Assignment 2:2

Write a short story (600 – 1000 words) that describes your sense of home; write about the values and the stories that you use to connect yourself to, and to identify your sense of home.

My initial sense of home comes from the land and above it the dwelling place to which one’s memories of home are attached. It started from Haifeng, my father’s hometown which is over four hours’ ride from Guangzhou my place of birth. He left Haifeng and removed to Guangzhou at around eight upon his parents’ early death. When I was little, my father would take me back to his birthplace for the annual “celebration” of Qingming festival, which is intended for commemorating our ancestors. I was always intrigued by how different he looked in his hometown than in Guangzhou where he could be identified as an immigrant for however long he has been around there. I guess the reason he was more than excited was he felt like he was home in the deepest sense. As the festive ceremonies went on, he would show me around his parents’ house and shared with me his own stories as well as the stories he was told of. His favourite story, which was told by one of the elders, is how my grandfather, a rice trader and a then head of the village, negotiated between several military forces with the rice as briberies and thus protected his homeland from being sacked and looted during WWII. My favourite story of his is, however, tied to his limited living experience with his parents in their house. There was one year my grandfather dressed my father up on his birthday like a Western body from a well-off family and took him some pictures at home. This was absolutely unusual as it happened in a farming community where things did not change much over centuries, given its remoteness from the political, economic and cultural centres such as Guangzhou. Then I found one of the answers to the question why my father and I would identify more with the Western cultural values than its Chinese counterparts in many cases. At that very point, I came to recognise it is not only my father’s home but mine as it helps us figure out where we come from and who we really are. The presence of the house is so important for sustaining all those fond memories as well as securing the sense of home that my father and his little brother keep an annual plan for the maintenance of the house which is now actually left vacant and remains functional only for celebrations of some festivals. The idiom “a man’s home is his castle” makes perfect sense here.

However, one may argue that the sense of home is not complete if the man is not living with his family in the castle. I did not realise that I had actually been homeless in Canada until when my father was recently diagnosed with lung cancer at the late-stage. I went back to Guangzhou to look after him and saw him through some tough medical treatments in the past summer. When considering the final arrangements, he asked me how to deal with the flat, which is literally my birthplace, when he and my mother are both gone. I replied, “I have no idea. What I am certain about though is the place will become meaningless to me when you are not around.” When the time came that I had to get going back to my Canada home, I broke down. I cried, really hard, when I saw my father waving good-bye to me from across the street in front of the hospital in his wheelchair with my mother standing behind him shedding tears. Then I knew I was leaving home rather than coming (home in Canada). In the sense that home is anywhere my family is, Canada is not my home as my parents live over 6,000 miles apart.

Having said that, the multi-cultural Canada does make me feel at home in the way in which this country opens up for cultural diversities. Take languages for example. I still remember the degree to which I was shocked by the trilingual characteristics of YVR airport when I arrived at Vancouver on day one. Although I personally do not feel right about the Chinese language being paralleled with the two official languages of Canada in public properties, I cannot deny the fact that the appearance of my home language does make me feel closer to home and in part leads to my decision of settling down in Vancouver permanently. That may also be the reason why a growing number of Chinese middle-class families, who have been to many places around the world, are making the same decision building up their new homes in here. The other moment which made me feel more identified with my Canada home is when I heard the broadcasters saying “ngo gwok”, meaning “my/our country” in Cantonese which is my mother tongue, when they mentioned Canada in a news programme at a local Cantonese TV station. For example, “’Ngo gwok’ athletes won another two gold medals today at Rio Olympics.” Then I found myself celebrating not only the Chinese Olympics team’s success but Team Canada’s, with two homes living in harmony in my heart via the language that speaks the best to it.

Assignment1:5

Your task is to take the story about how evil comes into the world, the story King tells about the Witches’ convention in Chapter One of The Truth about Stories, and change it any way you want, except the ending. You can change to place, the people, the time – anything you want. But, your story must have the same moral – it must tell us how evil came into the world and how once a story is told, it cannot be taken back.

First, learn your story by heart, and then tell the story to your friends and family.

After you have told the story a few times,  post a blog with your version of the story and some commentary on what you discovered about story telling.

“It was witch people. Not Whites or Indians or Blacks or Asians or Hispanics. Witch people. Witch people from all over the world, way back when, and they all came together for a witches’ conference. In a cave. Having a good time. A contest, actually. To see who could come up with the scariest thing. Some of them brewed up potions in pots. Some of them jumped in and out of animal skins. Some of them thought up charms and spells. It must have been fun to watch. Until finally there was only one witch left who hadn’t done anything. No one knew where this witch came from or if the witch was male or female. And all this witch had was a story. Unfortunately the story this witch told was that human beings were created. Unfortunately the story this witch told was that human beings were created. As a result, the faith in God(s) as being the creator(s) would be perpetually doubted whilst the witches being imprisoned in oral tales and written literature And when the telling was done, the other witches quickly agreed that this witch had won the prize. “Okay you win,” they said. “[B]ut what you said just now — it isn’t so funny. It doesn’t sound so good. We are doing okay without it. We can get along without that kind of thing. 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 (italic and underlines mine, King, 10).”

I admit that I thought it was a crazy idea to make up a Creation story of my own when I came across the assignment of rewriting Thomas King’s story about the Witches’s convention in Chapter One The Truth about Stories. It is not only because I had never thought of the origin of the world beyond the terrain of science but it feels kind of transgressing a sort of divine law or offending a divine providence.  I mean it is a subject that is too deep for an ordinary person like me to consider or a job that is too “sublime” to do as stories may contribute to creating the world and in this sense the imagination might become reality (“Lesson 1:3”). In fact, I found myself ending up with futility when I tried to reproduce a story about how evil came into the world that is completely different than King’s version, no matter how hard I pushed myself to. Then I began to blame the Chinese Creation tales which provide only simplistic roles of evil, comparing to for example the characterisation as much distinctive and complex as that of Satan in its Western counterparts. The under-portrayal of the evil presence in the Chinese culture did not seem helpful when it came to conceptualise how evil is brought to this world with a story.

However, as soon as I managed to rewrite the story by making some minor alteration of the original text, I found that I could have felt less uneasy if I was aware that actually the story “is all we are” and that “we are the stories we tell ourselves” (King 153). It implies, in the case of writing or re-writing a kind of Creation story, we are actually and symbolically demonstrating how we make sense of how the world works, or simply using the story to parody the reality; rather than offering an explanation of what we believe has exactly happened. So rewriting King’s story offers an opportunity to communicating my values and beliefs. For example, when I had the witches all to agree that the creation of human being is the scariest thing in the world, I was suggesting that I personally think that humans themselves are actually the cause of evil, which is in a way illustrated by the conflict between the desire for profit and the Aboriginal resistance as shown in the news posted by the course instructor (“Canadian”). Having said that, the alteration also demonstrates my critical thoughts on the “evilness” of mankind by having the witch to say that the reason human beings are scary is they are capable of critical thinking about such as the conceptions of God(s) and witches. By linking human beings’ “flaw” of losing the faith in providence with their abilities of being critical, I intend to leave the readers of this altered story contemplating the complex relationships between stories, values, beliefs and humankind.    

In addition to the story-rewriting experience, the experience of preparing myself for telling a story also struck me as interesting. I was aware that telling a story could be found more challenging than writing or rewriting a story when I was preparing to tell the above story. Although I have not got the chance of telling someone else the story in question yet, I came to realise that whereas the text of the story could be kept to the writer him/herself and edited in whatever way one wants before it is made available to the readers; “once a story is told, it cannot be called back” (King 10). So you as a story-teller would better off being careful with the story you are going to tell and subsequently lose control of. This, I guess, tells a lot about the fascinating power of stories as manifested during the process of my seeking to rewrite and tell King’s story.   

Works Cited,

“Canadian First Nations, U.S. tribes form alliance to stop oil pipelines.” 23 Sep. 2016. YouTube. Web. 22 Sep. 2016.

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

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1:3 Introduction To Thomas King and Story”. ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres Sept 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2016. Web. 22 September 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-1/lesson-13/

Assignment 1:3

Explain why the notion that cultures can be distinguished as either “oral culture” or “written culture” (19) is a mistaken understanding as to how culture works, according to Chamberlin and your reading of Courtney MacNeil’s article “Orality.

The characterisation of cultures as an “oral” or a “written” one is a problematic conception in the sense of its implications that lead to the tension and inequitable relationships between genres of communication and cultures.

First of all, the way in which cultures are divided by written or spoken language may widen the gap between the two ways in which information is exchanged, with a competitive relationship in-between being created (“Orality”). It seems to be a common way of thinking that writing by nature is considered “cultivated” and “complex” (Chamberlin 19) as it “frees the mind for original, abstract thought” . However, the dialectical relationship between printed and spoken words suggested by some scholars in effect makes speaking seem comparatively “primitive” and “underdeveloped” as opposed to writing (“Orality”). It also entrenches the idea that oral traditions can only exist in an aesthetic sense (“Orality”) due to their “naturalness” and “naiveté”, consequently dismissing the practicality of oral language (Chamberlin 18). However, such a misconception has been challenged by Chamberlin who argues that the oral words in the story-telling traditions can also perform abstract work effectively such as communicating the knowledge of religion, science, history and the arts or “give meaning and value” to the reality that we could hardly make sense of without imaginative perspectives (1). It can also, according to Chamberlin, reveal truths of the world we live in as much as scientific knowledge written in texts can do and in a way bring us close to it (1). In addition to the equivalency between writing and orality which is evident in terms of their practicality and effectiveness in communicating abstract information, Paterson suggests that orature as a way of passing on stories might be more complex than written literature which begins with stories as far as the dynamics of readership and listenership is concerned (“Lesson”). She demonstrates that listeners in the context of story-telling can literarily change the story according to factors such as the time and space and people involved in the speech performance and therefore make new and contemporary meanings with that transformation; whereas readers of a text can do nothing about the story when it becomes textual and as a result static (“Lesson”). Although Paterson applauds the strength of orality over writing in terms of its power in empowering people to make changes on stories happen, she suggests that both forms of communicating stories should exist in a symbiotic relationship (“Lesson”). Such a conception is echoed by MacNeil who maintains that neither orality nor writing should be privileged (“Orality”).

The misconception that writing is more superior to orality might lead to hierarchical relationships as they are employed to frame and differentiate cultures. The categorisation of the “oral culture” and “written culture” implies that people who have writing skills are more intelligent, than those who rely on orality, in terms of their “self-reflexive” abilities that can generate “real thought” (Chamberlin 19). The subliminal bias that writing literacy holds the key for the development of human civilization while oral traditions are not able to “accommodate civilized thoughts and feelings” (Chamberlin 13) is very likely to give rise to the racist assumption that Indians, in the historical context of colonial Canada, should be educated; as a result, this group of people who are identified as having “primitive consciousness” (Chamberlin 19) or having a childlike state of mind or even “beasts of the field” (Chamberlin 10) can push through “the chronological progression” (“Lesson”) and become civilised. Such an understanding implying the hierarchical relationship between the Canadian Aboriginal cultures and the European cultures leads to the idea of replacing the Indigenous languages with the European ones (Chamberlin 18). Another implication of the division of the “oral” and “written” culture is that the societies who have the traditions of written literature are more “advance”, than those “whose major forms of imaginative expression are in speech and performance”,  in terms of the evolutionary process (Chamberlin 19). The underlying ethnocentricity in this colonising discourse lead to the justification of the legitimacy of dispossession, including the new comers from Europe taking the land away from the native inhabitants, and worse, enslavement of Aboriginal people in the Canadian history. The unequal dichotomy of the “oral” and “written” culture eventually causes the division of “Them and Us” (Chamberlin 4).

Works Cited:

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

Courtney, MacNeil. “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 16 SEP. 2016.http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1:2 Story & Literature”. ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres Sept 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2016. Web. 16 Sept. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-1/lesson-12/

Assignment 1:1

Following the instructions in this lesson, set up your blog and write a short introduction (300 – 400 words) that includes at least two hyperlinks and a visual. This introduction should, 1) welcome your readers, 2) include a brief description of the course, and 3) some commentary on your expectations for this course of studies.

Hello Everyone! My name is Junyi Wu but you can call me Patrick if you want. I came to live in Vancouver last year and have since been engaged in the studies in UBC working towards my degree in Education. Other than fulfilling the English credits as the prerequisite of the teacher education programme, my selection of this course is mainly to do with my multi-cultural background and experience.

I come from Guangzhou, or Canton, the historic status of which chartered as the only Chinese port for overseas trade (1757-1842) has made it a distinguished intersection of Western and Oriental culture as the European and Arabian and Persian traders settling in. Known as the “cradle” of the Chinese modern revolution, Guangzhou also saw the departure of the country from its last imperial dynasty (of the Qing from 1644-1912) making its way through to the first ever modern nation-state in the mythical five thousand years of Chinese history (Sigel 283). Along with those critical historical events, there emerges the distinctive Cantonese culture which impacts the development of contemporary Cantonese literature. Such a multi-cultural background of mine enables me to develop an initial understanding of ENGL470 which is, in a way, to investigate how the Canadian Aboriginal culture characterised by story-telling and the colonial European literary culture encounter and interact over the process in which Canada as a nation and Canadian literature as a genre come into being.

The Canadian Indigenous studies are also relevant to my multi-cultural experience working on the Swedish Ship Götheborg, a replica of a 18^th century merchant vessle owned by the Swedish East Indian Company. I suppose its voyage to Guangzhou in 2006, in remembrance of the history of the trading between Sweden and China, would NOT have been much celebrated by the Cantonese had it been operated instead by the British East India Company which is arguably involved in the opium sales that lead to the first Opium War, or the Anglo-Chinese War, taking place in Guangzhou (Robins 81). Although Guangzhou did not end up being colonised as happened to Hong Kong, the kinship between the two Cantonese cities facilitates the exposure to the conflicting stories informed by divergent dimensions including the native mainland China ideology, characterised by the sense of a victim of Western imperialism, and in contrast the British colonizing narratives which defend the legitimacy of gaining territorial rights over Hong Kong. My understanding of the history of the British colonization of the Chinese land as well as my experience of dealing with the complexity of stories developed from different sources and presented accordingly in different ways might effectively enable my critical approach to the Canadian Indigenous history, which appears to be one of the major components of this course of Canadian studies.

One of the most significant characteristics of the Canadian Indigenous history seems to be the systematic and enduring discrimination that the Canadian Aboriginal people were subject to in Canada’s colonial history. The miserable experiences and painful feelings of the First Nations caused by institutional racism could be well identified with the Chinese who had to face the discrimination manifested through the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, or the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chinese), regardless the contribution they have made towards the growth and prosperity of the Canadian society e.g. in opening the virgin land of British Columbia (Brief). Personally my experience with discrimination did not happen on the Swedish sailing ship, nor in Britain where I studied my MSc and worked in the hospitality industry, but unfortunately here in Canada. I saw a man, who appeared to be a white and a drunk, shouting at a bunch of young individuals and saying something like “speak English or go home to China”. It now prompts me to wonder if this gentleman knows anything about the Indigenous “beginning” stories in addition to the European Genesis (King 10). If he did, would the power of the native orature help open up his mind for the variety of cultures that contribute to the creation of a multi-cultural Canada as it is today? If Canadians from all walks of life bear the awareness of the diversity of Canadian literary genres in mind, would they be able to find the common ground that makes one land home to all of us, including the natives and newcomers (Chamberlin 4)?

Hopefully I could explore those questions in constant and structured dialogues, enabled by the blogging assignments, with my fellow students who may have a large number of fascinating stories and critical insights to share. In return, I hope my own stories and ideas could offer up a range of distinctive perspectives into the class readings, thus contributing to the collective knowledge property of this weblog community. With the posting of this very first blog in my life, I am feeling incredibly excited in joining you in the same boat in search of the past and the future of Canadian literature.

WORKS CITED

A Brief Chronology of Chinese Canadian History: From Segregation to Integration. n.d. Web. 10 Sep. 2016. <http://www.sfu.ca/chinese-canadian-history/chart_en.html#>

“Canadian Aboriginal History: “Did You Know”?” 27 Jul. 2011. YouTube. Web. 10 Sep. 2016.

Chamberlin, Edward J. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground. Toronto : A.A. Knopf Canada, 2003. Print.

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

“Lakota Origin Story by Elder Duane Hollow Horn Bear.” 4 Sep. 2016. YouTube. Web. 10 Sep. 2016.

Robins, Nick. “Loot: In Search of the East India Company, the World’s First Transnational Corporation.” Environment and Urbanization 14.1 (2002):79-88. Print.

Sigel, Louis T. The Reform and Restructuring of the Guangzhou Economy: The Question of National Applicability. Ed. Yu, George T. China in Transition : Economic, Political, and Social Developments. Lanham, Md. : University Press of America, 1993. UBCLibrary. Web. 10 SEP 2016.

SOIC: The Swedish Ship Götheborg. n.d. Web. 10 Sep. 2016. < http://www.soic.se/en/our-story/>

The Chinese Experience in British Columbia: 1850-1950, Immigration: Chinese Exclusion Act. n.d. Web. 10 Sep. 2016. < http://www.library.ubc.ca/chineseinbc/exclusion.html>