Prompt: amend aspects of Silko’s story of how evil came into the world (King 9) and discuss experience of telling it, orally, to others.

Note: regular font is first draft; bolded font is stuff I added post-telling. Update May 31: Added a link to alien conspiracy theories, if anyone’s into that kind of stuff.

The story

So you know how there’s this conspiracy theory that aliens have visited our planet and been in cahoots with some of our leaders for thousands of years? That Jesus Christ, Buddha, or Quetzalcoatl were actually aliens. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s actually true.

Aliens first visited Earth around the time most of us were still figuring out how to build fires and feed ourselves. The aliens came to Earth in their shiny spaceships and looked around at all the humans scratching around for food.

Seeing the humans work so hard (but so pathetically) to carve out a living, the aliens decided to help them. They taught the humans how to build fires, make bows and arrows, raise animals, and the basics of farming. The humans were eager learners and listened tirelessly to the aliens, who were impressed by their curiosity, imagination, and ability to learn.

When it was time for the aliens to go (their ships needed re-fueling), they gathered the humans and threw a farewell party. The humans didn’t want the aliens to leave, because although the aliens had taught them so many new skills, they obviously didn’t have time to teach them everything. So the alien chief said, “Why don’t you guys ask us one last question, and we’ll do our best to answer it? Any question you wish. But we only have time for one.”

The humans talked among themselves: what could they ask the aliens? How to build a spaceship? What the hell was electricity? How to improve the irrigation system? And while all the adults were discussing all this, a young child at the front of the crowd—no one remembers if it was a boy or girl—decided to pose this question: “Sir, you’ve taught us how to make weapons and hunt, killing animals for food. But what happens if we use those weapons to kill a person??”

Everyone stopped talking. Until then, no human and ever killed another human. The concept did not exist.

“Well, child, that’s murder,” said the alien chief, “and murder is terrible.”

The child was still curious. “Could you explain a little more?”

“It’s very painful, and it’s very sad. It’s something only bad individuals will do, to rob, to avenge, to delight in the pain of others.” Then, in order to help the child further understand, the alien chief proceeded to tell the humans a folktale among their own culture, one about two brothers. The older brother was heir to their parents’ farm, and the younger brother killed the older brother for it. The murderous brother shot his brother through the heart with an arrow, stabbed his neck with a knife, and left him in a field to die. He did all this to get the inheritance he couldn’t have. “Sometimes good things, like inheritances, can happen to bad people, like murders,” said the alien chief. “Unfortunately, this is the way of the world.”

After hearing this story the humans were all silent, and the alien chief regretted telling it right away. But it was time to go, and so the aliens left.

The aliens visited again a hundred years later. By then, Earth had changed drastically. The humans were all living in their own walled and fenced communities. Their cattle and crops were firmly protected by people armed with bows and arrows, not to shoot at prey, but to shoot at other people.

You see, you have to be very careful with the stories you tell and the stories you listen to, because once a story is told, it can never be taken back.

The experience

I really liked the original version of the story, but I wanted to make my version “contemporary”—hence the sci-fi alien conspiracy theory stuff—and more casual, told like the story of Charm in King’s novel. I told this story to a friend while we were riding the bus, and she described it as “a mix of sci-fi and Aesop’s fable.”

I drafted the story here first. Upon returning, I realized I’d left out some finer details, including words that might have made the story more exciting. I also added words spontaneously in my tellings, such as describing the humans as “pathetic.” One listener, when she heard the story, also posed the question “Why would a kid who knew nothing of murder ask about murder?” so I had to fill in that (quite obvious) gaping detail by mentioning that he/she made the connection with hunting for animals. I also fleshed out the aliens’ story by giving it a more definitive ending. One thing I regret is forgetting to start with “I have a great story to tell you” as suggested in the prompt; instead I used something along the lines of “Would you like to hear a story?” I wonder if the opener would have changed the audience’s perception.

Storytelling was more difficult than I expected. I’m a creative writing major, so I’m used to fine-tuning my sentences before going public. I’m not the most collected speaker, so speaking smoothly was hard. However, I like gesturing, and I used hand motions to accentuate the violence of the fraternal killing. That was fun.

I wanted to be entertaining, but gee, being entertaining is hard. And Mark Twain agrees: “There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind—the humorous . . . The humorous story is strictly a work of art—high and delicate art— and only an artist can tell it.”

When I googled “how to tell a story,” surprisingly, I found many business articles such as this one. I never connected something as “artsy” as storytelling to the commerce world, but now I can see it as a useful transferable skill.

Sorry for the extra-long post! And thanks for sticking to the end 🙂

Works Cited

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Inc., 2003.

O’Hara, Carolyn. “How to Tell a Great Story.” Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Publishing, 30 July 2014. Web. 28 May 2015.

Twain, Mark. “How to Tell a Story.” About.com Education: Classic Literature. About.com, n.d. Web. 28 May 2015.

Zolfagharifard, Ellie. “Governments are HIDING aliens, claims former defence minister: Paul Hellyer urges world leaders to reveal ‘secret files’.” Mail Online. Associated Newspapers Ltd., 22 April 2015, updated 23 April 2015. Web. 30 May 2015.

Works Consulted

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1:3.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres May 2015. The University of British Columbia Department of English, n.d. Web. 28 May 2015.

The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 28 May 2015.

Prompt: Words. Chamberlin talks a lot about language, in particular the strangeness and wonder of how language works. Stories, he says, “bring us close to the world we live in by taking us into the world of words” (italics mine,1).  He describes learning to read and write as learning “to be comfortable with a cat that is both there and not there”  (132). Based on Chamberlin’s understanding of how riddles and charms work, explain this “world of words.” Reflect on why “words make us feel closer to the world we live in” (1).

—Dr. Erika Paterson, ENGL 470 Lesson 1:2

—

I’d like to begin by reflecting on how I learned to read words, which is a very difficult memory to conjure because I learned how to read at a very early age. I cannot remember a world where a physical thing could not be represented by a black-and-white graphic, and now I wonder how I would be perceiving the world if I’d never learned that…

I learned how to read in Chinese first and I think Chinese was easier for a child to grasp in terms of understanding the concept of reading. Chinese doesn’t use an alphabet or phonetic sounds; rather, characters are unique symbols that stand for a unique thing. Chinese characters are also derived from pictographs; for example, the character for “fire” actually looks like fire. This reminds me of my classmate’s Alyssa Ready’s first post about the importance of recognizing non-western symbols in literature: for western readers, a symbol is metaphorical and conceptual, but for non-western readers, symbols can be practical and conceptual at once. Indeed, “metaphor is the basic trick of language” and “[l]inguists used to say that every word was once a metaphor” (Chamberlin 163).

I learned how to read in English thanks to both the diligent tutelage of my mother’s flashcards and my own interest in reading. As a shy and imaginative only child, I loved reading because it could be done alone. Reading was a way to entertain myself and escape from everyday humdrum. After I learned how to “sound things out”, reading in English came easily to me. If I didn’t know a word, all I had to do was consult a dictionary.

Reading gave me agency. Gave me an individuality, an independence. Notice how many of these kids talk about how reading will help with their future career. Another example is a widely-circulated YouTube video on the power of words—changing how you say the same message can endow it more power.

Being able to read words gave me power: power to relate to those who didn’t live in my non-English-speaking household and power to explore worlds on my own with minimal adult help. Especially for children, who don’t have much power, this was a big deal.

Words connected me to both my non-English-speaking private life and my English-speaking public one. I have clear memories of things “lost in translation” too—there were certain concepts I learned in Chinese that I struggled with translating to English, and vice versa. Which created a sort of miniature culture-clash on the playground. There were things I could never really describe “properly.” To give you a sense of what I mean, here is a fun Lifehack list of words (and concepts!) not available in the English language.

I loved Chamberlin’s chapter on riddles the most, as I think it relates well with my experience of growing up with two languages. I learned early on that a character was “pure metaphor, the basis of all belief” (Chamberlin 160). And when I was introduced to the phonetic system and a language that described the world in a way completely different from the world in Chinese, I had to change my understanding of the world the way Chamberlin claims Homer did (161).

The magic of words lie in their ability to give power. Take away words, and you take away more than a child’s adventure. You can take away entire civilizations’ ability to tell their stories and express what they mean, what they really mean, and take away your own potential power to understand them.

*This goes longer than the post’s prescribed word count, but if you have extra time and more interest, may I direct you to my reply to Gretta’s comment (the first comment on this post), in which I describe in further detail the uniqueness of written Chinese in the presence of dialects. There is an analogous relationship here to oral vs. written subculture, as most Chinese dialects that are not Mandarin cannot be written, but are often fiercely—almost patriotically—protected against extinction by its speakers.

Works cited and consulted

Argane, Hiba. “Lost in Translation: 30 Words With No English Equivalent.” Lifehack. Lifehack, n.d. Web. 19 May 2015.

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.

Gardner, Andrea. “The Power of Words.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 23 Feb. 2013. Web. 20 May 2015. (Citation format suggested by Purdue OWL because MLA guide doesn’t have one).

Grozdanic, Ajla. “Kids from around the World Tell Us Why They Love to Read.” Save the Children. Save the Children, 14 Feb. 2013. Web. 19 May 2015.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1:2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres May 2015. The University of British Columbia Department of English, n.d. Web. 19 May 2015.

Ready, Alyssa. “Hello world-This is me.” Alyssa Ready. The University of British Columbia student blogs, 13 May 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 20 May 2015.

As a British Columbian totem poles like these are a common sight. They’re pretty to look at, but how many of us know the actual stories behind them?

Heya, I’m Charmaine, and I’m about to embark on a storytelling tour of Canadian literature with ENGL470. (Join me on the ride and pitch a thought in the comment section once in a while?) I major in English Literature and Creative Writing, so reading stories (and writing ’em) constitute a large chunk of my life. I just came back from a year of doing co-op, so I’m super-excited to dip back into academia!

To be honest, when I think of “Canadian literature,” the first things that come to mind are the rather boring pieces I read in high school: like that Alice Munro story (“Boys and Girls,” I think) about the kids in the prairies skinning foxes and riding horses. The stories about “days of yore.” When my books arrived for 470, however, the abundance of (contemporary!) Native Canadian literature excited me. I think this (sub)genre is often ignored (in preference to authors like Atwood and  Munro).

I think it’s difficult to define what is Canadian literature because it’s difficult to define who or what is “Canadian” to begin with. Stereotypes like maple syrup and hockey don’t apply to many of us, especially to First Nations and children of immigrants like myself (I’m a second-generation Canadian of East Asian descent).

So I think it’s important to read widely when it comes to studying Canadian literature. It’s fair to read your share of Atwood and Munro, but we should also be aware of the Thomas Kings and the Joy Ogawas.

One thing I’m optimistic about this course is learning a more authentic, honest, portrayal of Aboriginal culture and experience through Aboriginal fiction written by Aboriginals. As a non-Aboriginal, the majority of discourse I hear about the First Nations experience is through media and non-Aboriginals, and I hesitate to attach much truth to those accounts. Most Canadians know that our First Nations folks face an array of challenges, but few of us know exactly what, how, or why these challenges happen.

Because of our ignorance, we tend to attach blame. Oh, it’s the Indian Act‘s fault. No, it’s the chiefs that are being unaccountable. (Who hasn’t heard of these claims?) We lump people’s experiences together and we also simplify and superficial-ize them. Which isn’t fair.

I don’t think there’s a surefire way to truly understand a person, or a group’s, experience when you weren’t there. But I think the closest way one can attempt to understand is through first-hand telling of stories, which is what I’m excited about for this class.

What do you think about when you think about Canadian literature?

Works Cited:

Hanson, Eric. “The Indian Act.” Indigenous Foundations. The University of British Columbia First Nations Studies Program, n.d. Web. 11 May 2015.

“Overview: Struggling to Escape a Legacy of Oppression.” Centre for Social Justice. The Centre for Social Justice, n.d. Web. 11 May 2015.

Paterson, Erika. ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres — May 2015. The University of British Columbia Department of English, 8 Jan. 2015. Web. 11 May 2015.

Schwartz, Daniel. “7 questions about First Nations accountability.” CBC News. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 11 May 2015.

Timms, Philip. Alert Bay Totems. 1900s. Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 12 May 2015. (This is a Public Domain image via Wikimedia Commons)