Art Studies G02 Blog : Jenny

These past two weeks I have been engulfed by a non-fiction book that was assigned for my Arts Studies class. The book is called Zeitoun written by Dave Eggers. It follows the story of a Syrian-American man and the terrible and wrongful events that happened to him after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I was drawn into this book so much so that I took it everywhere I went hoping that I could get even just 5 mins to read it. I identified strongly with the main character Zeitoun because like him, I consider myself to be a part of a country that is not the country of my parent birth or my country from where my heritage originates from. I connected wit the characters through similar experiences of racial discrimination but like their lives before Hurricane Katrina, the racial discriminations were not something of particular great importance. As I brought the book to work with me one evening, hoping to sneak some time on my break to read more of the story, one of my co-workers asked about the book. I described to him the book and praised it as if it were a master piece of literature and I profusely recommended the book to him.

The week after I so confidently recommended this book to one of my co-workers, my teacher gave us a couple of shocking articles that explained the after math of the people written in the book. Zeitoun was portrayed in the book as a hero and a family man with great values. He was portrayed as someone who, even though was Syrian, valued the same values any other American family would value. The articles that described the aftermath of Katrina and the characters personal lives reported that Zeitoun and his wife got a divorce in 2012. The reason behind this divorce seemed to be that Zeitoun grew out of his family man, hero status and became a violent husband who abused his wife and children. The article also mentions the many arrests of Zeitoun within a 5 and a half month time span. The Zeitoun now contradicts entirely with the Zeitoun that was built up in the book. When my teacher asked our class if we would still recommend this book to people, I was trying to think of an answer in my head but my mouth seemed to talk before I could even formulate an answer. I found my self answering yes before I even had a chance to collect my thoughts. I subconsciously said yes in a confident manner because even before my mind could catch up to my thoughts, I truly believe the book is a great representation of the racism problem that I so strongly identify with. I don’t think that we should use the aftermath of Zeitoun’s character to justify whether this book should be read or whether Zeitoun is a criminal or hero. The aftermath, although some may argue, discredits the book; I believe that the book and the story none the less displays a compelling story of racism, a story that should not be overlooked.

Works Cited

Eggers, D. (2009). Zeitoun. San Francisco: McSweeney’s Books.

William Shakespeare once wrote: “Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable”

This week in our Arts Studies Class we didn’t do much readings but rather we leaned towards forming our own ideas and arguments while starting our research report. When brainstorming about my idea for my research paper I remembered the class discussion we had last semester on Safe Area Gorazde. Near the end of our discussion on the graphic novel, we discussed how Joe Sacco’s character demonstrated a common human characteristic desire to be remarkable. Joe Sacco quickly says at the end of the narrative that he wished his fellow groazde citizens would stay in gorazde and stay where they are in terms of the amount of dependency they needed. Sacco liked the idea of being a hero and of representing the idea of freedom which the people in gorazde did not have. Sacco liked the idea of being remarkable in their eyes.

The idea of being remarkable sparked my interest in the idea of being a human being with these inherent slight character flaws but also simultaneously being a global citizen. I would like to look at how Joe Sacco is presented as a global citizen in the comic narrative Safe Area Gorazde. This interest in global citizenship should come as no surprise as I am entirely invested in the Co-ordinated Arts Program global citizens stream. I want to explore if whether one can really be a true global citizen with the large amounts of disparities between lives of different people from different nations. I will explore the distance between Sacco and his fellow Gorazdians such as Edin, one of his guides in the conflict ridden zone of Gorazde. I am interested in whether this distance should be and could be decreased and whether the decrease would help support global citizenship.

Works Cited

Sacco, Joe. Safe Area Goražde. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics, 2000. Print.

This week in my Arts Studies class we started on a new genre of study, poetry. One poet in particular caught my attention and her poetry really resonated with out main Co-ordinated Arts program theme, global citizenship. In This Connection of Everyone with Lungs written by Spahr, she explores a lot of the main themes that we have been exploring in our class discussions. She notes that even though there are tragedies around the world, we are all connected by the simple action that makes us live, breathing. As we breath, we breath in the same air that everyone shares. As Spahr writes in her poetry, air surrounds everyone and everyone needs it to be a living human being. Spahr breaks down the politics, economics and materialization that separates us and connects everyone with the basic need to live. This connection of everyone ties into what makes us a global citizen but also what hinders us from doing just that.

In Spahrs This Connection of Everyone with lungs Sphar creates images of people turning off their T.V’s and turning a blind eye to the atrocities and crimes being committed around the world. In these images she presents an idea that turning off your global citizens responsibility can be as quick and easy as turning off the lights in your bed room or simply turning off the T.V. This idea of distance between people and events parallels with Judith Butler’s ideas about shared vulnerability and her questioning of whose lives are considered vulnerable and why. In Spahr’s poems, she writes that people can shield themselves from the global world if they choose to do so and Butler in her Frames of War novel examines why people choose to turn away from others. Butler suggests that peoples lives are considered not grievable and not lives to have been lived because she also examines the politics that surrounds those lives. Spahr in contrast just examines the biological connections and ignores the social and political influences. Spahr believes that the biological connection of humans are perhaps more important than the politics. The biology is something innate where as the political is created. Perhaps in understanding this distinction we can re-create the political under the same mind set that we are all connected.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. “Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect.” Frames of War: When
Is Life Grievable? London: Verso, 2009. Print.

Spahr, Juliana. This Connection of Everyone with Lungs Poems. Berkeley: U of
California, 2005. Print.

Coming back from a well rested winter break, my Arts Studies class shifted it’s focus this semester to the war on terror. The war on terror is a heavy subject to some and maybe not of much importance to others. In our class meetings we discussed a lot about what comes up when we think of the words “the war on terror”. There was a wide range of responses from our class however one particular point mentioned caught my attention. As a well diverse class I understood that we may get difference responses but it never occurred to me that not everyone thinks of the war on terror as a big issue/event needing complete and focussed attention. Some of my classmates mentioned that because of their geography, they didn’t really know about the September 11 events that led up to what President Bush calls, the war on terror.

As a Canadian citizen who was born and raised in Canada, for me, the war on terror has great significance and meaning. I’ve never lost anyone in the terrorist attacks on September 11th but I remember vividly the chaos that followed. The media was bombarded with images from the event and my parents were in utter shock mumbling about how victimize the United States were. Because Canada is a neighbouring country of the United States we share many of the ideologies that the U.S thinks and/or implements. For me, the September 11 attacks meant that there was tighter security especially on airplanes and at airports. My parents were scared and I being a product of and influenced by my parents inherited their fear. I assumed every one around the world would be equally if not more terrified than I was but after hearing the responses from my classmates I was surprised.

Some of my classmates said they didn’t really see a change in security because the U.S’s September 11th attack didn’t really have as big of an impact as it did on the States. Being a global citizen I can now understand fully why the event may not be as global as I once thought it to be. Drawing from what I learned about in Political Science and Geography, I can understand that not all countries have the sam relationships that the U.S does with other countries. What one country might call a villain, another country might call a hero or leader. When I went backpacking in Asia this summer I noticed and was surprised on how lose the airport security was. I don’t believe I even went through security for my 13 hour long international flight back to Canada because I was running late and there was no worker at the security location. The security location was also relatively small compared to the security section at the Vancouver International Airport. Some countries might have indifferent feelings about other countries and therefore the affect of an event might not directly reach them. This does not necessarily mean that the war on terror don’t have a global impact. The war on terror changed the way the U.S saw itself in the global community and likewise the reaction of the U.S changed the way the U.S was seen in the international sphere. The war on terror was a important event with a big impact. One can say that the impact can be both minimal but also substantial.

Over the last two weeks, my Arts Studies class focussed heavily on discussing the novel Obasan by Canadian author Joy Kogawa. After two weeks on discussing the historical and literary significance that the novel has on Canada, we took a field trip as a class to visit the Joy Kogawa Fonds housed in the rare books collection on campus at UBC. The Joy Kogawa Fonds were housed at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Inside the rare books library, there were many archival boxes on Joy Kogawa’s works. Everyone in my class was very excited to dig in and start examining the letters and drafts all pertaining to Joy Kogawa’s literary works.

Me and a few of my classmates stumbled upon a box containing the beginning drafts of Kogawa’s novel Obasan. We noticed that on the backs of the draft paper were Chinese characters. Curious as to what they said, we had an international student from China translate the text. The Chinese document were notes from the Canadian prime minister on a speech that he was to deliver in 1950. The speech focussed on the importance of multiculturalism, language and history. The speech recognized the importance of language to Canada; not just English and French language but also a third language. The general gist of the Chinese notes were related to some of the main themes in Kogawa’s Obasan but distant as well.

After much thought, one of my classmates proposed the idea that the Chinese characters on the back of the first draft of the novel could be scrap paper. This led to a number of questions surrounding the draft. Questions such as why Kogawa had Chinese scrap paper on hand in the 1950’s. Our group then discussed the possibility that not only were there a large number of Japanese-Canadians living in Vancouver but evidently there could have been a large population of Chinese immigrants. The issues in the Prime Minister’s speech relate to the values and beliefs that Canada strives to foster and believe in today. It was interesting to see the Prime Minister of Canada build up those beliefs in the 1950’s but also in contrast to the support for the beliefs of multiculturalism; we can see the first draft of the novel on the same piece of paper which showed us how the Canadian government at the time was also pushing against those beliefs to the Japanese-Canadians.

Although our group had lots of questions about the archival material we found in the Joy Kogawa Fonds, we also accepted that archive materials never give a straight forward answer or explanation. It is up to our interpretation as to what is important, why it’s important and what we believe it to mean. Archives give us a glimpse into an individuals thoughts but they also push us to ask more questions leaving us to hunger for more answers.

Over the past couple of weeks in my Arts Studies class, we’ve read a lot of new materials but I particularly gravitated towards and developed a strong interest to the novel that we are currently studying, entitled Obasan by the Japanese Canadian author Joy Kogawa.The novel Obasan and Kogawa herself remind me of the ideas and themes that I explored in my first blog post https://blogs.ubc.ca/jennykduan/2014/09/13/hello-world/. Naomi Nakane, (Na Ka Neh) the main protagonist in this novel is described as a Japanese Canadian born in Vancouver Canada. Her mother is a second generation Japanese Canadian and so much of her family and her life is rooted in Canada.

The novel explores Naomi’s life during world war two as well as the years after the war, primarily in the early 1970’s. In the beginning of the novel on page 5, a particular line caught my interest. In this part of the novel, Naomi is an elementary school teacher years after the war and a student mispronounces her Japanese last name (5). This reminds me of a question that I put out in my first blog post asking what constitutes as a Canadian name. As I think more about this, I start to wonder why is it that society generally requires people of different ethnic decent to have a so called Canadian first name but not a Canadian last name? As in the novel, the little boy in Naomi’s class did not ask for her Canadian last name, nor did the parents of the children ask for it. A part of this could be because people don’t usually address others by their last name as much as their first name, but I wonder if there could be a small aspect relating to the respect of ones heritage. Other people generally do not ask foreigners or immigrants to change their last names to fit the identity of the nation. Some immigrants do change their last names to conform to the nations linguistic culture but most people that do change their last names do so freely. I like to think that people do not generally pressure new immigrants to change their last names because people acknowledge that their last name is something very crucial to their identity and a symbol of their ethnic heritage.Perhaps this is a very idealist way of thinking about the society and that maybe people don’t really care about others ethnic last names because it is not commonly used. I hope this is not the case.

In the novel,some people do question Naomi’s Canadian identity and she gets asked whether or not she is a foreigner. During this time in the novel (1970’s) people are still not very used to the idea of a multicultural Canada, one with people who can be born Canadians and not look white (7). Although times have not changed much, I would like to say that I’ve noticed a greater acceptance of Canadians born in Canada with different ethnicities other than Caucasian. During one of my swim lessons this week, a student of mine asked what my ethnicity was. I told her I was Chinese. She then asked me whether or not I was born in Canada. I replied yes, and she told me that I am very much so Canadian. It didn’t matter to her that my skin is not white. At that moment I felt that society was doing a great job at making Canada a more multicultural nation and I felt prideful to be Canadian.

Over these past couple of week in my Art’s Studies 100 class, we focused on the graphic narrative Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and how the graphic narrative acts as a medium for remembering. Persepolis is a story of a child who lives in Iran, at the time when the country was experiencing not only a revolution but also a war shortly after the insurgency. The graphic narrative gives the readers a different perspective and a different take on a historical event by offering a simple and slightly comedic medium in which the story is told.

During the introduction of the graphic narrative, Satrapi mentioned that she did not want to forget the people who died defending the rights of iranians and that was why persepolis is so important. It acts as a medium to learn about and to remember all those that have died for their country. After reading the entire graphic narrative I wondered whether people in Iran have read the graphic narrative and whether or not they were allowed to even read it at all. This then brought up another question in my head as I did not know what the political state of Iran was and decided to do some research. Joshua Tucker questions whether we can call Iran an “authoritarian theocracy”, that is a government with a religious component that imposes on its followers to blindly follow their rule.

After reading Hillary Chute’s essay on The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, I then learned that Persepolis was accused of being anti-iranian by the Iranian government and copies of Persepolis can only be found illegally in Iran. This surprised me as I never really experienced the oppression of ideas. I grew up in Canada and as a country, Canada is very supportive of the freedom of speech and accepts that not everyone will have the same opinions especially on controversial subjects such as governments. Also in the essay, Chute cites Satrapi’s speech when she won The Cannes Film Festival award for her film Persepolis that she dedicates the award to all Iranians. After reading that I felt sad in that Many Iranians do not have the opportunity to read the graphic narrative that was dedicated to them and to the war and revolution that they suffered. The main message through this graphic narrative is the process of remembering Iran at a time of struggle and now the people that have really been through the struggle is being deprived by this process of remembering, by reading the graphic narrative. I understand that some people in Iran might decide that they do not wish to read the narrative because they agree with the ideas of the current government, but I think that those who might want to read it should have a chance to. On the more positive note, Persepolis has undoubtedly achieved its goal of informing the misinformed (me) about Iran, its people and its culture.

Before coming into university I always knew who I was, my identification and my role in society. I’m a born and raised Canadian and generally I’ve always accepted this broad identification. Over the course of my life however, others consider my identification with Canada as wrong. I’ve been told that I am Chinese because the blood that flows through my veins is of Chinese heritage. This concept always blurred my understanding of the words belonging and identification, but never enough for me to question my citizenship. After Three weeks of courses focused around the idea of global citizenship, I now understand that it is possible to be of both identifications.

The idea of home and belonging came up multiple times in many of my different classes but it wasn’t until after I watched Pico Iyer’s Ted Talk entitled “Where is home” that I realized the validity of the different dimensions of belonging to a place. Perhaps home can be identified as a culture. In this case I would come from a divided world. I practice not only Canadian culture but also Chinese culture. This definition raises the question, “where do I belong?” I don’t know if I am Canadian, Chinese or neither? I wonder if there is a possibility that I could be both? If I am both I would consider myself as a Chinese Canadian rather than leaning towards one or the other culture. With this term “Chinese Canadian” being assimilated more regularly into daily language, I wonder if this term is strong enough to stand on its own and to compete against terms such as “Canadian” or “Chinese” as more and more people are growing up in mixed culture backgrounds.

On it’s own, the term “Chinese Canadian” adds to the complex idea of globalization. As this amalgamation of cultures is happening, the argument against it is the lose of original cultures. On page 32 of Farhat Shahzad’s essay entitled The Role of Interpretative Communities in Remembering and Learning, Shahzad quotes a 19 year old immigrant from Sri Lanka, stating that his mother would always get asked to give the Canadian community her Canadian name. What constitutes a Canadian name and what are the criteria’s for it to be considered Canadian? The most simple criteria that I can think of is that it must use the english alphabet. In that case, could a name originating elsewhere be converted into a Canadian name by writing out the pronunciations of the original name with english letters? I believe that this would be a good way to incorporate different cultures into the community but also preserve heritage. I would like to think that this is a plausible strategy for globalization to prosper but also preserving individual heritage.