Over the past two weeks, the focus in our Astu class was on poetry, most of which related to trauma and history. I want to first focus on In Flanders Fields, as it is such a famous poem that I have never heard of, and made me realize how important the poem was in commemorating and remembering those who lost their lives in World War One. Though I was familiar with poppies being a symbol during remembrance day, I was intrigued at how In Flanders Fields was served as a war propaganda, yet gained so much attention even till this day. The positive and nationalistic portrayal of war in Flanders Fields was contrasted by The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, as it illustrates war and death as more horrific, somber scene, and I enjoyed the class comparison between the idealistic and realistic war time poems. “You Throw a Stone” is one of the first poems I have read with a distinct structure and word choices, and it was definitely interesting to see how space in the lines can create symbols that help strengthen the poem’s meaning.

From the poetry we studied, comparing it to the graphic novels we read I think there are ways which the two genres are similar, such as expressing one’s view, and their purpose, however the differences arise due to their genre and structure. The structure of the two genres are clearly different, however they both attempt to tell a story from one’s perspective. From the texts we read in class, most of them are attempting to tell their own or someone else’s story. One difference, however is poems are usually more abstract, allowing for multiple interpretations of the same text, though the same could be said about graphic novels, major themes are usually more apparent and at a consensus, whereas poems sometimes are more subtle. The subtlety and concise method of telling a story through poetry is what in my opinion makes the genre special and different from graphic novels. From analyzing the poem, it is amazing how the briefness transfers stronger emotions and imagery, such as Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. To conclude, the poetry we read are similar to what I read in high school, but the comparison of major themes through different genres was a challenge, and some distinct features modern poetry peak my interest in how stories can be told through subtlety but still be emotional at the same time.

Last week, we went to the UBC library to take a look at Joy Kogawa fonds, the author of the infamous novel Obasan. Prior to the expedition, I did not enjoy Obasan very much, I felt that the book was too descriptive and flowery, and was not too invested into the plot. However, after looking through the Kogawa fonds, my group saw many reviews written in magazines and newspapers, mostly published in 1981 (the year Obasan was published), and I was very surprised as to how much attention it received, and how many people were moved by this novel. I was also blown away by how realistic this book is, and the history of most of the characters portrayed were not fiction, instead were based off real or near real scenarios.

Moving on from my feelings of Obasan, to me relief, it seems that even Kogawa struggled with writing. However different to my circumstances where I am usually uninspired to write, her struggle was to find words to put out, piecing the memory of such a horrific past together, as she described in one of her entries, forcing herself to “vomit” these experiences onto a page. These descriptions of the pain in which she went through to produce her perspective of Japanese Canadian citizens during world war two is creates a different outlook on the novel. Looking past the overpowering descriptions, the novel showed me history that was often not recalled by many. When asking about world war two, not many of whom would remember the discrimination and hatred put out towards Japanese Canadians, who virtually have no connection with mainland Japan, nor are part of schemes, yet are being prejudiced against. Lastly, I admire not only Kogawa’s writing of the novel, but also her faithful pursuit in trying to build attention to the novel. I believe that this novel, especially for Canadians is very worth a read, as it dives into the past that not many remembers, is a lesson for everyone that prejudice, though may seem unthinkable currently, under times of heavy stress and conflict occur out of thought, and is a grim reminder of the cruelties of the past.

Since my first blog post, our class has been focused on the memoir Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi. I was reading the book for homework in the common area, and a friend came up behind me and asked why I was reading a Japanese manga. We laughed it off, but I was really surprised when I could not answer why the book was written in the form of a comic.

Persepolis was written in the perspective of a young girl in a comic. The form of a comic book is great for storytelling, it creates a much more personal connection with the reader as it is easier to read, and I personally thought it flowed really well. It took me many pages before I started to recognize the importance of the drawings along with the text, the entire memoir is embedded with hidden messages and ideas. One common example would be from the facial expressions and shapes of the characters despite the simplicity of the drawings. However, I think that the story includes significant amounts of bias surrounding Satrapi’s view. Such as, not fully showing the perspective of the lower class, such as their family maid Mehri, opposed to Satrapi being situated in a relatively high class. Writing her story in the perspective of a child, Satrapi had to rely on her memory in producing this text, which raises the question of the accuracy of the information, as well as traumatic events being presented in a biased way. Lastly, the comic drawn in black and white could imply the presence of good and evil, which seems to be very narrow minded by only looking to the good and the bad, however it further emphasizes Satrapi as the character of a child, and her ignorance at that time, slowly learning more about the world.

I am not a great reader. I often get distracted or bored of the text. One reason why I enjoyed the text was because they are based off stories in segments, which all link together in the end, one story is short and can be finished quickly. What took me by surprise was how the ending few panels of each story would give me goose bumps, shock me. Single lines such as “That night he (god) didn’t come.” or “My hands were wrinkled when I came out, just like grandpa’s.” would leave me on the edge of my seat and bring me to the next story. I think the reason why I would be so unsettled by each endings is because what Satrapi wrote is different from what I was thinking. Coming from Hong Kong, I never faced such issues, ever so rarely read it on the news, the biggest “revolution” we ever had was a peaceful protest. These stories from Persepolis really sticks to my mind, to not take what I have for granted, nor assume what others have experienced either. Her world, is truly a worlds away from mine.

Over the course of the first month in our ASTU class, we have touched upon many aspects regarding scholarly writing. One specific point that was touched upon in class that I thought was most interesting is, scholarly writing is like scholars having a conversation with one another. In UBC’s Global Citizen’s course, along with ASTU we also study sociology and politics, and within both sociology and politics we have came across numerous examples of scholars having a conversation. For instance, in sociology class, we touched upon Anderson’s idea of nationalism versus functionalism. In politics discussed the different views on “justice”, John Rawl’s theory versus Robert Nozick’s theory of justice. Even in our politics discussion groups, though students are not scholars, we had a short and sudden debate about whether or not history repeats itself as seen through political structures in history. All these conversations are opinions and endless debate of the individual shown through the genre of scholarly writing. Many of the writings are related to large, wide scale issues that affects many people, however as discussed in our sociology class about sociological imagination, public issues are issues which cannot be solved by the individual alone, then how would scholars reach a consensus?

Having gone through my first month of university career, the most interesting aspect that I have came across is the sheer amount of knowledge that I have not been exposed to, and the endless amount of knowledge and perspectives being produced by people all around the world. Yet the one question I have in mind is how would people use these pieces of knowledge and opinions? How would knowledge evolve or change? Personally I think that knowledge would evolve, and some things that we know today would be completely different in twenty to thirty years time. I think that the international debate on a particular subject would sooner or later come to a consensus of a generally accepted theory and alter the way we think. However, I think that abstract concepts would never have a general agreement. Consider, for example the concept of “justice” as mentioned in my politics class, I would think that everyone has their own idea of what “justice” is. Different social and historical backgrounds, experiences would all change a person’s perspective on “justice”. To conclude, from my initial encounter of scholarly writing, I believe that a general acceptance of knowledge in certain fields could be achieved, however abstract concepts would constantly be debated between scholars.