After reading many of my peer’s take on the word “home” I’ve acquired a much wider understanding of the word on both a personal level, and a shared one. Many overlapped with my personal experience and definition of the word, but there were also interesting perspectives and iterations of the word that I gathered that I had not yet explored before.
One major ideal of home that overlapped mine and many of my peer’s definition including Patrick, Audrey, Chloe, Mikayla and Jenny’s is the sentiment that home is very much connected to the people that make it special. Patrick’s story of not recognizing Canada as much of a home as China, largely due to his family’s absence in Canada, I think, was a prime example of how place can be an empty structure without the people and stories that make it personal. In regards to stories, there’s also a sense of nostalgia that one can pull from what they would call home. I read many stories of growing up, family and friends that were all attached to home.
One of the most interesting points, and one I had yet to think of was the idea that “home is inside of every one of us” from Chloe. This is truly an extension of the cliche, “home is where the heart is”, and everyone has the potential to be someone’s home in the intellectual, emotional and spiritual sense. It got me thinking, how many people have I provided this level of meaning and comfort to the point where they’ve tied a part of their home to me, and thus also the physical place that I reside. Another point she made, – and also one of the first references to home as a physical structure is that it’s a place of protection that allows her to “escape” from the rest of the world. It’s a point I very much agree with in that, one sense of the word home is giving shelter, physically but also mentally and emotionally.
After reading a collective of opinions, one question that comes to mind is, if home is dependent on valued people, memories and stories, then are some people unfortunate enough to never really find home? Sure, there are private physical structures where people may eat, rest, and indulge in private affairs, but from the consensus of opinions including my own, that hardly meets the requirements of a home.
For some, memories, people and stories are scattered across different locations. And I also read a conflict of where home is, especially in Patrick’s blog. Even though I was born in Vancouver, as someone who’s family are immigrants I feel at least the derivative effects of having a sense of scattered home. And I believe many immigrants or people who have lived in more than one place in their life face the same conflicting feelings. Two shoes that I’ve been watching that tell the the narrative of the Asia-to-America immigrant story very well are “Fresh Off the Boat” that came out just last year and a new show called “Kim’s Convenience” that’s only couple months old. I resonate with both shows as it’s an immigrant narrative where people try to bring pieces of their old “home” and integrate it into their new “home” in America.
Works Cited
Woo, Patrick. “Canada Is My Home And Not.” We Are in the Same Boat. UBC Blogs, 3 Oct. 2016. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.
Lee, Chloe. “2.2 Home.” Chloe’s Blog for English 470. N.p., 28 Sept. 2016. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.
Uber, Mikayla. “Assignment 2.2 – A Sense of Home.” ENGL 470: CanLit Chronicles. UBC Blogs, 28 Sept. 2016. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.
Lu, Jenny. “2.1 Home: A Place for My Mind.” English 470A Insights. UBC Blogs, 28 Oct. 2016. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.
Kim, Audrey. “2.2 Home.” Storytelling for the Soul. UBC Blogs, 30 Sept. 2016. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.