around the world… have turned back to their own languages and literatures to find ways of recovering the idea of home, and to tell their tales”, that “they feel like strangers in the languages they now speak, in the livelihoods they have been forced to take up, in the literatures they are given to read”. Here is an example of the idea of home: it holds no physical place, no belonging but only that through language and histories of ancestors and past generations. While taking a music class in high school, we studied Inuit throat singing as part of our curriculum, and the idea of the Aboriginals returning to their languages and traditions reminded me of the revival and raising awareness of this type of entertainment between women when men are out hunting. Throat singing is a part of the Inuit identity, and the interest of a younger generation in the art is a step towards them rediscovering the “differences” in behaviours and beliefs which were denied by others centuries ago, knowing that that difference is what makes them feel at home.

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Works Cited

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2003. Print. 22 Jan. 2016.

Griffith, Sian. “Keeping Inuit Throat Singing Alive in Canada | All Media Content | DW.COM | 18.03.2015.” DW.COM. 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.
Zuleyka, Zevallos. “What Is Otherness?” The Other Sociologist. 14 Oct. 2011. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.

Hello! (:

Hi, everyone! Welcome to my Canadian Literature page! This is the second time I have used a blog for a class so for convenience sakes I just decided to categorize my posts so I don’t have to make a completely new one and fumble through again. Feel free to browse around!

My name is Cherie, and I am a third-year English Lit. major and Management student here at UBC. Many people have asked me why I’m pursuing a major in English and they always ask “what are you going to do with that? Are you going to be a teacher?” to which the answer is a resounding “no” because I, sadly, just do not have enough patience. In response to those inquiries, I’ve decided to do something about it by enrolling in the dual degree program offered here in order to quell the “what are you going to do with your life” questions, because I honestly don’t know and giving the “I’m in management” answer somehow seems to satisfy them better than “I’m in English Lit.”.

Moving on! I’m an international student from Hong Kong, and I have lived there all my life so the big move to Vancouver was an entirely new experience for me. Most of the time I’m just struggling with how cold it is here (it was 24˚C in HK when I went back this Christmas break. Yay… Global warming..!)

Being from a small city, my holidays generally consisted of traveling and exploring the South East Asia area with family and friends. Needless to say, I really like to travel, and have even visited Tokyo to see a friend there on exchange this past Christmas break.

Tokyo from Roppongi Hills, looking at Tokyo Tower

Tokyo from Roppongi Hills, looking at Tokyo Tower 

It was really fun because I got to do things I wouldn’t normally do with my parents–– really getting into the local and small, out of the way shops to try their food or look at their crafts. I would say my dream is to travel the world, but who doesn’t dream of that? (:

My interest in this course mainly comes from the fact that I am a Canadian (I was born in Toronto then moved back to Hong Kong when I was 3 months old) and that I attended a Canadian International School growing up. Though I have some Canadian knowledge, it’s not all too in depth and there are still some large gaps left to fill, and I hope by participating in this course and by reading the literature of Canadians, my understanding of what being “Canadian” means will deepen and broaden.

I look forward to getting to know you all!!

Cherie.

girls girls boys

I remember in psychology class back in high school, we learnt about the education of children and the way advertisements and commercials affect children and their perception of who they are and what is acceptable in society.

Why is this relevant? Wollstonecraft talks about the education system, or lack thereof, for women during the time which she wrote The Vindications. She talked about how women were constructed by men, in that their education stemmed from the desires of men essentially wanting trophy wives, disregarding women’s humanity and seeing them as objects. Nowadays, of course, this has radically changed as education throughout the majority of the world is seen as equal where men and women are allowed to undertake in whichever field they choose. However, as learning is a lifelong process, the education of children is significant in their development into adults.

The reason I am bringing psychology into this is because mainstream education in the form of schooling is not the only way in which girls can be objectified and disregarded. Humans take in their surroundings, and the objectification of females in advertisements shine a light on the fact that the inferiority of women has now shifted from mainstream education into an everyday sort of education. Ads of the perfect women (thin, toned, blemish free, etc) are found all around and simply seeing this every single day can have a negative effect on young girls. Needless to say, women still have a ways to go in order to truly become equal to men.

Now on the other side of the argument: males, boys in general, might be experiencing some difficulties in mainstream education. I’ve come across an interesting TEDtalk about re-engaging boys into learning because there has been a trend of boys dropping out of school in recent years. One interesting point that the speaker points out is the expectations for boys to behave like girls in a classroom setting, where boys are told to “be more like the girls” and sit quietly and listen to instructions. This seems like a reverse of what Wollstonecraft may be referring to in her time, when education was targeted to males. Now, early education seems to value girls more than boys simply for their characteristics (girls are quiet and calm while boys are loud and fidgety). I guess this empowers girls in someways, saying they are the model students in classroom settings simply because of their stereotyped nature of a calm demeanor as opposed to boys, but doesn’t this then disregard boys and their nature?

Oh, the balance of gender equality, so easily tipped to one side or the other.

 

identity crises

Hong Kong was a colony of Great Britain until July 1st, 1997, when it was handed back to China. My point? I’m 19 and have lived pretty much all my life in a post colonial country. Why is this post titled “identity crises”? Because even though Hong Kong is considered to belong to China, Hong Kong is not China. Sure, we have the same customs and traditions and most of our culture is the same but it’s just different. Same same but different. This, I feel, ties in with Black Skin, White Masks because the idea of races is applicable to Hong Kong people’s rejection of the idea of being a part of China, or at least from China.

The distinction Fanon made between races such that people begin to distance themselves from subordinate races (black) and create connections with the dominant race (white) is a rather interesting idea: “because the Antillean is more ‘évolué’ than the African––meaning he is closer to the white man” (9). I believe this applies to Hong Kong people too; because we have been colonized by the British and have been under the influence of the British, we are closer to the “white man” as opposed to our other chinese counterparts.

Post-colonial times for a country means reconstructing a whole society, or even an entire culture and figuring out how it operates. Hong Kong obviously went back to its Chinese roots, but has become more… sophisticated, I guess I could say. In Hong Kong, the act of squatting is mainly looked down upon. This is because this act is associated with the mainland Chinese and is a behaviour separating Hong Kong people from mainland Chinese. This is significant in that it clearly demonstrates the “évolué” Fanon talks about; Hong Kong people do not squat on the sidewalks because it is not the civilized thing to do.

But then I arrive at the dilemma that I am also Chinese, and insulting my own race is not a very nice thing to do––the Antillean and the African. Identity crisis ––> I am Chinese, but I’m not Chinese Chinese, I’m Hong Kong Chinese. I’m also Canadian.

Now the word ‘Chinese’ looks weird to me because I’ve typed it too much.

zombie apocalypses are already happening… and have been for quite awhile apparently

I, unfortunately, am also included in the “zombies” because I completely blanked out and just remembered I have a blog post due today. Well technically yesterday. Whoops.

Northanger Abbey is interesting, and I got into it right at the beginning with Austen’s intriguing style of narration. Her way of describing Catherine Morland was very interesting, and I especially loved how Austen described her childhood as that of someone who would not be seen as a “heroine” and then gradually becoming one. In my reading of this, or how I interpreted it (which may be completely and utterly wrong) was how critical this was of woman during the time period of the early nineteenth century.

The tomboy Catherine was not seen as a heroine because of what she liked/disliked to do, and because all “proper” girls were to be well read (generally artistically, including music, drawing, etc.), well bred and well behaved she did not fit into the category. I think this is a great example of how the society molds people into what they should or should not be. Catherine, in my opinion, was cool when she was younger because she did what she wanted and did not seem to care much about the requirements of becoming a proper lady. But then to become a “heroine” or to be able to be classified as one when she became older, she began reading and being proper and putting herself through all the activities which would make her a conventional lady of the time. This was really interesting to me because at first I thought she would be the type of heroine to take action on her own and save herself instead of having a hero come along and drag her out of her misery, but then I think I’ve been mistaken because we are told that Catherine was waiting for a hero. And that hero turns out to be well… less heroic and more narcissistic.

Now linking that to zombies: Catherine becomes a zombie by abiding to the social norms of the “proper lady” and doing what she previously did not have interest in. Albeit this could have been due to her young age and shifting appeals of various hobbies, it nonetheless describes the conformity one goes through within society in order to “fit in”, in this case for the benefit of finding a husband. Zombies of society, living without consciousness of the effects of hegemony and social norms which pretty much also describes Shaun of the Dead. 

Now if only some special individual’s blood can cure us of this kind of zombification, that’d be great.

Magic is real — The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier

I forgot I had to do a blog post… Sorry!

The Kingdom of This World is an interesting novel, and I’m still in the midst of digesting it and trying to get into the “magical realism” of the story. I read The Chronicles of A Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in high school and loved it, though the magical realism element still confuses me somehow.

I guess this blog post is more of what magical realism is, since it’s sort of difficult to explain and even though my english teacher tried his best to explain it, I have no clue what he’s talking about. What is magical realism? Magic into reality, reality into magic, but it’s subtle and because everything is blended into each other so well there isn’t a way to discern between the two at some point, but then when you think back on certain ideas, it seems ridiculous. This is my grasp on what magical realism is, though I still have trouble trying to figure out what elements are magical realism within the novel… Perhaps I read it too quickly.

Time to reread the novel.

Cherie

= or ≠ — Discourse of Inequality by Rousseau

Power + Prejudice + Discrimination = Oppression (what I learnt in Sociology class).

For the most part, I understand what Rousseau is talking about (I think…). Inequality is generated by society in that it brought people together and therefore created moral inequality in addition to natural inequality, and reinforcement of moral inequality further enhances the disparities of natural inequality, creating a dominant and subordinate relationship with one in power and others without power.

The idea that the independent savage man is better off than the interdependent civil man both makes sense and does not make sense to me.
On one hand, the independent savage man would not suffer from inequality in that they are isolated and alone with no dominant oppressing figure and therefore better off, whereas the interdependent civil man is subjected to inequality due to the mechanics and hierarchy of society and therefore worse than the independent savage man.
On the other hand, how can advancing in being a social society be regression? Yes, inequality blossoms within every societal garden, though I’d like to think society has helped human kind progress in some way as a social being to help the species develop, slowly gaining more knowledge along the way.

Inequality and equality is weird, and so is our society. We want equality over many many different things, but there will always be people in power and inequality will always exist. Do I think we can lessen the inequality gap between people? Yes. Do I think it is possible to eradicate all inequality? Only if we decide to disband society. In the end, we progress with knowledge and in enhancing our lifestyle and livability as a species, but do not progress in our search for individual progression outside society, for we are and always will be constructed and encased by society.

Suitable quote (?):
“Like chaos in a glass cage” — Melissa Marr

Everyone’s disappearing… Take me too, maybe? –– The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Between trying to study for my mid-terms and trying to finish reading The Master and Margarita I have to admit I’ve become very confused; everything is just mixing together in this one big container labelled “brain”.

And while this mixing is going on, certain aspects of George Orwell’s 1984 surfaced and made me cringe because I did not particularly enjoy that reading from high school, though I have to admit a lot of what happens here in The Master and Margarita is similar to that of the dystopian world of 1984. Everyone is spying on everyone, everyone is suspicious of everyone, and everything is the same for everyone. Kind of boring, except there’s supposed magic and sorcery in this, which piked my interests a little. That and it’s just downright creepy what happens to some of the characters in this novel.

During the lecture today, the idea of choice was mentioned, and that lead me to think about one particular slogan used in 1984, “Freedom is slavery”. Whether or not the citizens of Moscow had a choice of which radio channel to listen to, is it not all controlled by the government either way? “Freedom is slavery”; the illusion of freedom results in the slavery of the people. They think they have a choice, but they are actually controlled by the government in the choices they make.

This leads to another thought, of whether this form of control is present in our society today. In a sense, we are slaves of choice as a representation of freedom. I say this because we are constantly having to make choices through our everyday lives. Starbucks or Tim Hortons? Tea or coffee or hot chocolate or latte or cappuccino? Don’t all these small decisions in our lives enslave us to consumerism and capitalism, aiding the economy and the government as well?

The regulation of the population in The Master and Margarita also highlights this, in that people supposedly have a freedom to do as they please, but they do not, in fear for the secret police and the mysterious disappearances. Maybe I’m not articulating this very well since I am just wondering around aimlessly on this train of thought and will just disappear now amongst the studying and readings I have to do.

*Abra-Kadabra*

— cherie.