I never felt like I belonged home, or anywhere else, so I try not to think about it. Home brings mostly depressing memories, and the few sweet moments are snapshots laden with a bitter aftertaste. I don’t like to talk about it because I feel like I have no right to complain—I grew up with both of my parents, we were comfortably middle class, and we even lived well after immigrating to Canada—there are people that faced much worse.

Back in Korea, I was a fat kid, so fat that I had stretch marks when I was only four years old. In kindergarten and elementary, no one came close to how big I was, so I stuck out like a fat, sore thumb. They called me dwaeji (pig), and wangdda (roughly translates to king-loser). Having no friends and self-esteem made me introverted and awkward, making the situation worse. I still remember how it felt when one of my classmates, who also happened to live in my apartment, threw a pizza party and invited everyone in the class except for me. Nobody told me about it until the Monday after. The entire class of first graders had kept the secret from me, even the ones that I didn’t think were mean. I was heartbroken and angry, very, very angry. At times I got so angry that I turned to violence, being too awkward to know how to defend myself with words, I used my body, where I had the size advantage. This resulted in even the teachers turning against me, they saw me as a mean kid with anger issues. My loneliness was deserved.

I hated myself for being fat until I realized something recently. How does a child that young, who has little to no control of their own diet, get so fat, especially with a stay-at-home mom? Well, the reason for it happened to be quite complicated.

To fully understand it, you have to know a bit about my father’s side of the family. When my father was born, his family was in a lot of financial trouble. His father had recently fallen asleep while on shift, which tends to have large consequences if you are a bus driver. Thankfully, having driven the bus into a ditch, the only thing damaged was the bus—damages that he had to compensate for. Being fresh out of a job, under huge debt, and already with three children to take care of, they decided to send their newborn fourth to be taken care of by his aunt. There, my father was neglected and mistreated by his aunt and her two children, until finally returning “home” at the age of eight. His own brother and sisters were strangers to him, and his parents, still working multiple jobs, had little time for him. The neglect, I believe, had damaged him permanently, and he had been a manipulating, apathetic, short-tempered person ever since.

It was my jealous paternal grandmother who manipulated my mother into intentionally overfeeding me. Every single time grandmother visited or called, she would criticize my mother about her awful parenting, about how ugly I was, and that I was too skinny because of her neglect. Bombarded by continuous insults, my mother bent to the words, and to silence it, fed me until I was plump, and when that didn’t stop my grandmother, she continued overfeeding me. At times my mother took out her frustrations on me, making fun of how fat I was, calling me embarrassing for not being able to put on my socks without sitting on my ass, and that she couldn’t find any pants to fit me.

My home was full of screams, either due to my parents fighting, or them disciplining me. Physical punishment was common, and one time, my butt was bruised so bad that I couldn’t sit on the toilet. There, I learned to deal with my problems with screaming and violence.

I feel that my entire family story is of a long, overdrawn divorce. When I was eight, my parents had a fight over something that I was too young to understand. I was hiding in my bedroom with my little brother as we always did, but it felt like the screaming went on forever that night. We heard things being smashed and thrown around, and my mother begging for my father to stop. Eventually, my dad left the apartment, and all that was left was the lonely sound of my mother crying. I found her sitting on the floor of the master bedroom, surrounded by broken glass and a shattered picture frame, trying to tape back together their shredded wedding photo that had always hung on their wall. Before I could say anything, she told me to go back to my room. After that fight, my father didn’t speak a word to my mother for a year and a half while living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed. Can you imagine? That takes some twisted dedication and discipline to maintain something so cruel, but my mother somehow endured it all until my father forgave her.

The situation didn’t change much though. Even after moving to Canada my father continued to be abusive. When I was in tenth grade, he was beating me up so bad I had to run out of home to get away from him, into the Calgarian snowstorm with nothing but shorts, t-shirt, and sneakers. Not thinking straight, I feared he was going to come after me, so I kept running from the house, until, thankfully, a passerby in a warm van picked me up and called the cops. I had to stay at a friend’s place for a little while. Unsurprisingly to me, my mother blamed me for overreacting and betraying my own family. She convinced me to tell the detective nothing was wrong and that it was just a big misunderstanding. Then I was old enough to realize that I couldn’t stay home for much longer, and I moved out as soon as I started university.

Now, I don’t want you to think too badly of my mother. Experiencing domestic abuse first-hand, I can tell you how much people are brainwashed in these situations, and my mother honestly didn’t think anything was wrong. It took her until a few years ago to understand what kind of person my father was when he ran away, transferring their savings in an off-shore account and leaving my mother with nothing. This is when I finally managed to convince her to divorce him—a legal battle that we’re still fighting after two years. Currently, there is no end in sight as my father refuses to cooperate and the majority of their money is still hidden away.

Sorry for not sharing with you any stories that connect me with my home, as there is nothing like that for me, but I suppose my own personal story could be considered a work of non-fiction. I understand “home” can mean more than just your family and dwelling, but having been bullied in Korea and only (relatively) recently gaining enough English skills to properly understand the stories of Canada, I don’t feel connected to either place. Hopefully one day, I will lead my life to someplace I could think of home with a sense of belonging.

(Here are a couple of links to give you an insight into how bullying is like in Korea)

Citations

Before the year of the First Winter, Sun knew only of one people: her own. They were farmers, living off of the work of their calloused hands and sore backs, but knowing of nothing but great health and joyous spirits.

Then one day, she woke up to see her people’s fields and orchards covered in white, like how they covered the faces of their deceased with a white cloth. The winds were colder than anything they had felt before, freezing the tears upon their cheekbones.

Still, her people kept their hopes, they rationed what they had and gathered together in one large house to share a great, roaring fire. They believed—they had to believe—that the winter must end, and that spring will arrive to save them from starvation.

But by the time their pantries ran empty, spring hadn’t arrived, instead, it was Moon and her people that knocked on the door of their home. Moon’s people were of the winter, clothed in animal hides and packing sleds full of meat. They never had a home like Sun’s people, but they were always searching and finding new homes. Today, when they happened upon the snow-covered farm, Moon grew concerned and sought them out. She offered them food, and Sun offered their hearths and homes in return.

Moon’s people hadn’t planned to stay, but they found the land bountiful and the fires warm. When the winter finally ended, Sun’s people shared their harvest, which came reliably and steadily, unlike their hunts.

Slowly over time Moon and Sun grew close together to the point they sought each other’s company whenever they could. While out on long hunts, Moon craved to return to Sun’s warmth, and Sun counted the seconds working the field without Moon by her side.

It was on one of these days of hunts that seemed to last forever that a stranger visited Sun. His face was covered under the shade of a wide-brimmed hat and he walked over to her with a slow and steady purpose. He offered her a story, speaking with a deep, knowing voice that sounded as if it came from within a cave.

“A story?” Sun asked, having never heard of such word.

“A story, my dear Sun, is an event that may have happened, may happen, or may never happen in all of time.”

“A lie, then.”

“A story is many things, but it is never a lie. I offer this story to you, and you may do with it as you wish. You may share it, or keep it for yourself, but only know that once a story is told, it can never be taken back.”

Having no reason to mistrust the man, Sun nodded and listened to his story. He told her about a barbaric people that murdered to live. They were as clever as they were strong, at times patiently setting up cruel traps made of teeth, while other times, mercilessly beating the heads of their victims with clubs made of bone. They knew of nothing but violence and deceit. Travelling from place to place searching for victims, offering them gifts to enter their homes before murdering them in the night. The only survivors were the people wise enough not to trust so willingly.

He said the next part slowly, making sure that Sun could hear every word. “They say, wherever they go, winter follows.” And with that, he bowed to her and walked away, vanishing into the forest.

Sun didn’t know what to make of the story, but she was shaken by the violence and evil, that she ran to her people and told them what she had heard. She didn’t understand the meaning of the story, or that one could even exist, but the part about the survivors seemed a poignant warning.

There was a long silence following the story, and when she felt their fears in the vibrations of the air, she realized her mistake. Then the knocks came at their door, and the whole house jumped. Moon and her people entered, smiling and carrying the bounty of their bloody hunt, only to be met with strange glares. Sun looked around at the eyes of her people who now looked at the hunter’s tools as torturous weapons and their strength as a risk. Sun’s people rose from their seats, shouting and threatening the hunters out of their land by the point of their pitchforks.

They were banished without a reason given, before Sun and Moon could say farewell. Sun, with tears on her cheeks, tried to change the old man’s story, telling a different rendition where it was a lie, but her people’s minds couldn’t be changed. The story was told, and it was forever a part of them.

Thoughts…

I’m so far really enjoying reading and listening to King’s work. I had never thought of the “dangers” of storytelling like the way he tells it. I’ve always been keenly aware of responsible writing as my own writing can sometimes lead to dark places. It’s the type of thought that says, of course, you can write from the perspective of evil/racist/sexist/etc people and they can get away with what they do because it is only realistic, but you have to be careful not to be misunderstood and display them in a positive light or even worse, be encouraging such actions for your readers. King’s type of responsibility is completely different than this, and I love how he uses the difference of the stories coming from Christian cultures and Native cultures to differentiate their cultural values.

I loved reading this story out loud to my friends, I really feel the voice come through so much stronger reading it to people than it does when I read it in my head. I chose to change the story in the way I did because I think the Witch Convention was not a good analogy to teach people why telling a story could be harmful, or even why a story told couldn’t be taken back. I believe that people can become racist without ever having a negative interaction with the said race, due to fear-mongering stories which can lead to an echo-chambers of hate. This is the type of thought that I was trying to channel into this story – something that an innocent person might hear about a group of people and it becomes forever associated, no matter how hard they try to correct it. Let me know what you think about this story!

Citations

Stibel, Jeff. “Fake News: How Our Brains Lead Us into Echo Chambers That Promote Racism and Sexism.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 15 May 2018, www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/2018/05/15/fake-news-social-media-confirmation-bias-echo-chambers/533857002/.

I’m going to write about this even though I might be misunderstanding it. I’m going to write about it because it made me think and because I want to hear other’s opinions about it.

Chamberlin implies there are no such things as oral cultures or written cultures because both cultures practice both methods. He says, even though oral cultures might not have a stereotypical written language, they are rich in writing from their weaves, paintings, and carvings. For written cultures, he says that things such as classrooms, churches, and courts are places where oral tradition is held to great importance.

To me, this seems like a classic case of academic over-thinking. First of all, Chamberlin is taking large liberty of stretching the meaning of “writing” to fit this definition. Are we to start classifying painters as writers now? Surely not. He says written cultures don’t exist because they have oral traditions—which is a misrepresentation of how people utilize the phrase “written culture”. When referring to something as a written culture, nobody has ever meant it to mean it’s devoid of oral traditions, and I’d wager Chamberlin knows this. Let’s think about the context people use the term “written culture”—a simple Google search shows that most of the results are linked to the term “oral culture”, thus confirming the two terms’ interconnectedness. The two terms are utilized to compare which methods cultures use to traditionally pass down knowledge, and the difference is not drawn upon written cultures being devoid of orality, but the opposite: the oral cultures not utilizing written language. This is admitted even by Chamberlin in his examples of each (or rather the “so-called”/”supposed” definitions of each).

Then why change the terms that people utilize to easily communicate these ideas, especially when easy communication is the most fundamental use of language? This is where it gets interesting, and the point that got me emotional. Chamberlin points out that these type of thinking “encourages people to treat other societies with a blend of condescension and contempt while celebrating the sophistication of their own.” Which seems very presumptuous of him, and I personally have never felt condescension nor contempt when looking at “oral cultures”. But let’s say maybe it is a problem with many people, then, is the solution really to discard these terms? What term do we use to describe a culture that does not possess a written history? And if we made a new term for them, wouldn’t it have the exact same supposed problem of condescension and contempt?

MacNeil’s article gives a clearer insight into this issue. She mentions how a bunch of early 1900s Caucasian men from Toronto classified orality to be a primitive medium. She goes further to quote Chamberlin saying “Toronto School “has a lot to answer for in the characterization of oral cultures as more or less backward.” ” This part made it a lot clearer for me as to why Chamberlin is so opposed to these terms—he feels guilty for his predecessors and how they treated “other societies with a blend of condescension and contempt while celebrating the sophistication of their own.” White guilt is something that a lot of people deal with today, and those people can ironically try to pass off their new white, guilty viewpoints onto minorities. Am I, a Korean immigrant, meant to feel guilty for what white men said in the 1900s? Is a Native American mistaken to call his culture “oral”?

In my generation where countless podcasts are being created, millions of hours are spent listening to people on YouTube, and audiobooks are becoming more commonplace and accessible, I can’t imagine my generation having contempt towards orality as Chamberlin suggests. Hell, some are calling social media a revival of oral culture in the west. I really can’t help but feel like this is either an academic overthinking, misunderstanding of the terms, generational disconnect, or white guilt. But at the end of the day, I’m just a student studying literature, and he has a doctorate on this stuff, so what do I know. I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this!

Citations
Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are your stories? Finding Common Ground. Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2003. Print.

Google Search. Google. Web. 16 Jan 2019.

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

Strayed, Cheryl, and Steve Almond. “How Can I Cure My White Guilt?” The New York Times, The New York Times Company, 14 Aug. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/style/white-guilt-privilege.html.

MADRIGAL, ALEXIS C. “Oral Culture, Literate Culture, Twitter Culture.” The Atlantic, The Atlantic Monthly Group, 31 May 2011, www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/oral-culture-literate-culture-twitter-culture/239697/.

I’m a Canadian, but I wasn’t always one. In my wallet, I have a Certificate of Canadian Citizenship which hasn’t ever come in handy except for being a second ID at bars. I feel fortunate that in all my ten years being Canadian, my citizenship has never been questioned, and I feel especially privileged when I look at how our neighbour, US, treat their own Middle-Eastern and Mexican citizens.

I’m South Korean, and my birth nation has faced colonization and oppression as well, but I consider that an event of the past. Of course, the mere existence of N.Korea is a reminder of the Japanese invasion and the meddling of USSR and USA, but my generation of Koreans just think of the North as our unfortunate neighbours. Most of the racism I’ve received came in the early years of living in Canada, and nowadays, (especially after moving to BC) it’s something that I rarely ever encounter. I do not consider my race as a disadvantage. This might be attributed to my improvement in the English language, but I do truly believe people are becoming more accepting (yes, even with all the bullshit in the US—call me an optimist). That doesn’t mean that I think we are in a great place yet. Even as Canadians, that usually like to think of ourselves as the defenders of human rights, still systematically mistreat our native population. Not too long ago, I found out that some hospitals are sterilizing native women without consent—often with government sponsorship.

I’m also an amateur writer, and I’m looking forward to learning about what it means to be a Canadian writer. I love this country, but at times, I feel confused and disconnected to its history and people—in which, the narrative seems to be in a constant state of flux. I’m hoping this course will help me understand that more. I do find it a bit strange that the course which says will teach us “to be able to recognize colonizing narratives and representations” has a reading list represented by mostly Caucasian people. There are, thankfully, a couple of Native writers in that list, but I was hoping for a bit more diverse list, as, to me, seeing viewpoints from many different races is important in studying Canada. Still, I’m excited to be learning about Canadian literature, and I look forward to discussing it with all of you!

Citations
Parker, Courtney. “AN ACT OF GENOCIDE: CANADA’S COERCED STERILIZATION OF FIRST NATIONS WOMEN.” Intercontinental Cry, Center for World Indigenous Studies, 15 Nov. 2018, intercontinentalcry.org/canadas-coerced-sterilization-of-first-nations-women/.

The Canadian Press. “Canada ‘Clear, Strong’ with Saudi Arabia on Human Rights, Trudeau Says.” The Star, Toronto Star Newspapers, 12 Oct. 2018, www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/10/12/canada-clear-strong-with-saudi-arabia-on-human-rights-trudeau-says.html.