{"id":21,"date":"2016-06-06T21:10:37","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T04:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/?p=21"},"modified":"2016-06-17T11:48:33","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T18:48:33","slug":"2-2-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/2016\/06\/06\/2-2-home\/","title":{"rendered":"2:1 Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lesson 2:1 Assignment 2:2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Home. What stories do I have about this symbol? Well, I could start off by saying there has been a whole lot of confusion\u2026and also an emerging clarity. What does home really mean anyway? Is it what gives me a sense of belonging and security and identity? And what do each of these words really mean? The experience and consequent definition can be vastly different for each individual. Over the years, I have gone from being certain of what my home and my values are to not knowing if they are even mine (sounds like a crisis).<\/p>\n

The building blocks of what I thought of as home were quite clear in my childhood. I was told by my parents that my heritage is Chinese and I should also be proud of being Canadian because I was the only one in my family born in Vancouver. Chinese-Canadian, clear enough. That\u2019s what I thought too. Then I learned my parents are not from China, but Taiwan and there are political and identity conflicts surrounding the area. People who have lived on the island prior to the KMT retreating there after being defeated by the Communists, identified strictly as Taiwanese and they spoke the dialect too. My parents, whose fathers both came from China and mothers both from Taiwan, identified as Chinese, although not Communists. Growing up, they would be labelled as \u201cWaishengren\u201d<\/a>\u00a0meaning people from outside the province. Taiwan became increasingly democratic and the people elected the first Benshengren aka \u201cTaiwanese\u201d president in the year 2000. He represented the political party that wanted independence. The political climate of Taiwan changed and many Benshengren there became increasingly hostile of the Waishengren, branding them as the Chinese folks who occupied their island. So according to my parents, they are neither accepted as real Chinese in China nor Taiwanese in Taiwan – outsiders in both lands. Since they immigrated to Canada, they\u2019ve claimed the role as an outsider once again.<\/p>\n

Growing up, communism has had a particularly bad connotation as it still probably does now in democratic countries. Not wanting to associate myself with this term, when people asked \u201cWhat are you?\u201d or \u201cWhere are you from?\u201d, I\u2019d say Taiwanese-Canadian or Taiwan, all the while still acknowledging in my mind that I\u2019m Chinese. A Chinese without a homeland\u2026 or a Chinese from Canada, how\u2019s that?<\/p>\n

\"mutt\"<\/p>\n

Soon enough I decided I\u2019ll start my own heritage and cut off ties from this puzzling and chaotic history in Asia. \u201cI\u2019m from Vancouver!\u201d I would respond sternly as to intimidate people and stop them from further questioning more about where I look like I\u2019m from.<\/p>\n

And then the questioning of what Canadian means started. And that\u2019s where I stopped\u2026 for a while at least.<\/p>\n

I found another answer along the way of what home meant to me. My home was where my family was. Filial piety<\/a>\u00a0is a main pillar in Confucianism. Staying extremely close to my parents and eventually taking care of them and supporting them is expected of any offspring. Sometimes the expectations surrounding this steadfast belief can be suffocating and make one feel utterly guilty if one falls slightly short of the expectations embedded in the Chinese societal psyche. Most of the time, I take pride in this behaviour and value it above all else. I realized, however, that one day family must go too. Nothing and no one stays forever. The prospect or, I mean, the inevitable of losing my family has been quite destabilizing at times, yet there is nothing I can do to prevent losing this unit that grounds me. When my family is gone then where is my home?<\/p>\n

Home can mean a lot of things to different folks. It can be a house, a country, the people, the thoughts, the feelings etc.<\/p>\n

For me, to rediscover tranquility, I thought well, what is home to a baby? Home in a sense that they can feel secure and at rest. They can\u2019t mentally grasp their culture, family background, family members, social standing, social group, and even their own unique existence yet.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019d like to think of my home not as a fixed location or a concept of who needs to be there and what I need to feel. I\u2019ll see if I can treasure whoever I am with and wherever I am as long as I\u2019m not too hungry, thirsty and cold. Regardless of the place\u2019s ethnic surrounding, political atmosphere, physical boundaries, and social settings, wherever I am, that must be my home, whether I like it or not.<\/p>\n

Lorraine<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

Gaoxiao<\/i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 June 2016.<\/p>\n

Hayada, Takefumi. The Complexity of the Taiwanese – Taipei Times. The Complexity of the \u00a0Taiwanese – Taipei Times<\/i>. Taipei Times, 18 Aug. 2000. Web. 05 June 2016.<\/p>\n

Jordan, David K. Folk Filial Piety: Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars. UCSD, 25 Aug. 2005. Web. 5 June 2016.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lesson 2:1 Assignment 2:2 Home. What stories do I have about this symbol? Well, I could start off by saying there has been a whole lot of confusion\u2026and also an emerging clarity. What does home really mean anyway? Is it what gives me a sense of belonging and security and identity? And what do each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lshencanadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}