Prompt: Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW using at least 10 pages of the text of your choice. Be sure to make use of Jane Flicks’ GGRW reading notes on your reading list

I decided to work with page 35-50 of Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.

Coyote

Coyote is the narrator who starts the story and makes the story transitions. According to Jane Flick’s note, coyote is “a race of mythic prototypes who lived before humans existed”. They hold lots of powers as they are responsible for creating the world we know now. In the beginning of the story Coyote has an important part in setting the tone of the story. It gives readers the feeling of what the story is going to look like, setting the tone of the story. Coyote’s character gives the allusion that the story is going to tell about the Indigenous storytelling by beginning the story with creation myth with Coyote, not the God as the creator from the Christian theology.

GOD/Dog

When the dog is spelled backwards, it is god, but dogs and god have different feeling to it. When thinking about God, it is associated with being a power creator that is at the top of the hierarchy who created the world but compared to that dog is something small, cute and unpowerful. Flick points out that dogs are essentially just a lesser form of a coyote. The dog who is called GOD is a childish and immature character that the Coyote has to quiet down. It is inferior to Coyote. This gives the readers an implication that God from the Judeo-Christian religion is just like one of the many characters that can be seen in the creation story and it is not the one and only powerful character.

Ahdamn

Ahdamn is a very obvious satire reference to the biblical Adam in the Adam and Eve Genesis story. Unlike the Adam in the bible, Ahdamn lives at the Garden after the First woman. He is simply there to live with her at her garden, but then he tries to take power in the Garden by attempting to attribute names to the animals which he miserably fails to. He is portrayed as a very unintelligent character who is powerless compared to the First Woman who is a strongly Indigenous symbol. King tries to show that Judeo-Christian story cannot empower and take away the Indigenous identity and story through  the Ahdamn’s failure to take power in what was already accomplished in the Garden by the First Woman.

Works Cited

BibleGateway. “Genesis 2:4-3:24.” www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis 2:4-3:24&version=NIV

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature, vol. 161/162, 1999, pp. 140-172

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. ebook

“Native American Coyote Mythology.” Native American Indian Coyote Legends, Meaning and Symbolism from the Myths of Many Tribes, www.native-languages.org/legends-coyote.htm

“Native American Dog Mythology.” Native American Indian Dog Legends, Meaning and Symbolism from the Myths of Many Tribes, www.native-languages.org/legends-dogs.htm

Prompt: What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story or stories you are familiar with and the story King tells in The Truth About Stories?

I grew up in a Catholic household and I use to go to church every Sunday from a very young age. Although I decided to stop going when I turned about 12, I am still very familiar with the story Adam and Eve for the creation story because I used to attend religious classes to learn about the bible and from then I was exposed to it at a very young age. After reading the story of Charm King tells in the Truth about stories, although the narrative itself seems different, there are also some similarities between the ethos of the story of Charm and Adam and Eve in the bible. When we look at creation stories from different culture, we can tell what each culture deems to be important and what their core belief is.

Similarities

First of all, both of the stories begin with water. Water could represent an important symbol in both of the creation story as it is what was first created. After creation of water, animals and humans are created. In the Genesis story, God creates animals to fill the earth as well as the first humans Adam and eve. In the story of Charm, the twins create humans and animals and wonder if they will get along. The animals have a role in both the stories as the snake in the Genesis story talks to Eve to break the one and only rule in the Garden of Eden and the moose and sea creatures interact with Charm from beginning to end.

The use of dichotomies is also evident in both stories. God in Genesis creates heaven and hell, night and day, and man and woman. The twins born of Charm in The Earth Diver creates summer and winter, roses and thorns, sunshine and shadows and man and woman.

Differences

The major differences between the two stories are that In the Genesis, God creates the earth himself. He is the powerful creator who has existed before everything else. In The Earth Diver, the water creatures are the ones to labour and build Charm a piece of land which eventually transformed by her twin children. It is very clear that Charm is not as powerful and authoritative as the God in the Genesis. Additionally, in the Genesis, the readers are taught to distinguish right from wrong and good and evil. Adam and Eve are given a rule to follow and when they break the rule, they are punished for it. In The Earth Diver, there is no right or wrong, good or bad but is about cooperation. The creation process is interconnected and shared through teamwork of Charm, her twins and all the animals in the kingdom.

Works Cited 

Adam And Eve In The Garden Of Eden – Bible Story Verses & Summary.” Bible Study Tools. N. p., 2019. Web. 09 Mar. 2019.

Water. Bible Study Tools. N. P.,2019 Web. 09 Mar. 2019

Prompt:In this lesson I say that it should be clear that the discourse on nationalism is also about ethnicity and ideologies of “race.” If you trace the historical overview of nationalism in Canada in the CanLit guide, you will find many examples of state legislation and policies that excluded and discriminated against certain peoples based on ideas about racial inferiority and capacities to assimilate. – and in turn, state legislation and policies that worked to try to rectify early policies of exclusion and racial discrimination. As the guide points out, the nation is an imagined community, whereas the state is a “governed group of people.” For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.

Since 1869, Canada has had Immigration Acts and Legislation that governed the admission of immigrants. The laws and regulations have evolved over time according to its political, economic and social change. It is not until the 1971 that Canada has adopted multiculturalism as an official policy. Before this time, several acts and legislations discriminated immigrants based on their race, ethnicity and national origin. Immigration Acts and legislations reflect the Country’s societal beliefs and attitudes at the time.

The Canadian Immigration Act of 1910 gave government more power to regulate the flow of immigrants into Canada, further expanding the exclusionary provisions from the Immigration Act of 1906. The governor in council were given the authority to deny entry to prohibited immigrants and also deport those belonging to the “prohibited classes.” Any immigrant deemed “unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada” were prohibited from landing. According to the act individuals with physical and mental disabilities were denied entry. Immigrants that were sponsored by charitable organizations were also excluded unless they obtained prior written permission from the superintendent of immigration in Ottawa or the assistant superintendent of emigration in London. There was also the concept of permanent residency where immigrant could only obtain after residing in Canada for three years. Until permanent residency is granted, an immigrant could be deported at any time if they become classified as undesirable. Another feature with the Immigration Act of 1910 had to do with the amount of money immigrants were required to have in their possession to enter Canada. In 1908, an amount of 25$ was required for all immigrants, but for Asiatic immigrants it was raised to 200$ with an exception for those that came from Canada or China. The reason behind this was because “the language and mode of life of immigrants from Asia render them unsuited for settlement in Canada when there are no colonies of their own people to ensure their maintenance in case of their inability to secure employment.”

The Immigration Act of 1910 supports Coleman’s argument about “white civility.” The Canadian government decided to have a white history by inhibiting immigration rather than promoting it. They put tight control over immigration policy and further discriminated non-white immigrants. My family and I immigrated from Korea in 2005 and I remember my parents were filing lots of paper work to get to Canada. At the time, I was too young to understand the whole thing but now that I’ve learned about it, I come to understand how strict the Immigration Acts used to be, why my parents were surprised to have been approved to enter Canada because so many people around us in Korea were getting rejected in the past.

Today, Canada proudly says how it is a multicultural nation, with an open mind and always trying to get rid of discrimination. I do agree that Canada is a great place where multiculturalism exists, and discrimination is minimal. All my relatives have immigrated to Canada within the last 5 years because they loved seeing how my parents were living in Canada. The benefits that Canadian citizens get are incredible including the basic health care, employment insurance and more. There still exists act of Permanent residency where one must stay in Canada for 2 years in any 5-year period to keep the permeant residency status. I’ve seen friends around me that are Korean who have come to Canada on their own and working at a job to get their citizenship. I think the Immigration rules have become less discriminative, but this does not mean we can forget about the history of discrimination Canada had.

Works Cited 

“Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.” Pier 21 | Pier 21, pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/immigration-act-1906.

“Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.” Pier 21 | Pier 21, pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/immigration-act-1906.

“Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.” Pier 21 | Pier 21, pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/immigration-act-1906.

Prompt: In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: “Contrapuntal Cartographies” (468 – 470). Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

Sparke’s article “A map that roared and an original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation” talks about the land claim and ownership between the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan people versus the federal and provincial government of BC. In 1984, Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en people brought a case against the provincial and federal government over hereditary and ownership of 58,000 square kilometres of territory. The Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan people used cartographic tools to gain recognition of their native sovereignty from the Canadian court. When the presiding judge, Chief Justice Allan McEachern sees one of these maps that they had drawn, he described one of their maps as “the map that roared” (468).

In his article, Sparke puts forward the suggestion that McEachern may have been referencing the ‘paper tiger’(468), which is a translation of a Chinese phrase that means something appears threatening and dangerous on the outside, but actuality is internally ineffectual and powerless. Initially the judges found the map to be threatening to the law but really was ineffectual. Sparke also goes on to the question whether McEachern’s statement was in reference to the film “The Mouse that Roared”,1959 political satire film about a fictional country that decides to declare a war on the US with the aim to lose quickly and benefit from the financial aid that US has previously provided. Both of the references imply that the Judge McEachern was not going to take the claims of Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en people seriously. He did in fact dismiss the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en nations’ claims to ownership and jurisdiction. However, the Supreme court decided to overturn Judge McEachern’s ruling in 1997 after the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en nations filed a land title action.

This case shows how ignorant the government has for Indigenous views. The map is a powerful visual representation that clearly shows the Indigenous perspective on their land and it naturally carries the colonial claims of their land. However, in saying that the map “roared” the Judge Mceachern was failing to recognize the power and knowledge that the map was trying to convey and instead making a mockery out of it. He lacked understanding of the duality of Canada’s origin history and only viewed the Indigenous people’s claim from “his understanding of Canadian History”(470) which were very biased from the Western perspective.

Works Cited

R. v. Comeau – SCC Cases (Lexum), scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1569/index.do.

Sparke, Matthew. “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 88, no. 3, 1998, pp. 463-495.

“The Mouse That Roared.” IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/plotsummary

Prompt: First stories tell us how the world was created. In The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden. King provides us with a neat analysis of how each story reflects a distinct worldview. “The Earth Diver” story reflects a world created through collaboration, the “Genesis” story reflects a world created through a single will and an imposed hierarchical order of things: God, man, animals, plants. The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition — a nice clean-cut satisfying dichotomy. However, a choice must be made: you can only believe ONE of the stories is the true story of creation – right? That’s the thing about creation stories; only one can be sacred and the others are just stories. Strangely, this analysis reflects the kind of binary thinking that Chamberlin, and so many others, including King himself, would caution us to stop and examine.So, 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?

I think King has created dichotomy in telling the story “Genesis” and “The Earth Diver” to challenge us and remind us that “you have to be careful with the stories you tell and you have to watch out for the stories that you are told.” King is demonstrating an example of how perception can be changed through the way a story is told. When dichotomy is created in stories, the readers tend to choose one story over the other rather than challenging it because it is easier to eliminate one story or make one story sacred and dismiss the other as secular than questioning its co-existence. Can both stories be true? Can only one story exist?

King tells the story of “Genesis” in authoritative voice compared to the story of “The Earth Diver” where it is told in an animated tone like a storyteller. He does this to draw our attention to how the narrative is portrayed is in Western culture. Christian tales are often told in autorotative voices because as humans, it is our instinct to look for an absolute guidance and belief to follow. The “Genesis” story has been the power of this absolute belief and guidance in the Western culture for many years because it leads people to believe that they were God’s chosen people. It creates a hierarchy system of God on top, then the animals, then men, then women. It is contradicting to the equality and sharing that is told in the “The Earth Diver” story. When there is a hierarchy system with God on top, the absolute figure of God makes it easy for people to believe one story as true and other stories as wrong. The commands of Christ are told to the Christian members to follow and believe, and people disregard anything that conflicts this absolute belief because if Christ commands it, then it must be true.

As King points out, there are lots of dichotomies that is in our daily life; black/white, strong/weak, right/wrong, rich/poor, male/female, etc. I think King wants to show us that we have a binary view in many things other than just creation story and when there is a dominant side, we tend to dismiss the alternative. He is challenging us to think about what is accepted, our own agency in the story, and try to find different viewpoints. We need to pause, step back and question why there can only be one truth. It is problematic to categorize and dichotomize things because if we don’t try to carefully analyze and look at both sides, then we will never be open to new ways of thinking and be open to change. True dichotomies are very rare and false dichotomies are dangerous because it limits our thinking to only believe in one side.

Works Cited

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

Admin. “What Are the Commands of Christ?” Institute in Basic Life Principles, 30 Aug. 2016, https://iblp.org/questions/what-are-commands-christ.

Scott Berkun. “The False Dichotomy of False Dichotomies.” Scott Berkun, 27 Oct. 2012, https://scottberkun.com/2011/the-false-dichotomy-of-false-dichotomies/

Read at least 6 students blog short stories about ‘home’ and make a list of BOTH the common shared assumptions, values and stories that you find and look for differences as well; look to see if you can find student peers who appear to have different values than yourself when it comes to the meaning of ‘home.’ Post this list on your blog and include commentary, please.

Shared assumptions and values

Home is a sense and feeling related to one’s memory and history

Although some people identified home with a physical area that was specific, lots of people accompanied memories from their childhood and feelings to describe home. As I described defining home by the familiar sense of the smell, I found that many other people have also used a song, sound or smell to describe their sense of home which were intertwined with their memories and history. Dana tells a great story of her memory from childhood describing the smell of linden tress in the street, her Grandmother’s bread from the oven and crayons from kindergarten.

Home is fluid

I found that it was a common experience among the classmates to have moved to Canada from a different country and that experience looks different for each person. Kynan has experienced assimilation for the first few years but got engrained in the Canadian culture like myself, where else J.T has never felt connected to either Canada or his home country Korea. For people who have experienced movements, I think idea of fluidity commonly exists. Home moves with where you are, it is not a fixed state and it has the ability to change and adapt.

Home is a community

While everyone has different stories of their sense of belonging and what home means to them, a very common description of home included parents, siblings or significant other. It was rare to see one describe home and finding a home within oneself only. Like myself, others described through their experience that people that were important to them were what made them feel at home. Minhye describes her home as a sense of where her heart is, and her heart is with her parents. I think feeling of home is made up of a community with people or person they love and care for.

Differences

All of us have different experiences and unfortunately some of us describe feeling of homelessness and still being unable find a home. J.T is similar with me as he is from Korea, but he does not feel home at either Canada or Korea. I learned from moving and traveling where my sense of belonging is and where my home is but for some, it was the opposite. For Tamara, through her travelling and moving, she has not found a one single place that gives her deep sense of belonging to call it a home but rather home can be everywhere for her. I personally think although home can change and adapt, there is only one place I can call home at one time.

Final thoughts

The assignment of writing about my values about home was a time for me to truly sit down and reflect on my life. I think many other fellow students felt this way as some described this assignment to be rather difficult. Having to share my personal stories and experiences was a bit nerve-wracking because I tend to be rather a private person but reading through other people’s blogs made me realize I wasn’t the only one who experienced moving, alienation and getting used to a new country. Reading other student’s stories made me feel connected to each one of them and their insights also comforted me.

Works cited

Bae, J.T. “Home.” UBC Blogs, 20 Feb 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/golgiapp/2019/01/30/home/?fbclid=IwAR0KpbBcdYeOE_T5y3uzsMezdWut1OLzCgUaq4gkw3mVYxtYh_A2E351TXU

Ensor, Tamara “2.2 Home…….” Canadian Lit EH. UBC Blogs, 20 Feb 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/canadianlittme/2019/01/29/2-2-home/

Han, Minhye “2.2-Where I belong: My sense of home.” Minhye’s Engl470 Blog. UBC Blogs, 20 Feb 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/minhyehan/2019/02/04/22-where-i-belong-my-sense-of-home/

Pereira, Kynan. “2:2 Feels Like Home.” Kynan’s English 470 Blog. UBC Blogs, 20 Feb 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl470kynanpereira/2019/01/28/feels-like-home/

Truhar, Dana. “Assignment 2:2-My Home Story.” Dana’s CanLit Blog. UBC Blogs, 20 Feb 2019. https://blogs.ubc.ca/canlit470dana/2019/01/28/assignment-22-my-home-story/

I did not know what feeling of home was like for a long time. I was born and raised in Korea until I turned ten. That is when my family of four decided to move to Canada. At the time, I was very upset about moving to Canada because I have only spent all of my ten years at one country that I know I belong to. I loved everything about Korea when I was a child. I cherished my time with my best friend Christine who I used to share everything with. Every summer, Christine and I rode our character bicycles at the Yeouido park which was near our homes. The fresh breeze of air would tickle our skins under the flaming yok-yellow sun, making our face sweat and our cheeks pink. I remember my very last day in Korea, it was nothing different than any other ordinary summer day with my best friend Christine. We rode our bicycles to Yeouido park, over the Mapo bridge where I could see the glittering river and the tallest building, 63 building standing so proudly under the clear blue sky without a cloud. The day was very peaceful without an interruption. I was at a place I have been to countless times with a person I’ve been with since I can remember but I was feeling scared and nervous because I had to leave a place I only knew to call it a home. Everything I’ve known, seen and shared in my home, in Seoul with Christine was going to change and I could do nothing but spend my last day just like I would’ve spent any other day.

I did not know anything about Canada, I didn’t know where it was, how many people lived there, and the environment. The word “Canada” sounded very weird and strange to me at the time. My family and I first went to Toronto before moving to Vancouver. I could remember the long 14 hours on the plane and I was getting cramps in my legs because I was sitting for such a long time. I did not want to leave Korea because I was afraid to leave a place where I felt I belonged to, but my parents told me that my life would be better in Canada compared to Korea. They told me that I could be happy, free from the educational pressures and be able to dream big and become whatever I wanted to be. My parents believed that Canada was a place where my brother and I could grow to our fullest potential and have a future that would not be possible in Korea. At the time I did not understand but now I understand the reasons behind my parents’ decision to move to Canada. It was because of Korea’s pressuring educational environment, economic instability and ongoing political tensions.

I was first very excited upon landing in Canada and moving into a new house because our house was a two-story house with a backyard. I have never lived in a house before because Korea is a small country with many people, so most people live in an apartment. Although I did not speak any English at the time I arrived in Canada, I was very fortunate to have gone to a school where teachers and fellow students helped a lot. No one teased me or bullied me because I was not very good at English or for my accents. As a result, I did not have a very hard time getting used to a new school, new environment and new language. Although I was very homesick at first and really missed my friend Christine and everything we used to do together in Korea, I started to slowly forget about Korea. I even forgot lots of my mother tongue because most of my days contained only speakingEnglish.

Ten years passed since then and when I turned 20, I was given a high school graduation present of a flight ticket to Korea. I remember I immediately got scared rather than excited. I haven’t thought about Korea for a very long time and I haven’t been to the country since I came to Canada. Although I really missed Korea when I first came to Canada, I was unsure if I really missed Korea anymore. I couldn’t even speak the language well.

In the summer of 2015, I arrived in Korea with mixed feelings. I was very nervous to meet my friend Christine who I haven’t seen for 10 years. We kept in touch for couple years after I moved to Canada but naturally lost contact through time. I made plans to meet Christine immediately at the Mapo bridge where we used to ride our bicycles. The smell of pollution and metal mixed together on the Mapo bridge was a familiar smell I’ve known from my childhood. I was back at the place at age 20 where when I was 10, I never thought I would be back again. Christine came towards me riding her bicycle, her beautiful smile hasn’t change in 10 years and it comforted me. It brought me back to the moment we shared in our childhood. We were still riding our bikes but instead of our favorite character bicycles, we were on the rented green boring bicycles. Our friendship felt the same as we have always been together and never separated. We didn’t have to fill in each other’s missing 10 years of lives to understand each other but bonded like a long married old couple.

The peaceful but busy Seoul city I remembered 10 years ago waslivelier and more exciting. The 63 building that used to be the tallest building back then was no longer the tallest but still stood there proudly beside the Lotte hotel building.

As Christine and I passed the enthusiastic night scenery, I looked back while still paddling through my bike. The cool night breeze gave me the chills and I couldn’t take my eyes off as I was getting farther and farther away until I was at the end of the Mapo bridge. I could no longer see the buildings and my heart ached.

‘When will I be able to be back again?’ I thought to myself as I sighed.

I was heartbroken to realize that by the end of the summer, I had to go back to Canada. This was going to be the last time I was able to enjoy the late-night bike rides with Christine. I didn’t want to leave the place behind not knowing when I will be back again. It felt like home. The feeling of comfort I shared with Christine and the place was something I’ve never felt while living in Canada. It felt right, it was like finding the last missing puzzle to fit in my life.

I learned from that experience that for me, home is where my heart is and who I share it with. It is not about where I am in the continent that matters that makes me feel at home, but it is who I am with that makes me feel home. I’m very grateful that I grew up in Canada with my family and Canada was a great place to grow up. If I ever have a child in the future, I want to raise my child in Canada. However, the feeling of home for me will always remain in Korea no matter how much time passes. I love the vibrant and lively Seoul filled with excitement and adventures and having Christine to share it with.

Once upon a time, there lived two brothers in a town called Watsons. The younger brother Sam was very kind hearted and nice to everyone where else the older brother Charles was very mean and greedy. When their parents passed away, the older brother Charles took all the money that their parents have left for them to share and kicked Sam and his family out of the house that they have been  living together.

Sam begged. “Please Charles, let me and my family stay here just for this winter, it is too cold outside, and we have nowhere to go…”

But, mean Charles didn’t make a flinch at Sam’s crying and begging but harshly kicked him and his family out.

Poor Sam and his family headed to the mountains where they could build a temporary hut to live in. Sam and his wife worked hard every day without a rest to feed their children but because they had nine children, it was often hard to feed all of them and most of them were left starving. And at nights, the cold wind blew into the poorly built hut.

“Daddy, it’s too cold and I’m hungry!”  The whining from the children didn’t stop.

Sam could no longer bare to look at his starving children, so he went to see Charles. Sam got down on his knees and begged “Please Charles, lend me some money, I’ll pay you back next year” Charles yelled at Sam “Hey! Who said you could come back here? Get out of my house!” Charles grabbed a bat and beat Sam up and kicked him out. Sam sobbed his way back to the hut empty handed.

After a cold winter passed, warm spring came. One day, a stranded puppy who was limping on one leg and looking lost came into Charles’s house to rest. He took a corner of Charles’s large backyard and lied down, shivering in pain. When Charles saw the puppy, he yelled with a bat on his hand “Get lost! There is no room for you to rest!” He swung the bat at the puppy, purposefully hitting the wounded leg. The puppy screamed in pain and ran away.

The puppy limped his way up the mountain, trying to find a place to rest. His wound was getting worse because Charles had hit him. When the puppy could no longer walk, he passed out in the middle of the mountain. Sam who was on his way back from work saw the puppy and brought him back to his house where he cured the puppy’s leg and gave him food and water. Sam and his family took care of the puppy with consistent love and care until his leg was all cured. Once the puppy could fully walk again, he took off.

A year passed since then and when spring came again, the puppy came back and sat in front of Sam’s house, waving his tail. Sam greeted the puppy with excitement and petted the puppy’s head. The puppy then dropped something on Sam’s hand from his mouth and ran off. It was a small seed. Sam planted the seed in his backyard and took care of it until it grew into a tree. There were strange fruits that Sam had never seen growing on the tree. Once the tree was full of fruits, fruits started to fall off from the tree one by one. Sam picked up one of the fruits that was on the ground. When Sam picked up the fruit, it cracked open in half and jewels and money popped out from the fruit.

“Horray!” Sam yelled in excitement. He got his wife and his children to show them the magical fruit. Sam and his family celebrated together. They no longer had to suffer from the cold or hunger anymore. The fruits brought Sam’s family wealth and they moved to a nice house. Upon hearing the news that Sam became rich, Charles ran to see Sam and to ask him about how he became rich all the sudden. Sam told Charles about the story of how he took care of the puppy and puppy gave something back to him.

“What? It was a puppy that gave you all this wealth?” Charles said it with deep regret. He had remembered how the puppy had come to his house first, but he was cruel to the puppy and kicked him out.

Charles sighed “I should have been nicer to the puppy and take care of it first…”

Sam replied “Well, it’s too late. Once a story is told, it cannot be called back. You should have been careful with your actions.”

Reflections 

I have not written many stories and it was very difficult to think of one since there was a set ending that I had to reach to. So I thought about the moral of the story first which could not change. I worked backwards when creating the story, from the end to the start. Since the moral was something that would be taught to children, I thought about children’s story books that have a simple story line and is easy to tell. When I was telling the story to my friends and family, I found myself telling it with facial expressions and hand movements like I was reading it to the children. I could carry out the story with my own pace and put emphasis on where the excitement was in the story when telling it but when I was writing it down I couldn’t do that so I found it difficult to place emphasis on parts of the stories where I wanted there to be excitement.

I’m unsure if the readers will read the story with the same tone I had intended to with the story but I tried my best by making it simple with short sentences like a children’s book. I wonder if there is a story writing skill that sets the tone of the story and make it intend to sound a certain way in the reader’s head. When I read the story that I have written again, I myself read it differently than when I told the story. I wonder if pictures of written stories set the atmosphere and tone of the story like voice tone and expression does for oral stories?

Question: At the beginning of this lesson I pointed to the idea that technological advances in communication tools have been part of the impetus to rethink the divisive and hierarchical categorizing of literature and orality, and suggested that this is happening for a number of reasons.  I’d like you to consider two aspects of digital literature: 1) social media tools that enable widespread publication, without publishers, and 2) Hypertext, which is the name for the text that lies beyond the text you are reading, until you click. How do you think these capabilities might be impacting literature and story?

With advancements of technology in our modern world, social media has become one of the biggest social norms. The internet has allowed for individuals from different parts of the world to share their free speech and communicate with each other through a variety of different platforms. This creation of www space has changed how literature is obtained, shared and read. The web surface has allowed for a widespread of publication without publishers, where anyone can create and share their work and other people can freely obtain the work without any restrictions. On top of that, the internet has allowed for further discussions and questions to be publicly made on the work through comments and re-posting. This further takes the readers’ greater interpretative control by allowing for creation of a space where on-going discussions, interpretations and thoughts of the work can be shared among other people and the author.

Social media as a storytelling format has broken down some of the boundaries and built a sense of a community. As Chamberlin states “words make us feel closer to the world we live in,” (1) and social media has further made people feel connection to the world by words. Traditionally, there was only a one-way relationship between a reader and author, but now social media allows for unlimited publication and boundless sharing from many people. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Blogs allow for anyone to freely share their thoughts, opinions and join in the discussions. People are able to find and connect with those who have the same interest easily through hashtags, commonly liked pages and search engines. One can personalized what they like to see on their social media by only “following” the works they are interested in and can connect with others who have the same interest through messaging or commenting on each other’s post or comment. Showing support for someone’s work can be easily done by following the person, re-sharing their post and/or liking the post. Because internet is easily accessible and less time consuming compared to getting in touch with people offline, creation of communities on a large-scale number of people are done relatively easily and fast through constant updates and uploads done online.

The openness of the internet has both pros and cons. The cons are that it has led to excessive amount of literature and stories that are much more amateur and some incorrect. However, it has allowed for voices of the minority to share their stories and become successful through self-publishing, proving that they do not need approval from the publisher. People are able to access all kinds of information that are not filtered by what publisher thinks is good but pick and choose what they like themselves.

Great example of a minority voice who have found their success through self-publishing is a famous SNS poet Ha Sang Wook from Korea. He started writing short poems and posted them on Facebook and Twitter which went viral with more than fifty thousand people following his page. The reason he got so many attentions from the public was because he wrote meaningful poems in a witty tone that many readers could sympathise with by using just a few words and unique titles. His poems were very short and yet touched on the reality of the society that many young minds could emphasize with. His poems were one of those poems that were very short, sometimes only having two lines but leaves you with a huge impact and makes you think about it again. An author like him has truly benefited from the fast culture nowadays and made people feel close to the world by words.

Hyperlink is another feature of the digital literature that allows for greater connectivity. Compared to the non-web based text, web contents frequently include hyperlinks that allow for readers to extend their understanding of the literature. Hyperlinks are often placed where the writers want to highlight the information to the reader, but it is always up to the reader’s control whether or not they decide to click on the link and read it. According to a study by Fitzsimmons, although some researchers have claimed that hyperlinks hinder reading because they are a distraction, the study proves that hyperlink does not have a negative effect on the reader’s ability to process the text but rather makes it easier for readers to understand difficult information through hyperlinks.

Works Cited

Chamberlin, J. Edward. “A New History of Reading: Hunting, Tracking, and Reading.” For the Geography of a Soul: Emerging Perspectives on Kamau Braithwaite. Ed. Timothy J. Reiss., 145-164. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2001. 145-164.

Choi, Yoon Ji “Ha Sang Wook, A Poet Who Draws Empathy through SNS.” The Granite Tower, www.thegranitetower.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=802.

Fitzsimmons, Gemma, et al. “On Measuring the Impact of Hyperlinks on Reading.” Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Web Science Conference on – WebSci 13, 2013, doi:10.1145/2464464.2464501.

Hello Everyone!

My name is Cathy Oh and I am very excited to study Canadian literature with you during our upcoming semester! I am in my 3^rdyear at UBC, majoring in psychology. After I graduate, I plan to study more at UBC to become an Elementary school teacher. I was born in South Korea and moved to Vancouver when I was 10 years old. Since then, I have been living and studying in Canada until last year. I went to South Korea as an exchange student for a year and currently I am still residing in Korea right now because of health issues.

Brief course description

ENGL 470 course is a study of Canadian literature in a historical context with a focus on colonial and Indigenous experiences.  We will be reading some written works and examining the roles orality plays in Indigenous literature. The goal of this course is to be able to recognize how stories are used in nation building, canonization and colonization.

Expectations

Although I have lived in Canada for most of my life, I’m very embarrassed to say that I know very little of the history of the Indigenous people and the genre of Canadian literature. I was very shocked when I first learned about how the First Nations were the ones to arrive in Canada but European Canadians tried to assimilate the culture and “civilize” the aboriginal people.

I can still remember the day I went on a field trip in my grade 10 social studies class to a past residential school to experience and learn about what it was like. Before going on the field trip, I learned about the cruelty of the residential schools and when I saw the place with my own eyes, I teared up and got very upset imagining how the young children had to suffer sexual abuses, beatings and mistreatments at the place. Through this course, I expect to become more familiar with Indigenous literature, hearing their voices and being aware of all the sacrifices they have made. I hope to broaden my perspective about the country I will always call home and not be ignorant or have discrimination towards the history of Indigenous people.

Works Cited 

“Residental schools overview. ” National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, University of Manitoba, 20 April 2016, https://web.archive.org/web/20160420012021/http://umanitoba.ca/centres/nctr/overview.html

Northern Affairs Canada. “First Nations in Canada.” Government of Canada; Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, 2 May 2017, www.rcaanccirnac.gc.ca/eng/1307460755710/1536862806124