Canadian eh?

Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW according to the pages assigned to you (Pages 146-161). Be sure to make use of Jane Flick’s reference guide on your reading list.

I just wanted to write you all a precursor before I go into my blog. There were so many stories, so many connections, so many allusions. I decided to, within my pages assigned, talk about two stories within King’s text I found most interesting, both for the purposes of this blog as well as personally. Also, apologies for the page numbers that do not coincide with the 1993 edition of the text, I have the newer ebook edition. Here’s hoping that doesn’t throw you off too much, and that the long post is worth your time to read! Cheers!

Noah & the Changing Woman

Noah, stop chasing that poor Changing woman around the canoe! Noah and his big canoe, is a direct connection to the Noah and the Ark story. Jane Flick notes that Noah’s big canoe is “likely a swipe at missionary adaptations of biblical stories for Indians” (Flick 152). This act of transforming a traditionally perhaps non-native story into one for the ‘Indians’ is continued when “Christian ship…Christian journey…Christian rules” has the animals silent, while Indian narratives quite the contrary (King 229). Why is this? I see it as King’s way of placing importance on Indian story-telling histories, with animals playing a much more active role. Instead of silencing them in predominantly White narratives, animals speak, have a life of their own, and play a part. I relate this to my familiarly with ancient tales of my Chinese heritage, such as the Monkey King. “Monkey King never did that in the original story!” my grandpa would yell at the TV. Stories can evolve, change and adapt, and it isn’t always for the worst. I think it’s been valuable to see this different twist on Noah, the animals, and his ship/ark. Once a story changes, different things can happen, different issues can come to light, and different intersections of culture can be examined.

So why the poor Changing woman? Jane Flick notes the Changing Woman as “a holy person of miraculous birth” (Flick 152). No surprise that Noah would chase the Changing Woman for procreating; “Time for procreating, shouts Noah” (King 226).  There’s a sense that Noah is a playful and even blundering character, constantly falling in poop.  “Thou shalt have big breasts” certainly doesn’t sound like the traditional language that we associate with Noah (King 228). The Changing Woman, both holy and miraculous, is being chased by this blundering sexualized Noah. Is there something about Noah’s bestiality towards the Changing Woman that King is trying to comment on?  I saw it as King’s take on the westernized notion of Noah and his Ark. Noah is often seen as a hero of his time or even a saintly savior. But is it always pretty flowers and rainbows? I think we see, or often led to see, these westernized tales of history as perfect, while King brings it into a different light. Perhaps they are human, just like all of us. By bringing Noah down to Earth with poop and breasts (pardon my language), I think King brings stories of Noah and others, down from the heavenly pedestal that they are often on. Perhaps for us to begin to look at other stories also worth looking at, perhaps native narratives, that are deemed inferior when in fact not?

Charlie and his mother, and the story of C.B Cologne

Charlie asked his mother, “Did he ever play the lead? You know, the hero” (King 233). Maybe, Charlie’s mother answered him, “But that was back before they had any Indian heroes” (King 233). Jane Flick makes sure to point out that this is an “allusion to the shift in the presentations of Indians in some Hollywood films” (Flick 152). I also find it fascinating the roles that King prescribes these Indian heroes, “quick fox…Chief Jumping Otter…Chief Lazy Dog” (King 234). Flick makes it known this is King’s allusion to the alphabet learning process for children (Flick 153). By pairing these roles and “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”, is this King’s way of commenting on how Indians only got elementary and undeveloped roles in mainstream culture? The traditional story line of cowboy versus Indian was once everywhere in mainstream culture, and I argue that this mentality is still evident today. From the Lone Ranger and a white stylized cowboy, to Indians becoming more pronounced as actual forces in culture and film. I walk into a dollar store today, and I still see cowboy toy sets with guns and a sheriff badge, with a cartoon drawing of a classic cowboy versus Indian fight on the packaging. I don’t see that in all the other places I’ve traveled globally, and I think this issue has become so engraved in our culture; it would be hard to erase. Instead, all we can do is educate ourselves.

“Charlie, your father made a very good Indian” (King 233). So what was a good Indian on screen?  Of course, you had to start with a great Indian name? Perhaps “Iron Eyes Screeching Eagle” (King 234)? C.B. Cologne in the text is noted as a “red-headed Italian who played some of the Indian leads” (King 233). Cristobal Colon, or Cristofor Colombo, or as we know it, Christopher Columbus, was sent by Spain to find a route to the Indies (Flick 153). Can we comment on King’s allusion to Christopher Columbus in connection to his commentary on Indian prevalence in the entertainment industry? I see it as King commenting on how an Italian could portray an Indian lead, alluding to Columbus’ quest to conquer the native, or the Indian. The Italian, or ‘white’, is going so far as to invade and assume the identity of the ‘Indian’. Again, much like the cowboy versus the Indian, we see that history tells us a story of colonization and westernization by the ‘whites’. Perhaps not negatively, but King certainly brings to light these issues using the characters of his texts as prompts in our journey to not only look critically at the allusions he’s making, but also why.

There were so many stories. But I’ll leave it at that, it is already a hefty read and I apologize! What do you think?!

PS: I found it so fascinating finding and digging for these allusions, anyone else get a sense that you were reading TS Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ 2.0 in a native form and telling? Can we think of both authors’ canonical work in the same light: bringing and connecting history before our eyes? What is the value of doing so?

Thanks, and cheers!

Works Cited

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162. (1999). Web. March 12/2015.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water: A Novel. Toronto: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2010. IBooks.

Stokes, Dashanne. “Time to Stop Playing Cowboys and Indians.” Indian Country Today Media Network, 16 Mar. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/03/16/time-stop-playing-cowboys-and-indians>.

Webb, Franki. Under-representation of Native Americans in the Mainstream Media. Under-representation of Native Americans in the Mainstream Media. N.p., 2009. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.nativeweb.org/papers/essays/franki_webb.html>.

“Animals – Native American Mythology.” Native American Mythology. Myths Encyclopedia, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Mi-Ni/Native-American-Mythology.html>.

“Christopher Columbus.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/christopher-columbus>.

“Noah’s Ark.” Noah’s Ark. Christian Bible Reference Site, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.christianbiblereference.org/story_NoahsArk.htm>.

“T.S. Eliot – The Waste Land.” Genius, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://genius.com/Ts-eliot-the-waste-land-annotated>.

3:2 Q7 – Describe how King uses the cyclical paradigm of the Medicine Wheel (and a little help from Coyote) to teach us to understand, or at least to try to understand the power behind the stories we tell ourselves.

We all like to start and end our stories in a similar fashion. We are taught these patterns at a young age; nursery rhymes and childhood bedtime stories. There’s a certain way stories start, progress and end. This primal understanding of how stories work and function is taken steps further by Thomas King’s explanation of the Medicine Wheel. In understanding the cyclical paradigm of the Medicine Wheel, we can begin to understand how and why we tell the stories that we tell, and what it is exactly that makes it powerful.

When we repeat, we start over. When we finish a lap on a track, we begin again. There is a sense that repetition and circularity is inherent in our lives, and evidently storytelling. Our minds like connections and relations. In reading Thomas King’s text, there is a sense that we pulled deliberately into making these connections. We return once and once again to certain images that King wishes for us to see and pick out. The cycles of the Four Women who fall from the sky is a prime example of this, “being Indian” (King 72), “being unruly Indian” (King 225), “being another Indian” (King 396) and impersonating a white man (Paterson). This kind of circulation of repetitive language is a deliberate move by King to stand beside the Medicine Wheel in depicting the power and importance of circularity in stories that we tell. What I also find fascinating is also how language in stories, can be catalysts for other stories that stem from the original. What it means to be an ‘Indian’ is a story in itself. What it means to be an ‘unruly Indian’ is a story in itself. What it means to be just ‘another Indian’ is again, a story in itself. Stories grow stories, with language as its soil and life as its water. The power of stories is in its language, and it’s continual life through repetition and circularity, whether oral or written.

I think the value of understanding the Medicine Wheel for me is in its applicability to understanding how stories work, thrive and depict our lives. The circularity of the Medicine Wheel is essential. For me, stories exist in a four dimensional World. Beyond the 3.D movies we watch in theaters now, there’s a sense of being in the story, one with the story. That’s where the Medicine Wheel begins to do its wonders on me. The quadrants of the wheel, as Professor Paterson rightfully points out, represent aspects of the World beyond its color, but also life cycles, seasons and states of being (Paterson). The power of stories is in its ability to paint a reality, whether of the past present or the future that inherently encapsulates all elements of the wheel. Stories often depict life, and have the cyclical nature of life embedded within the form itself. People, and their lives, in our stories, go through seasons in their life, and often endure dynamic states of being. And when that stories or struggle is over, it begins again, again and again. Just like life and it’s tribulations, the wheel continues to spin, stories continue to be made. The Medicine Wheel, in this sense, mirrors life and it’s ever cycling re-birthing of stories to be told.

Isn’t ‘life’ merely a continuous collection of stories we learn and tell?

Works Cited

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

Svoboda, Elizabeth. “How Stories Change Hearts and Brains – Elizabeth Svoboda – Aeon.” Aeon Magazine. N.p., 12 Jan. 2015. Web. 09 Mar. 2015. <http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/once-upon-a-time-how-stories-change-hearts-and-brains/>.

“The Medicine Wheel and the Four Directions – Medicine Ways: Traditional Healers and Healing – Healing Ways – Exhibition – Native Voices.” U.S National Library of Medicine. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015. <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/exhibition/healing-ways/medicine-ways/medicine-wheel.html>.

2] 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.

The statement “state or governing activities” does not scream freedom and liberation to me, what about you? It’s one of those phrases that I hear and go “yuck, government stuff”. This question has promoted me to think a little beyond that, perhaps from a different perspective, perhaps through a lens of state versus nation, and power relations. I chose to examine the Indian Act of 1876 and in my research; I was drawn to certain ideas worth connected back to Daniel Coleman’s White Civility: The literary Project of English Canada.

Daniel Coleman makes it clear in the introduction to his work that early nation builders were looking to “formulate and elaborate a specific form of [Canadian] whiteness based on the British model of civility” (Coleman 5). ‘Whiteness’ you may ask? In an annual report by the Canadian Department of the Interior in 1876, it is quoted in saying “Our Indian legislation generally rests on the principle, that the aborigines are to be kept in a condition of tutelage and treated as wards or children of the State” (Makarenko). This so-called ‘State’ was conveniently a group of seemingly elite Europeans. As opposed to nation-building, the State seemed concerned with titles given, borders created and groups segregated from others, and the Indian Act of 1876 is a prime example of this. Automatically, there seems to be a connection in the instilling of whiteness and the extreme power of the State. The phrase ‘white power’ rings a bell? As far as I’m concerned, the State seemed adamant to have power lie in the hands of the ‘white’, for the white sake. Coleman argues that readings such as the Indian Act 1876 invoke a sense of a solely white Canadian nation building project, and “mediated and gradually reified the privileged, normative status of British whiteness in English Canada” (Coleman 6-7).

Reading some of the actual parts of the Indian Act 1876, I got an understanding of Coleman’s standpoint regarding this issue of ‘whiteness’. There seems to be a deep concern with defining the term “Indians”, what it means, who applies and who does not. Instead of instilling nation-building and unity, there is a concern with dictating who people were, who they were considered to be, and what they had the right to be and own. You may argue that this kind of segregation could be for the sake of organization and smoother logistic operation of a state and nation, but for literary sake, the language does not seem to support unity and fairness among the ‘white’ and the ‘Indian’. The Indian Act 1876 goes to extensive lengths in defining different ‘kinds’ of Indian, and what each identity entails, creating a sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’. I’ll be the first to say I did not get the feeling the Indian Act was racist by any means, but rather worthy of study in relation to a sense of power hierarchy between the ‘White’ and the ‘Indian’, instilling of ‘whiteness’, or I argue, perhaps between the ‘State’ and the ‘Nation’. With those in power drafting this Indian Act, this power is already enacted and performed. More importantly, the power of the State begins to dictate how the nation is constructed and maintained. Perhaps this power of white civility is the kind of “brutal histories” that Coleman claims is now inherent in Canadian history (Coleman 9). Sad, but true?

I see the Indian Act of 1876 as what Coleman would describe as a “project that began with colonialism and continues in the present” (Coleman 45). There is a sense that this project is fueled by efforts and intentions to rule, govern and dictate power. I could not quite juggle myself, but perhaps you could help:

What is the difference between the building of the ‘State’, and ‘Nation’ building?

Does the increasing power of the ‘State’ overshadow and overthrow the power of the ‘Nation’?

Is there something inherently ‘white’ about ‘State’ building and not ‘Nation’ building in how we understand and process these terms?

Cheers.

Works Cited

Coleman, Daniel. White Civility: The Literary Project of English Canada. Toronto: U of Toronto, 2006. Print.

“Indian Act 1876.” N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2015 <http://www.tidridge.com/uploads/3/8/4/1/3841927/1876indianact.pdf>.

Johnson, Eric M. “On the Origin of White Power | The Primate Diaries, Scientific American Blog Network.” Scientific American Global RSS. Scientific American, 21 May 2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2015. <http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/2014/05/21/on-the-origin-of-white-power/>.

Makarenko, Jay. “The Indian Act: Historical Overview | Mapleleafweb.com.”The Indian Act: Historical Overview. Mapleleafweb, 2 June 2008. Web. 26 Feb. 2015. <http://mapleleafweb.com/features/the-indian-act-historical-overview#civilizations>.

“Understanding Whiteness.” Understanding Whiteness. Calgary Anti-Racism Education, n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2015. <http://www.ucalgary.ca/cared/whiteness>.

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.”

I recall the last time I used my GPS and map. Specifically, I was driving to visit a friend in Burnaby, and made sure to type in ‘Burnaby’ for when my GPS asked me for the city of my destination. Interestingly when I got there, the line that separated Richmond and Burnaby wasn’t a gigantic strip of paint on a guarded road that I had expected from reading the map, labeled ‘From here, it is the land of Burnaby’. So how do maps actually…work? What do they actually…do and mean?

A map can actually speak to us. Arguably, a map can actually have an effect on how our society is run, operated and thought of. Think about it. Maps are representations of our land, and lines that separate ‘your’ land and ‘mine’. The words ‘You’re on my land’ wouldn’t exist without the performance and application of mapping techniques and traditions. A map can come to define what is what, and where is where. A map for example is visual proof of where Canada as a nation starts and stops, purely structurally. These maps can speak to us in the way it tells us what is Canadian and what is not, in the most simplistic way of paper and pen, with lines and borders. But is what makes us Canadians purely what fits into these lines and what doesn’t? In Sparke’s words, the map, the “more radical and creative aspect of the Atlas has been to provide a cartographic “musical score” which, once given contrapuntal voicing, can enable its national Canadian audience to rethink the colonial frontiers of national knowledge itself” (Sparke 468). In other words, a map sings to us in the way that it attempts to define what ‘us’ even means. But how can this be dangerous and detrimental to identity restoration of ‘what used to be’? How can maps then become a way of segregating not only the land, but the past and the present?

Judge McEachern makes the statement “We’ll call this the map that roared”. I can see why the map can be a highly distrusted article used to define a nation, or a nation’s identity. Maps have the ability to literally break up, fragment and divide kingdoms and land with, arguably, arbitrary lines of separation and ownership. I am drawn to the lectures of a previous English professor of mine in regards to his research on maps and its effects in William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Simplistically, his research and analysis was focused on how maps can come to represent a form of blindness in its ability to simplistically abstract a nation’s meaning down to mere lines of separation and definition.  Land, its meaning and culture, is reduced to pure markings on a page. A map is dangerous (Page 423 of book) in this way, and can be thought of as threatening to a nation’s identity and history. I believe the roaring of the map in Sparke’s article refers to the “simultaneously [evoking of] the resistance in the First Nations’ remapping of the land: the cartography’s roaring refusal of the orientation systems, the trap lines, the property lines…” (Sparke 468). The roaring is the oral and auditory cry of distrust and anger towards the dangerous nature of maps and its ability to literally break apart nations and it’s identities.

I don’t believe the ‘roaring’ starts and stops with a map. I believe the creation, retrieval and maintaining of national identities innately carry a sense of battle, and a need for a roar, for one’s own history and meaning. A roar for identity, a roar for pride and a roar for patriotism. Maps attempt to silence these powerful and meaningful roars with its own loud roars of separation, fragmentation, and a need for selfish ownership. Maps mute the cries for identity.

What would Canada be like without borders?

What would all our nations be like without borders?

What would our World be like without borders?

Words Cited

Carlson, Kathryn B. “Year in Ideas: How Canadian Identity Has Changed and What It Means for Our Future.” National Post Year in Ideas How Canadian Identity Has Changed and What It Means for Ourfuture Comments. National Post, 28 Dec. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. <http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/28/year-in-ideas-how-canadian-identity-has-changed-and-what-it-means-for-our-future/>.

Outhwaite, William. “Nationalism.” The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003. 423. Print. <https://books.google.ca/books id=JJmdpqJwkwwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false>

Sparke, Mathew. “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88.3 (1998): 463- 495. Web. 11 February 2015.

Coyote’s twin brother stole the “written document” and when he denied stealing the paper, he was “banished to a distant land across a large body of water” (9). We are going to return to this story, but for now – what is your first response to this story? In context with our course theme of investigating intersections where story and literature meet, what do you make of this stolen piece of paper?

Think back to the time your parents told you a story. Perhaps one about your history, your origin and your ancestry. Do you question this story, or do you take it as your truth in defining your past? I asked myself upon finishing this week’s readings whether I’d be accepting of being told my past was a stolen one. Does it even matter if it was one that lacked authenticity? The “alternative explanations” of the origins of ‘Europeans’ can be like the many versions of your past, history and ancestry. Where your family is from, who they were and what defined them. A stolen piece of paper becoming a part of your identity can be troublesome but, my first thought was…does it even matter that it was stolen? Can this “stolen piece of paper” make way for the sharing of truths among people of all origins? Perhaps more importantly, has this “stolen piece of paper” come to shape the way we tell and pass on these respective ‘truths’ of origin in both written and oral form? I made a natural connection between story, literature and history with this in mind.

The stolen piece of paper implies a sense of certain original ownership, and I think this idea of ownership is interesting in our quest of looking at origin stories. The naming of places, land and people creates a natural “link of ownership between people and the places” Yours, and mine. However, even something as valuable as an identity or origin story, can grow to not have one meaning, or one truth, but rather distinct and co-existing truths. Yours, mine and ours. The stolen piece of paper implies a certainty about the form of written history. Something written in stone, hard evidence and worthy of stealing. However, I do not believe the victims of this theft are at a loss, especially with the power of oral histories, where co-existing truths can exist, your story and mine. Thinking back to my own personal experience, the story telling process in my family was always an oral one. By the dinner table or by the living room couch. Just because our childhood stories aren’t written on a piece of paper, doesn’t make it less true to you or me. Does writing (written or print culture) differ from oral culture in this way? Brian Thom and his writing on ‘adaawk’ as oral histories that had “equal evidentiary weight as written history” proved the notion of a valid oral truth to me (Thom 7). There’s a part of me that doesn’t feel so bad about a stolen piece of paper potentially altering history and the history of literature, with its counterpart of oral story-telling having the same if not more gravitas as written. Grenier in her article made it clear that these oral traditions served as more important than it would have been on a piece of paper, with the ability of the ‘adaawk‘ in transcending time and generations:

“These are our titles, the names we hold that are derived from these stories and therefore connect us directly to our history. We received them from our Elders and we will pass them on to our children’s children”

(Margaret Gildewt Grenier, In the Space of Song and Story: Exploring the Adaawk of Hagbegwatku Simgeeget Sigydmhana nah Deth when sim Simgeeget)

Boas summed it up nicely for me when he wrote that “each community owns a distinct myth of origin” (Thom 7). I would like to believe that there is a way in which even a stolen piece of paper can be authentic and true to all, coexisting. Whether it is the European ‘thief’ (I choose to use that word carefully), or the victims of a sense of ‘origin/identity theft’, stories live on and carry on.

I challenge you to not be scared of your past or origins, however dark they may be. Instead, do as Lutz would: “step outside and see one’s own culture as alien and to discern the mythic in the performances of one’s own histories” (Lutz 32).

Works Cited

Grenier, Margaret G. “In the Space of Song and Story: Exploring the Adaawk of Hagbegwatku Simgeeget Sigydmhana Nah Deth When Sim Simgeeget.” Thesis. McGill University, 1997. In the Space of Song and Story: Exploring the Adaawk of Hagbegwatku Simgeeget Sigydmhana Nah Deth When Sim Simgeeget. Simon Fraser University, 2006. Web. 4 Feb. 2015. <http://summit.sfu.ca/item/6185>.

Thom, Brian. The Anthropology of Northwest Coast Oral Tradition. Department of Anthropology – McGill University, Mar. 2000. Web. 4 Feb. 2015. <http://www.web.uvic.ca/~bthom1/Media/pdfs/ethnography/nwc-myth.htm>.

Lutz, John. “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Aboriginal — Non-Aboriginal Encounters on the North American West Coast.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 30-45. Print.

Stories – Reading all my fellow classmates’ blogs got me thinking, most of our ideas of home stemmed from a story or a form of storytelling. I think this is a telltale (pun fully intended) sign of the kind of power story-telling has. The ability to bring us back to a place where perhaps distant can become vivid and close again. Stories carry the notion that there is a lesson to be learnt, a moral to be understood and an experience to be felt, although of course, not always the case. However, in the way we remember home, we often gravitate towards stories of our past. Stories seem to have the ability to bring us back.

Laughter – When you walk into a room, one of the first things we can be pulled to is laughter. In our ideas of what home means to us, a lot of us, myself included, related it to a sense of happiness and joy, and laughter is a product of that. It isn’t always the belt out laughing until your cheeks hurt, but sometimes a gentle soft laugh to perfectly capture a moment. Home is a place of comfort, and the kind of transformative positive energy laughter can bring to a house is exactly what can capture a perfect moment at home.

 Family – “I hate you mom and dad!”, used oh too commonly and oh so untrue. I think even as children, when asked to draw our home or whatnot in crayon, we would be inclined to draw stick figures of our family holding our mutual stick hands. The sense of belonging, love and care that our family gives us is crucial in our construction of home. Even with disputes and arguments, family can have a positive effect in how we feel in wherever we are. The other thing is family can be a mobile sense of home for many people; a hotel room in some exotic land becoming a “home” just because you are all there together.

Strength – We all have our difficulties, but everything is made easier with a support system. Home is a place that can often give this to people; a strength at time of weakness. Whether it’s feeling comfortable in your room, or in the embrace of your family at home, home seems to be a geographical place that people can return to seek support, guidance and strength. And even when you’re not physically present in your home, it seems to me there’s a way that people can mentally return to a sense of home, a place of refuge, to gather the kind of strength to carry on with our life’s tribulations.

In closing…

Things change, and people change. One of the most interesting things to me is how a home can change, transform, mutate, come in countless forms, and of course, evolve. What was once your home could be the home to a new loving family? What was once your home could be the home to your very own loving family? In whatever form home may be to you, car house tent or whatever, more so than not, can make you you.

Works Cited

Funk, Caitlin. “Home Is Where the Laughter Is.” Web log post. Timbits and Ketchup Chips: Discussing Canada. N.p., 30 Jan. 2015. Web. 2 Feb. 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/funkythoughtsengl470a/2015/01/30/home-is-where-the-laughter-is/>.

Hodgson, Charlotte. “This Is My Home, Piece by Piece.” Weblog post. From Far and Wide. N.p., 29 Jan. 2015. Web. 2 Feb. 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/charlottehodgson/2015/01/29/2-1-this-is-my-home-piece-by-piece/>.

Ng, Florence. “Home Is a Pie Chart and a Couple of Memories.” Web log post. Maple Trees and Beaver Tails. N.p., 31 Jan. 2015. Web. 2 Feb. 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/florenceng/2015/01/31/45/>.

Cue the cliché of “what makes a house a home”? Talking about home and what it means to me is full of clichés, but finally, deservingly so.

Home is a place that’s warm. Sure, the heat better be on. But what I mean is the warmth of love and care from the people that you share your roof with. Home is a place that values sharing stories with one another, respecting the troubles of all, and helping with obstacles along the way. There’s a special feeling when you come home from work, plop down beside your loved one’s chair, and just share your mutual days’ adventures. We laugh at each other, cry with each other and smile to each other. The warmth of home is that feeling on Christmas Day when more important than anything else is being together. This kind of warmth is what home brings, right to the heart.

Home is a place that’s open. Free to speak our mind without judgment, valuing individuality and personal experience. It’s a place where you feel like communication is never an issue, and no treading softly on issues that are judgmentally deemed ‘not-to-be-spoken-about’. Don’t get me wrong, home isn’t a place with no conflict. Sometimes communication comes in the form of yelling and screaming, but all in good will, emotional and rightfully so. Home is an environment where we can all yell at each other, but because of passion and emotion not because of anger. A network of open communication within a home is what makes it work, and how the people of that home deal with issues with themselves and others.

Home is a place of trust. Keeping your word is important in any arena of life, but most so at home, with the full expectations of valuing a sense of responsibility for your words and actions. We all have those moments when we come home a little too late to our parents’ liking, only to have them flick on the lights as we’re stumbling up the stairs half minded. Instead of lying and not getting away with it (trust me, we aren’t as believable as we think), we tell the truth. We trust each other to be honest and forward. “Sorry, crazy party. Got a ride home though” has a better ending, then fumbling with your words looking for an excuse. We trust that those around us act with intentions of good will, and expect the same back.

Home is a place of warmth, openness and trust. With these in mind, home to me is unequivocally a place of growth.

Growth. A house isn’t much by itself, but the stories and journeys that take place inside is what matters. A home that is warm, open and trusting allows for growth, personal and spiritual. Kids learn to be adults, and adults…well, they learn to sometimes be kids too. Home is a place that brings people together, to grow together. It’s the struggles and the arguments that ironically bring us closer together. In a home, you learn to value hardships of your own and others, cherishing the moments and opportunities to grow and foster relationships with yourself and others.

Home is a place of warmth, openness, trust and growth to me.

What’s home to you?

Works Cited

Iyer, Pico. “Where Is Home?” TEDGlobal. June 2013. Pico Iyer:. Web. 29 Jan. 2015. <http://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_where_is_home?language=en>.

It was centuries ago, perhaps eons ago. The land and the air was fresh, innocent, clear. There was serenity in the air, a sense of complete peace. The inhabitants of the land with wings, legs, claws and hooves all lived together in matrimony and harmony.

Until the witches started coming. They flew in like haunted spirits, polluting the crisp sky with their dark shadows. The wonderful World as it was became victim to moments of terror at the witches’ will.

One gloomy day, a witch soared through the sky in a horrifying costume, terrorizing the inhabitants. But soon they would forget, recover and sleep in peace.

One gloomy day, a witch propelled herself up above the land and released a devilish burning concoction onto the land and inhabitants, killing many and hurting countless. But soon they would forget, recover and sleep in peace.

One gloomy day, a witch haunted the night sky dressed in the gruesome ripped skin of the inhabitants, scarring the little ones forever with endless nightmares. But soon they would forget, recover and sleep in peace.

One gloomy day, a witch casted herself above the land and inhabitants, and began telling a story. One of suffering, eternal fear, slaughter and bloodshed. One of utter chaos and ruin.

However, the story was too dark, too frightening and too real. The inhabitants never forgot, never recovered and never slept again.

“Take it back. Call that story back” they yelled at the sky towards the shadows of the witches.

But of course, it was too late. For once a story I told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the World.

Evil.

Commentary:

There’s something about a story that brings impossibly frightening fiction, into real life. Much like the innocence and serenity of the inhabitants’ land, we are often clean from horrors. Until a story is told that brings to light the evils that exist, and it’s origin. We can forget, recover and sleep in peace following a depressing moment or image in time, however, a story never erases itself.

It’s safe to say writing this story made me feel a little uneasy. But why? I’ve seen scarier movies, heard louder sounds and witnessed darker moments. Telling the story orally was difficult for me at first, but the cyclical and repetitive elements of my story guided me as I told it more and more. Perhaps there is something to be said about memory and orality. Perhaps in the same way, stories told and heard exist in an oral world of our mind that is impossible to replace or erase? Perhaps this is, in a psychological way, why stories like these transcend and remain in the fabric of time and existence?

There’s a part of me that thinks we are these inhabitants, their fear still living in us today. Forever haunted by tales of horror that exist in our World, much more than an image, much more than just a story. Stories have this power.

What kind of stories do you want to tell?

Works Cited

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

Shaw, Martin. On Repetition in Storytelling. The Stanford Storytelling Project. 13 Feb 2013. Web. 25 January 2015. <http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/blog/2013blogs/347-on-repetition-in-storytelling.html>

Transcending Historical Trauma. Welcome to the Elders. Web. 25 January 2015.<http://discoveringourstory.wisdomoftheelders.org/resources/transcending-historical-trauma>

Try reading your favorite passage in your favorite book out loud. Now try and tell me if what you just performed, belonged to an oral culture or written culture? You might find, like me, that often what we read or listen to does not belong to a single realm of oral or written, but rather coexisting Worlds of the oral and the written. Both Edward Chamberlain and Courtney MacNeil serve as interesting evidence to contest a popular understanding of our culture as either oral or written. Macneil quotes Walter Ong in saying that currently, “orality exists either in isolation from literacy, or as subservient to it…mutual interdependency between the two media is not a recognized possibility”. In reality, I feel that even by typing this blog post, I’m participating in both an oral and a written culture, speaking in my mind what I am inscribing onto this page. Chamberlain contributes to this argument in claiming it is a misconception that these two cultures exist separately, and that “all so-called oral cultures are rich in forms of writing, albeit non-syllabic and non-alphabetic ones” (Chamberlain 18). In other words, we cannot simply discount the existence of a written culture in a predominantly oral culture, since “written” can take multiple forms. Both MacNeil and Chamberlain see that orality and literacy come hand in hand, and not separately.

I am drawn to the performance aspect of language, whether everyday story telling or upon a theater stage. Being a theater lover, I connect with this aspect of a co-existing “literature/oralature” pairing that Rosenberg proposes in MacNeil’s work. Especially in the world of performance, there is a close tie between the written text of a performance or story, with its oral expression. Chamberlain importantly claims that we are all involved in “both oral and written traditions…our stories and songs draw on resources of both” (Chamberlain 18). I am inclined to think of our stories and songs as performances, both written in text or an alternative structure of scribing, as well as an oral interpretation with imaginative expression. There is a way in which our stories or performances can exist scientifically and categorically as letters on a page (written or literate culture), as well as in imaginative and magical forms performed or told (oral culture). This is the case especially when different people can interpret a single written story or text differently. In terms of story as performance, the existence of ‘misinterpretation’ seems to suggest a written culture that is dependent on an oral interpretative culture, and not existing separately. When we tell a story to a friend, or when a story is passed from one generation orally down to another, speech and writing becomes hard to separate. MacNeil sums this up perfectly by claiming that “speech and writing are so entangled with each other in our various forms and performance of language”.

So what does all this mean to our current World of heightened technology and communication? In my opinion, the argument that oral and written cultures exist separately is becoming harder to prove as our World advances technologically. Walter Ong suggests a sense of oral cultures living in the present and the permanence of written culture. In fact, speaking in terms of our present society, text has lost a sense of durability and permanence, text messages being deleted instantaneously, and oral cultures can exist through time as recordings and sound-files (MacNeil). Today, we can ‘delete’ or ‘extend’ both oral and written aspects of our culture easily. I think this goes to show the blurring of both oral and written cultures in our present World, and how both of these modes of culture exist not only together, but dependent on each other for existence and performance.

What do you think?

Works Cited:

Chamberlain, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: AA. Knopf. 2003. Print.

MacNeil, Courtney. “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 14 Jan 2015. http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/

Hello all, and allow me to introduce myself to the World! My name is Jeffrey, and welcome to my blog for our journey of Canadian Studies! Born in Richmond, BC but raised in Maple Ridge, one could consider me more of the ‘Canadian’ than ‘Chinese’ in my Canadian-Chinese identity. I grew up a country boy if you ask me, playing hockey outside until midnight and fly fishing during spring breaks. Who am I? Hockey lover, but all sports enthusiast. Retail sales associate, badminton coach and student. Theatre goer and film buff. Pun and wordplay aficionado. There’s more to me, but that’s for later!

I was automatically intrigued by this course, particularly at the intersections between cultures and identities that Canadian studies lends itself to studying. Am I cheering for Canada’s national hockey team only because I am geographically located in Canada? I am after all…Chinese?! A couple previous classes sparked my interest in examining ideas around the construction of a ‘Canadian’ identity, if there is such a thing.

Firstly, I am reminded of a film I was introduced to called “Between: Living in the Hyphen” , that outlines and examines some of the frameworks and concepts relating to a construction of what it means to be ‘Canadian’. Coming from an immigrant family, but identifying as ‘Canadian’, living between two identities is something many of us struggle with day in and day out. Take a look at the film if you have time!

Secondly, I was immediately taken aback to a course I completed in the area of Canadian Theatre, looking at different plays through a timeline by Canadian playwrights, all concerned with ideas of a ‘Canadianess’. My favourite play in our canon of studies was Ins Choi’s “Kim’s Convenience”, about an immigrant family that owns a convenience store and their familial struggles, along with cultural issues and differences surrounding race and gender. The comedic and touching story of this family sparks an interest in me in relation to a sense of story-telling that constructs not only self-identity, but belonging to a ‘national identity’. Particularly, Choi was interested in documenting a story out of countless, about immigrant families and their experiences in Canada.

Ins Choi (Playwright of “Kim’s Convenience) is pictured between his two flags of identity: Korea and Canada. Living in the hyphen?

Both the film and play that I relate this course to relates to a sense of identity formation or discovery as a ‘Canadian’, guided mostly by stories and experiences. These first hand stories from immigrants and ultimately all habitants of Canada can help us begin an organic learning process of what it means to be a ‘Canadian’. This course, and hopefully this blog, I expect will give me (and all of us) an idea of what that means to each and every one of us!

Works Cited:

Derdeyn, Stuart. “Kim’s Convenience and the Immigrant Experience”. The Province. 23 April 2014. Web. 7 January 2015.

Kozak, Nick. “Ins Choi, on the set of his play Kim’s Convenience last year, will take part in Spur Toronto, leading a theatrical walk around the U of T campus on Saturday”. Photograph. The Star. 11 April 2013. Web. 7 January 2015.

Nakagawa, Anne Marie. “Between: Living in the Hyphen”. National Film Board. 2005. Web. 7 January 2015.