This is a childhood story that I would like to share with everyone. For as long as I can remember, I have been told this story for countless times by my grandmother and parents in Cantonese. Seizing this opportunity of story-telling, I would like to try to reiterate this story in English.

That was probably one of the worst stormy night that I had experienced in my life. It was raining dogs and cats, with thunders and lightning rolling and stumbling across the sky. Little Christy looked into the shades of the red burning clouds, wondering when would this rainstorm going to stop.

It was late at night, probably around midnight, when I received a phone call from my mom. She was struggling her way to home as the whole public transit system was out of commission. She tried to sound jolly, but I knew that she was exhausted, and desperately wanted a cab to take her home. I can still remember the last remark of her call, “Baby Christy, it’s bedtime now. You should sleep now. Mama will be safe.” Then she suddenly hung up her phone.

Grandma just finished bathing when I finished my chat with my mother. She dried her hair while I was sitting on the windowsill, staring at nowhere in the sky. She hugged me in her arms and carried me into her bedroom. I hugged her back and left a good night kiss on her cheek. While tucking me in bed, she switched off the lights and began with my daily bedtime story.

“Christy, do you know why there would be curfews? Do you know why I told your mom to get home before midnight everyday?” Grandma murmured in a soothing tone, as if she was falling asleep. “Grandma, I have absolutely no idea.” Grandma then sat up and looked into my eyes as if they were diamonds in the dark, and said, “Christy, I am going to tell you a true story tonight…”

It was too a blustery midnight when a girl was alone on the walkway, heading back home. She was talking on her phone when she met a man coming out from a dark alley. She was too focused on her call, not realizing that the man was following her. It is her usual habit to walk through a park nearby her home as a shortcut during the night, though there is not even a lamp.

At the moment she stepped in the park, the man behind her patted her shoulder. Only realizing the presence of the man by then, she was terrified and rooted on the spot. She then heard his whisper, “Give me all your valuables!” The girl was so frightened that she did as he commanded, like a robot.

After a short while, when she finally retained her ability to talk, she put on a brave face, “Can I leave now…,” but before she finished her last phrase, the silent man silted her throat with a knife hidden in his sleeve. The wounded girl tried to scream for help, but ended up bleeding to death.

“The story stops here, Christy. You need to sleep now,” grandma commanded as she pulled up my little blanket. “But grandma, would this story happened to mommy?” Tears started to run down my face as I imagine her walking miserably under the umbrella, without any protection. “Grandma, I don’t like this story! Can you make me forgetting this story?”

Probably realizing this story might be too cruel for a 4-year-old kid like me, grandma paused for a while before she talked, “I’m sorry, Christy. Mommy will definitely be fine. However, for once a story, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world.”

I could never forget this story in my life for this is the story that first presented the evil of the world to me, which could never be called back. This is how evil comes into the innocent world of mine.

Commentary:

• The idea of retelling this childhood story sparks off when I knew that we would be working on the topic of “How evil comes into the world”. Though I have struggled on the definition of “world”, I believe that there would be a world within each person, which, therefore, contributed to different stories.

• I found it extremely difficult to translate idioms and allegories from Cantonese to English, for the meaning might be same, but the frame of mind could differ a lot. I may regard this as a hindrance in bringing the minorities’ stories under the spotlight of mainstream culture for the stories of theirs might not be able to convey or portray thoroughly. (This may be a sign of Eurocentric dominance over other cultures, as English is now the dominating language on earth.)

Works Cited

Poon, Stanley. A Lightning Moment in Hong Kong. 4 May 2012. National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest2012. National Geographic, Washington, D.C.

According to Marshall McLuhan in 1964, he regarded “the written form” as “[appreciating] the nature of spoken word”, while orality is a “primitive and undeveloped medium” (MacNeil). This might be what happened in the past, but definitely not at present. I believe that one cannot deny that, through the invention of World Wide Web, we get to know more different people’s stories. There are some examples that I would like to share with you before getting into my reflection.

The first example that I have in my mind would definitely be the Facebook Page Humans of New York. Admin of the page has transformed spoken stories of the interviewees, which is a form of orality, into words on the Internet, which can be regarded as a form of literature. Another example I would like to show is a video that Benedict Cumberbatch reading a love letter written during the Second World War. With these examples, I would, therefore, say technology has utterly changed what we anticipated as literature and orality.

Then I begin to wonder why and how technology changed the style of literature, story and storytelling. The prime reason would possible be the happening of Globalization. According to internet source, English is currently the dominating language in the world, with 67 sovereign states entitled it as the official language. Therefore, with no doubt, English language is playing an extremely significant role in our lives, and stories can now be told and made an impact via a single language.

Furthermore, with the help of different social media, like Facebook and Pinterest, along with different tools, like video, soundtracks, both written and oral stories not only can be shared by a click, but also bypassed the publishers. This enables different stories to come into our sight, especially those that the mainstream media tends to ignore. I would especially want to highlight the ‘comment’ function of social media. This function enables readers to directly interact with the writer, sharing their own point of view, but I think this is another way of storytelling, particularly when people share their own experience. This also showed that technological advancement has blurred the division between storytellers and readers.

Another very interesting invention that technology brought us is the hypertexts. Taking this blog entry as an example, you can easily reach Humans of New York and Cumberbatch’s video by moving your mouse over the underlined words, and click them! Another example I would like to draw to support my view is our blogging guideline. Hypertexts in our blog entries are aimed to provide insights and new information to our current knowledge. With different stories written and different hypertexts included by fellow classmates, we can understand the contexts of stories thoroughly through the Internet. We no longer need to flip through pages and search background details in the old, dull library.

To conclude on how technology influenced on literature and story, I would say that the Internet allows people to hear and know stories behind the doors. Before ending this entry, I would need to acknowledge that I haven’t talked about the negative impacts on literature and stories brought by technological advancement, but I am more than happy to discuss them with my fellows!

Countries and Languages – Megalanguages around the World – Nations Online Project. One World Nations Online. Web. 19 Apr 2016

Courtney MacNeil, “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/

“Humans of New York.” Nov 2010. Facebook.

Letters Live. “’ My dearest one’ Benedict Cumberbatch reads Chris Barker’s letter to Bessie Moore.” Online Video Clip. YouTube. YouTube, 27 Mar 2015. Web. 19 Apr 2016.