Fiona's English 470A Blog

My task was to examine pg. 94-102 in King’s Green Grass Running Water. Page 94-96 focuses on the interaction between Sergeant Cereno and Dr. Joe Hovaugh, where the Hovaugh explains his grandfather’s vision of building the hospital, and he began by buying a piece of land from a local tribe. When I was reading this story out loud, I found out that the doctor’s name sounded like Jehovah, as Professor Paterson has also pointed out. With that being said, King makes a reference that places him in the Christian mythological framework. However, rather than making the doctor an almighty, all-knowing individual, Dr. Joe Hovaugh is portrayed as clueless and confused. He also finds difficulty interacting with people around him. The purpose of Dr. Hovaugh’s character seems unsettle the relationship between indigenous people and the Christian majority. However, Dr. Hovaugh is also a powerful character who dislikes those who challenges his position or authority. He is like a God in the way where he regards the natives as mentally unstable. The doctor’s attitude towards the natives projects the same way as how Caucasians saw Natives as savages who required attention and education.

Page 97 concerns Norma and Lionel driving when they spot the four Indians on the side of the road, lost.

Page 98 includes Alberta, Patrolman Delano, Sergeant Cereno, and Lionel asking, “Where did the water come from?” one after another. To my understanding, each of the four main characters share a creation story that explains for the amount of water. Thus, King uses these four characters to tell a symbolic narrative of how the world was created and what the first people on earth did.

Finally, page 99-100 is about First Woman and Ahdamn taken to a train station. As the First Woman and Ahdamn are leaving, there is a guard that shouts when he sees the Lone Ranger walking out of the prison. The Lone Ranger, Robinson Crusoe, Hawkeye, and Ishmael leave together and head West. The Lone Ranger, Robinson Crusoe, Hawkeye and Ishmael are all Caucasian characters from western literature. However, King has transformed these characters into natives in this novel to present an alternative perspective to the stories. The purpose of this alteration is to disrupt their perceived notions as heroic and brave as Western protagonist figures. Instead, King portrays these characters differently to mock them. Not only do they undermine the popular attitude of western literary figures, but biblical figures as well. Ultimately, as Flick so puts it, “there’s a lot of material to pack in and the only way to do it is through promoting lateral (or bilateral or trilateral) cross-border thinking in the reader” (Flick, 138)

References:

Fee, Margery and Flick, Jane. “Coyote Pedagogy: Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canlit.ca: Canadian Literature, 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.

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

Paterson, Erika. “ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres”. ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres. 2014. Web. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl470/unit-3/lesson-3-3/>

I am currently taking an adult education course that often uses the word ‘andragogy,’ which refers to teaching strategies developed for adult learners. Thus, I am also familiar with the term ‘pedagogy’ as it refers to the method and practice of teaching. I find Fee and Flick’s term of Coyote Pedagogy quite relatable and adaptable to what we’re studying right now because the lessons we learn from the coyote is quite educational.

According to Warn in her article “A Trickster Paradigm in First Nations Visual Art: A Contemporary Application,” native reality “is best understood through the trickster, who has always been known to First Nations people through oral traditions, and who is best described as a creator that is constantly transforming and shape-shifting” (Warn, 4). With that being said, I think the role of the coyote in this sense is to unsettle the preconceived notions of the history of Canadian literature and even native studies, and truly try to understand what the motive of the Coyote wants the readers/audience to see. As Fee and Flick point out in their article, “King’s strategy for writing for an audience primarily composed of the uniformed is not to pander to its preconceptions or to produce explanations, but to entice, even trick this audience into finding out for themselves” (Fee and Flick, 132).

My understanding of the Coyote as the trickster is to intervene in the story to get readers to perceive stories from a new perspective, or to ask readers to consider old stories with different outcomes. For example, when the coyote cannot interpret a story or misreads it, this misunderstanding of the Coyote is similar to our own interpretation a story from one perspective only. As readers, we are often told old stories once as a very young age and most probably have stuck to that specific telling of a story. What the Coyote does is complicates our understanding by making us question the truth and falsehood.

Perhaps what the Coyote asks us to do is consider stories from different perspectives, and don’t always base your understanding according to one viewpoint. Most importantly, the role of the coyote is to give readers the freedom to make their own interpretations and conclusions. For example, Alberta begins to explain to her students about the four Indians, Robinson Crusoe, Ishmael, Lone Ranger, and Hawkeye. Suddenly, they are brought to a different century where they try to change the world. Alberta continues to teach her lesson, asking students to come up with meanings to the drawings. However, none of the students understood a thing, which signifies that the students are not culturally educated. The Coyote is significant because he is tasked to bring these two different worlds together, that of the European invaders and the Native population. The purpose of the Coyote as a trickster is to tie the two worlds together in the form of a story, to promote critical thinking between Canadian literature and Native studies.

Fee, Margery and Flick, Jane. “Coyote Pedagogy: Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canlit.ca: Canadian Literature, 2012. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1993. Print.

Warn, Jaime Dawn-Lyn. A trickster paradigm in First Nations visual art: a contemporary application. Diss. Lethbridge, Alta.: University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Arts and Science, 2007, 2007.

Reading King’s Green Grass, Running Water was like reading a sequel to Robinson’s Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England. Because both stories had characters with coyotes in them, it made me even more confused, as if the two stories overlapped one another. There are many narrative elements that are similar in the two stories that replicate the type of storytelling experience so often promoted by Robinson.

I decided to make a comparative chart on the similarities and differences I noticed in Robinson and King’s style of narrative. In Robinson’s Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England, I noticed that the sentences are short and terse. This mocks the type of storytelling a person would use as if they were pausing and breathing in-between sentences. As a result, the effect of this type of storytelling is quite realistic and adheres to the elements of oral creation stories. The short sentences may also mean that the storyteller is pausing to make sure the audience understands the story. I think the way Robinson narrates the story is very effective in addressing readers and the audience directly because of this assumed feeling of intimacy and friendliness. This strategy is also effective in drawing in readers to LISTEN. Quite similarly, in King’s Green Grass, Running Water, the coyote also beging the story with brief and short sentences, just like Robinson’s. I think both authors use this technique as a way of engaging and interacting with readers, to draw them in closely and make them listen to the story carefully.

Another similarity these two stories shared is the frequent amount of dialogue between characters. This type of back and forth conversation between characters requires the narrator to act as if he was reproducing a scene, which I believe is another element of great storytelling. These dialogues enhance liveliness in a story, which can give the audience/readers the feeling that they are actually experiencing the story again, or as if they were actually in that scenario, reliving the moment. King and Robinson do an exquisite job at retelling their journey or what the characters are seeing exactly to share their story. I think that King has adopted to Robinson’s narrative skills well, and the two authors together do a wonderful job in creating a lively story through the performance of storytelling.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3.1.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres.  15 Apr. 2014. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl470/unit-3/lesson-3-1/>.

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

Robinson, Harry. “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England.” Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. 64-85.

I decided to do my assignment on the reading of “Coyote Makes A Deal with King of England”. I was fascinated by this question when I first read it because I always thought that reading aloud made storytelling so much more entertaining. Moving to Vancouver from Hong Kong, English was my second language. I picked up on English fairly quickly with the help of the new friends I had made. Because English was my second language, I always tried to make sure I pronounced words correctly. As a result I was taught to enunciate clearly. I stressed each syllable with enthusiasm, and so my speech always came off as bubbly and a bit theatrical. No wonder why I agree with King that patterns, structures and themes come from oral literature! I feel like storytelling is a type of performance, therefore we should always engage with the audience by making use of the tone in our voice.

When I read the story silently the first time, I found myself stumbling and re-reading the line over and over again. It was a bit difficult to comprehend because the grammar did not always make sense. The enjambment also made the content of the story hard to follow. There just wasn’t much flow to the story because I kept stopping and re-reading the same sentence.

As I read it aloud, I found myself building confidence as I read. I didn’t stop reading until I saw a period so the enjambment didn’t hinder my reading as much. I also thought that I was narrating the story, so when I got to the part where it said “And one time, they see somebody in the water”, I changed the tone of my voice to make it sound like I was curious. By changing the tone, the story definitely sounded more intriguing and interesting. In contrast to reading it silently in my head, reading it aloud changed my thoughts of the story. It was definitely a different experience.

When I got my friend to read the story to me, she too, read it with a theatrical and convincing tone in her voice. I was actually quite engaged with her due to her amusing storyteller voice. She also used hand gestures that reeled in my attention; I wanted to know more about the story. As she got to the end of the story and said “but they never can get close”, her “but” was an exaggerated one – it was like the climax of the story where the coyote was just about to find out who was in the water, BUT they never got close enough to see. Her hand gestures and amusing voice undoubtedly contributed to persuasive storytelling.

References:

Robinson, Harry, and Wendy C. Wickwire. Living by stories: a journey of landscape and memory. Talonbooks Limited, 2005.

#2: A Lost Translation in Meaningfulness

Meaningfulness is lost amongst the first stories because the process of collecting and translating stories becomes disconnected from the story. This is problematic because the first story then loses it’s sense of immediacy and connection to readers. As a result, the purpose of the story may be lost throughout the many processes of publishing, which seriously impacts the meaningfulness of the content.

Another obstacle that affected the meaningfulness of the first stories was the major time gap that occurred between 1880 and 1951. Because the Indian Act outlawed the right to tell and retell stories, the possibility of storytelling was extremely limited and rare. Due to the huge time gap that is nearly a century, we should acknowledge that generations of families could have gone by. It is highly possible that memory of the first stories have been lost because they have not been told and retold throughout the 75 years. As a result, generation after generation, the first stories may have been changed or shifted due to a lack of memory, which again affects the overall meaningfulness of the content. Further, the credibility of the stories is certainly questionable after all these years of prohibited storytelling.

From Wickwire’s introduction, a third reason why our abilities to make meaning is disrupted is because of a lack of “detail, dialogue, and color”. Wickwire also mentions that it is less interesting reading about a story that sounded so interesting when it is told orally by Henry but sounded so ‘lifeless’ written in paper. Speaking from personal experience, I must agree with Wickwire on this point because the different tones in a person’s voice is so much more vibrant and enjoyable to hear in contrast to reading a lengthy paper about the same content. Furthermore, Wickwire mentioned that the original content had been translated into Latin and removed from the main text and transferred into footnotes instead. This removes meaningfulness because when the original text is removed and transferred into a footnote instead, I would assume that piece of text is less important and quite frankly even gloss over the content without reading it. With that being said, reading a story, I wouldn’t even know what to consider as important or try to seek meaning in a particular passage if the main text has been transferred to a footnote.

References:

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory. 2005. Web. <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ubc/docDetail.action?docID=10225654>.

After reading a handful of blogs, I have felt nostalgic and sentimental for the past because each classmate’s definition of home brings back many memories. I sincerely enjoyed reading your stories and appreciate that some have gone so in-depth in sharing them. I know sometimes it’s not that easy re-telling a story that comes with emotional weight, so I just wanted to say thank you everyone for sharing your intimate past! With that being said, I found some commonalities of ‘home’ that I wanted to touch on:

Home is

• wherever parents are
• welcoming
• a place of belonging
• a place of longing/missing
• love and acceptance
• warmth
• a shelter
• feeling protected
• filled with memories – both good and bad

I also wanted to address the following quotes from classmates Gillian and Sam because I find myself relating to their definition of home:

“there is ALWAYS a full fridge at home, stuffed full of the most delectable food and wine. Compared to my student fridge of hot sauce and pickles, a full fridge is a divine luxury upon returning home.” https://blogs.ubc.ca/gillianmciver/

I decided to move out for my last year at UBC, which means I am away from home but closer to campus. This is the first time living by myself, which means I have to do all the cooking. Due to my lazy nature and lack of cooking skills, I never have a stocked fridge. Like Gillian, I usually have some condiments and maybe (if I’m lucky) some leftover from a restaurant. So, whenever I head home, I get VERY excited to open a fridge full of food, not to mention eating the most delicious, comforting ‘home food’ my mother cooks.

“Home is so much more than a geographical location.  […]It doesn’t even have to be a place. Home can be a group of friends that have opened up their arms to you when you needed it the most.” https://blogs.ubc.ca/samellisengl470/

I relate to this quote because I have pretty much lived with my family my entire life. I only moved out for my final year at UBC because I couldn’t stand 3 hour commute rides. With that being said, living on my own for the first time can get extremely lonely. I am constantly accompanied by silence, there is no one to talk to, and I find a lot of time by myself. It really is great to have a circle of friends that I can be with at times I feel lonely, or when I just need someone to talk to. Even sharing a meal together makes the worlds difference in my opinion. For that reason, I am so grateful to have met a handful of people at UBC who I can call my second family.

I wanted to address two aspects of home in my story: the first is where I call my home and the second is my definition of home.

When I first moved to Port Coquitlam when I was five, I really did not consider Canada my home. My mom, brother and I had moved in with my Aunt’s family, which also included her sister-in-law’s family as well. Needless to say, the house was always bustling with noise and crowded most of the time. I remember my elementary school years filled with unfamiliarity and frustration; I wasn’t fluent at speaking English and it was very difficult making friends. Each time I had a spelling test, I wouldn’t know half the words. Because it was a struggle to adapt to school, I didn’t enjoy much of my time there. I always looked forward to going home where I would be greeted by familiar faces. Further, I remember counting down the days I could return to Hong Kong to visit my dad. To me, Hong Kong was my true home even though I had migrated to Canada. My fondest memories of Hong Kong at the tender age of 5 were spending time with my grandparents in my old apartment, eating delicious street food like curry balls and skewers, and drinking Vita lemon tea (which is equivalent to juice boxes here) on a hot, humid day. What I cherished most about life in Hong Kong was the sense of familiarity – I understood the language, most of my family members were there, and the buildings and markets always gave me a sense of belonging.

However, my sense and outlook of a home has changed as my stay in Vancouver extended. When my dad moved to Vancouver in 2004, my family and I decided that it was finally time for us to move out into a house of our own. We found a neat Japanese-inspired home up the mountains in Coquitlam. As the years have passed, more and more memories were made in that house with the people I love and respect. My sense of home has shifted from Hong Kong to Canada ever since my immigration because I no longer visited Hong Kong as often. Because my immediate family members were all in Canada, I finally felt like my family was settled in Canada. I guess you could say that there was a sense of relief because I knew I wasn’t going to move elsewhere. For that reason, I consider my family a huge part of my home and regard the two as synonymous with one another. I connect Canada to my home because that is where my family is. The sense of welcoming and belonging given to me by my family is incomparable to any other feeling. It brings me joy just to think of that particular feeling because I think of warmth and acceptance. I want to end this response with a quote that fits perfectly with my definition of a home and has resonated with me since I read it: It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home.

I have a great story to tell you.

Hundreds and hundreds of years ago when the world first formed, there was a tiny village called Celka filled with little human beings. These humans had an abundance of everything – food, shelter, water, clothes, and money. The people in the community were very welcoming and close with one another, they often ate together, played together, and worked together. These Celkans were practically like one big family because they loved each other all the same, and did whatever they could to protect each other from harm.

Celka thrived as a community because of one very important element: everyone spoke nothing but the truth. In this reality, everyone spoke bluntly and expressed their honest opinions, no matter how difficult it was to hear. Because lying was not heard of, no one believed in a religion. No one saw a point in lying because of it’s insincerity and hurtful repercussions to the people of Celka. That is why Celka was always a jolly, cheerful place. I guess you could say Celka wasn’t a very creative community due to the absence of fiction; all their stories that were told were based on factual evidence or historical events.

One day, there were two girls that were running along the valley hills, playing with daisies and blowing dandelions. The two girls ran and ran and ran until they were out of breath so they decided to rest under a huge oak tree. While the girls were catching their breath, they decided to tell each other stories. The rule was whoever could tell the most interesting historical event will win. The younger girl knew that she couldn’t beat her friend because she was much older and knew many more facts than her. So, the younger girl thought and thought until her little brain started hurting. Suddenly, like a lightbulb, she had an idea. She could take what she knew of an event and twist the truth, just a little, until the story is so appalling she had to win. So the little girl told the story of how wickedness came into Celka many years ago. The story was so frightening that the elder, much more educated girl, was haunted. The elder girl said, “it isn’t so funny. It doesn’t sound so good. Take it back. Call that story back.” But, of course, it was too late. For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world.

This story actually took me a while to write because I wanted to incorporate so many minor details. It ended up being too long so I had to change the entire ending! I had a lot of fun though because I liked how I could change the outcome, or change any parts of the story because I was the storyteller. I felt like I had a lot of power and even a boost of creativity, haha! Part of the story, specifically the truth telling part, was inspired by the movie The Invention of Lying. So basically this story kills two birds with one stone because it talks about the origins of wickedness and lying. Score!

Reference:

King, Thomas. ““You’ll Never Believe What Happened” Is Always a Great Way to Start.” The Truth About Stories. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2013. <http://www.houseofanansi.com/Assets/ProductAssets/TruthAboutStories/TruthAboutStories_chapter.pdf>.

The beauty of the world wide web has allowed literature to become more universal and accessible. How, might you ask? Readers across the globe are able to access a piece of literary text within seconds of typing in a web link. Readers can also share, comment, or ‘like’ a post within a fraction of a second. This is where the aspect of accessibility comes in; nowadays technology is so swift and handy that most of us have a smart phone or device with us almost anywhere we go. As a result, with the combination of mobile data or WiFi access, individuals can freely read these texts anytime, anywhere. While it is more difficult to share a story with others via storytelling, the www allows readers to share it instantaneously with others no matter how close or far individuals may be. Hence, the universality factor of the www. As we have learned from the 1:2 lesson written by Professor Paterson, there is a distinction between a reader and listener in the world of storytelling. However, digital literature gives readers the opportunity to interpret, analyze, and respond to a text moments after reading it. Furthermore, readers can even remake the story to their liking, so it would be a modern way of storytelling if you will. I want to build on a phrase from lesson 1:2, “digital literature is textual and aural and visual”. The impact of digital literature is that it offers a story to readers in the form of text, but it also presents to readers an image, which is delightful because readers now have something to visualize instead of only reading about. In addition to images, video clips can be also added to websites, so that readers can simultaneously hear sound with pictures in motion. For example, let us imagine the topic of totem poles. I can include a webpage about totem poles that includes text and an image. But the beauty of digital literature is that I can include a video clip so viewers can further educate themselves on totem poles by visualizing and listening to the clip. By including video clips, viewers are turned into listeners, which is a different form of storytelling because the reader and literature are no longer present. As a result, digital literature compels the modern individual to interpret literature in a variety of ways including analyzing, replying, sharing, and remaking a piece of text that is accessible to the world. Social media tools give readers fluidity to carry on multiple tasks such as the ones mentioned above, rather than exclusively reading and interpreting literature by paper.

(Warning: following paragraph contains excessive hyperlinks, click at your own risk.) Hypertext on the other hand, adds a continuum of knowledge for readers. For example, readers can learn more about totem poles only if they are interested enough to click the link. Once readers have clicked the link however, they become more aware of the topic, and may also feel closer to the author who posted the article. There is a sense of intimacy in clicking a hyperlink because the reader is opening themselves up to more knowledge about a specific topic. For example, Professor Paterson’s story about intersections included a purple umbrella. The significance of this purple umbrella would never acknowledged if Professor Paterson hadn’t hyperlinked a side story of the umbrella in detail. Thus, the hyperlink creates a sense of intimacy and closeness between the reader and author because the reader is now more knowledgable about the importance of the umbrella. Hypertext also jumps from web page to web page, which leads to more outlets and information rather than reading a book that results in one ending no matter how many times you read it. I have included multiple gifs here to exemplify the use of hyperlinks, but also for the sake of using gifs, and comedic effects (is it working?). All in all, hyperlinks are a fun way to present an opportunity to readers to find out more about a specific topic which can ultimately alter/affect the way readers interpret/analyze specific literature online.

Works Cited:

“Totem Pole.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2014. <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/totem-pole/>.

Hi everyone,

My name is Fiona and I’m a 4th year English student at UBC. I am also very excited to announce that it is my last semester of undergrad! Other than majoring in English literature, I am also fascinated with human social behavior, which is why I am minoring in sociology. This is my first time taking an online english course, so I’m interested to see everyone’s take on literature through the platform of a blog.

I was born in Hong Kong but moved to Coquitlam BC when I was five. Therefore I was raised in BC, but I would visit Hong Kong at least once a year. I visit less often nowadays due to school. If I had to describe Hong Kong with one word, it would be ‘dense‘. Not only are there people crowded all over the streets, but buildings, apartments, and malls are also tightly packed in Hong Kong. No wonder why it’s one of the most densely populated places in the world! My favourite memory of Hong Kong will always belong to the liveliness of the crowds, with bright city lights glistening at night. One of the things I love most about Hong Kong is their food. For all the foodies out there, I highly recommend you checking out this link here that introduces Hong Kong’s most popular food/drinks. Are you drooling yet? Moving along, the first photo below is of the Hong Kong skyline; I hope you find it as breathtaking as I do. The next couple of images are to give you an idea of how dense the region is. 

So now that I have provided some information about myself, I would like to introduce the course. English 470A is an online english course that focuses on the study of Canadian literature. I am fascinated to learn more about the intersections between European and Indigenous traditions of literature. Another important aspect of this course is to learn about story telling in literature. There are multiple factors to consider in story telling which includes perspectives of stories we listen to, and the stories we do and do not hear. Throughout this course we will gain a better understanding between literature and storytelling. I am also excited to learn more about Canadian literature in a context that focuses on First Nations. I look forward to discussing and researching about nation building and literature. Lastly, I hope to improve my interaction skills by discussing/collaborating with my fellow classmates online.

References:

Drescher, Cynthia. “Jaunted.” Jaunted The Pop Culture Travel Guide RDF. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Jan. 2014. <http://www.jaunted.com/story/2013/3/7/175654/1696/travel/What+to+Eat+in+Hong+Kong%3A+21+Foods+That’ll+Rock+Your+World>.

“HONG KONG: THE FACTS.” Population. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Jan. 2014. <http://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/docs/population.pdf>.

“The busiest streets of the world.”OpenTravel.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Jan. 2014. <http://opentravel.com/blogs/the-busiest-streets-of-the-world/>.