Hello readers,

Can you believe it, we only have 2 more weeks of school before the start of final seasons. Time flies, and before you know it you are in year two already.

So this week in ASTU, we focused on Peter Morey’s article “The rules of the game have changed”; Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and post -9/11 fiction” . I personally is not too keen on this type of long article but Morey’s piece did provide a lot of insight and interesting key point. While reading the book The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the idea that the writer is Anti-American constantly pops up in my head. The fact that the main character Changez relationship with Erica never stood a chance or the amount of discrimination he experienced in the second half of the book convey the message that America is not as good as it seems to the readers. The idea that “us vs. them” is very strong. There is a constant struggle for me to decide who’s side to be on. Morey’s article answer just that question I had, no one is right or wrong. There isn’t a certain right answer and since dramatic monologue is bias.

Morey’s article stated that world novel like The Reluctant Fundamentalist can be used to record the experience of victims affect by 9/11 and how those people that lived deal with the after math. I agree with Morey’s idea because people usually place emphasis heavily on those that died in the tragedy but rarely put focus on those that lived. It serves as a kind of written history for those whose voice is usually unheard of. These novel also serve the purpose of keeping an eye of the hyper-conscious western world and its violent and self-aggrandizing politics.

I must admit this essay is somewhat dull and extremely long but nevertheless it provides the readers with much insight. Besides the knowledgable suggestion that Morey proposed about the book, what I love the most is perhaps the fact that he told us readers that is it fine to be stuck between the two sides because there is no definite answer as to who is right or wrong.

I hope you enjoy my short comment on Morey’s article and have a nice long weekend.

Hello readers,

This week on ASTU, we focused on the book The Reluctant Fundamentalist written by Mohsin Hamid. The book follows the inner dialog of the protagonist, a bearded Pakistani man called Changez and his journey in America. He struggled to identity himself, during his stay in America not only did he witnessed how Americans reacted to 9/11 but also tasted first hand the rise of racism against people of colour.

This book resonated with me because in a lot of ways I can relate to Changez’s experience although not to such extreme extend. Being born in Canada but raised in Hong Kong and later coming back for 2 years of high school also university gave me somewhat an identity crisis. When people asked me where I am from, I would usually ask them weather they would like to hear the long or short version. Although I am Canadian, I identify with being a Hong Konger. To be very honest, the problem of race never crossed my mind until I came to North America. When you meet a person in Hong Kong, you wouldn’t ask where they are from because the city is made up of 96% Chinese but when I am in North America, the first thing people ask is where I am from. I studied in a school in North Vancouver where there is only me and another south east Asian student, we made up the whole Asian population in our grade, how my fellow peers identify me when I first got here is “the other Asian girl” . The idea of identifying someone according to their race is still foreign to me, my mentality changed as a result.

A scene in the book where Changez is in the parking lot and came across this man swearing at him and calling him “F**king Arab” echoed in my heart, not because of the strong language used but because I myself have unfortunately experience racism first hand not too long ago. I was on an empty bus late in the afternoon, on my way home when a drunk white male sat across me. He looked angry but I minded my own business and didn’t give much thought to it. As time progresses, he tried to make conversation but I pretended that I don’t speak English. After multiple failed attempt to make conversation, he said “F**king Sake, if you can’t speak English don’t come here, Go back to where you came from. You are wasting the resources of Canadians” he then continued and stated that he once served in Vietnam and can speak multiple languages including Mandarin and Korean. After listening to much insult and harassment, I said to him,” would you like to start a conversation with me in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korea or English cause I so happen to speak all four “ (My Korean language skills only consist of food vocabularies) . Much to his surprise, he looked at me with confusion and soon left the bus. I know I shouldn’t give much though to it because I should forgive his ignorance but I really couldn’t help it. Does the colour of your skin means so much to a person? If the situation had changed and I am White, I am sure the same thing wouldn’t have happened. Is one race better than another, this is truly a race between races.

Thankyou for reading my blog and bearing with my anger. Hope you have a great weekend 🙂

Hi readers! How is school so far? Just a reminder, reading week is coming soon!

For the past week or so in our ASTU class, we have been focusing on poetry about violence and war. All those poems we read could be tied into the event of 9/11; those poems perfectly depicted the frustrations of those who are suffering the loss of their loved ones; those poems wonderfully highlights the the ordeal of war.  For the first time ever, I enjoyed reading poetry.

While I was on my sick leave this week, I finally have the luxury to take a break during this stressful period and watch a movie. Interestingly and coincidentally the movie I watched is also about violence and war, I watched the movie The Flowers of War a movie starring  Christian Bale. The movie follows the story of 13 Chinese prostitute and their adventure during the Sino-Japenese War during the 30s to 40s . They hid in a catholic church governed by an American mortician. The movie resonated with me because I felt a deep connection the journey of the girls. My grandparents that lived through the war told me about how they escaped from mainland China to the British ruled Hong Kong during the Japanese war. They both walked by foot to Hong Kong and smuggled their way into tge island. The youngest brother of my grandma drowned when trying to run away from the fast approaching Japanese soldiers. Till this day, my grandparents still hold a grudge against the Japanese government and I understand why. They refuse to go travelling in Japan or purchase Japanese goods.

It saddens me to know that war and violence happened so close to home not many moons ago. I know hating on a race in general is an act of ignorance but it really begs the questions wheather victim of war has the right to be angry? My grandparent’s story really did made me think if their action gets to be justified. I would probably never find an answer to this impossible question. I cannot comprehend the pain they have been through or the sacrifice they made, so who am I to judge their decision to sanction Japanese goods?

I understand this blog might be quite dull but I would like to express my thoughs on war as a third generation victim of war.

Hope you enjoy my blog and have a wonderful week 🙂

Hello readers, this week we focused on the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Foer and how fear can affect a persona’s life. The story mainly focuses on the event of 9/11 but in this post i would like to explore the by-product of 9/11 and how it affected people globally.

The moment the two 110-story high World Trade Centre towers crumble into dust, media outlets rushed to the scene and recorded what happened live for the world to see. People all over the world gasped and cannot comprehend what they saw on the television. Within the next day, every media outlet on earth covered the 9/11 story. In this blog post, I would like to discuss in depth one the lasting negative effect after 9/11—Islamophobia and how the internet played such an important role in encouraging this negative and problematic phenomenon.

Although my memory on that day of 9/11 is very vague, but I remember clearly dinning in the MacDonald’s that’s two block away from my grandma’s home in Burnaby when I heard about the news. I was enjoying my happy meal when suddenly I hear people screaming. I would never forget the look on my mom’s face; the face of horror; the face of confusion; the face of consternation. At that time, I cannot comprehend what happened, but now as a young adult that’s 19 years of age, I can fully understand the fear I saw in my mom’s eyes and why my parents chose to cut our trip to Canada short.

It is clear that what happened on September 11 is extremely traumatizing, and some people they might never get over the shadow of the event. It is evidence that 9/11 marks the start of Islamophobia and it is important to point out that the media and internet played a huge role in spreading this idea. Those who are Islamophobic hold a dislike or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, this group of people arisen mainly due to 9/11 and they tend to stereotype all Muslim and blame the whole race for what happened on 9/11.

I got inspired to write about this topic for two reason; firstly due to my roommate’s constant unpleasant experience and secondly, due to the efficiency of internet and how it helped me connect with others.

I was chatting with my roommate whom is Muslim and from Pakistan. She was telling me about what would happen whenever she goes to a white dominated country. As soon as the customs sees her green passport; her passport would be circled and she would be escorted to another line, waiting to be searched and padded down. It saddens me to hear that she have been searched more times than she can count; it shocked me to know that every time she goes to the airport she would go earlier because she knows the custom would want to talk to her and search her bags.

The other day while I was in Starbucks coffee enjoying my cup of London Fog while skyping my friend in England, I imagined what would have happened during the time of 9/11 if technological communication and the internet is not as widely spread as then and people don’t text each other and live broadcast is impossible. The whole picture would have changed dramatically. People that’s living in the next city would only find out about 9/11 in a month or so (if they are lucky), those living in another continent would very well find out years later. People will not express their anger on the internet and Islamophobia might not exist at all. I understand this scenario is unrealistic and impossible, but just imagine a world where racism does not exist!

After reading the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and hearing about my roommate’s experience, I want to live everyday as if it was my last. I know it is extremely cliche for me to say but just what if the same thing happened in 9/11 happen again tomorrow?

“Why didn’t I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer

Hope you enjoy my blog, see you next week.

Hello readers,

We have been reading and discussing the book Obasan by Joy Kogawa in depth in our recent ASTU class. The book follows the prospective of the Japanese-Canadian protagonist, Naomi and her journey of growing up in post World War Two era of Canada where racism towards Japanese and poverty is prominent. The book is especially important in Canadian literature today not only because it is one of the few books that wrote about the hardship and segregation Japanese-Canadian faced but also the setting of the book is right here in B.C.

Just last week, our ASTU class went to the rare book collection library located at the basement of Irving. K Library in UBC and we had the honor to look into Joy Kagawa’s archive. I have a better understanding of how the book came into being. Her achieve is packed hundreds of folders and within them holds numerous of fan letters, fan art, personal notes, pictures, recommendation letters and more but what stood out the most to me was the amount of rejection letters from different editors that she received. Never would I thought such renowned literature and commercially successful book would be so harshly critised.

I read a few of the letters and some of them stated that “it [the book] lack flow and its character development is dull” or even said that this book” lacks market in a commercial prospective” and doesn’t know how they would advertise/market this book(picture attached below). I am immensely surprised by the negative comment and is disappointed by the lack of enthusiasm of the editors. Despite the fact that the characters in this book are fictional, the storyline and all other details are based upon real life events, in detail described the hardship Japanese-Canadian felt during that period. It is evidence that the editors do not give much attention to this part of history because if they do, more books on the history of Japanese-Canadian would be published. This book to me is a piece of history that more people needs to know about.

I must confess before reading this book, I do not know much about the history of Japanese-Canadian, we do not discuses this topic in high school nor is there much debate over this topic in public today. I can go on and on about First Nations groups and residential schools but hardly know anything about Japanese-Canadian history. I believe what happened to the Japanese-Canadian are not being voiced out or recognized enough compared to First Nation history. If we do not educate children today on what happened in the past, this part of history would be completely wiped clean.

The book Obasan gave me a new prospective towards Canada and its history. I got to know more about how Canada came into what it is today; the process, events and bloodshed that took to create what I am enjoying now did not come easily. I wouldn’t say this book completely destroyed the perfect picture of Canada that’s painted in my head but it certainly resonated negatively on me. This book showed me another side of Canadian history that not many people know about, it gave me more information on its not-so-glamorous past.

I hope you enjoy my blog and have an awesome weekend!

Please pay attenetion to the line which they stated, “we see problems in marketing this story”

Hello readers,

This week in ASTU, our class focused on the topic of war and violence. I realize that the protagonist in the books that we read or are currently reading are females, so I couldn’t help but to wonder the role and status of woman in our society.

Women have been seen as insignificant and unimportant for a long time. During the Second World War, woman gained recognized working at home in factories but it wasn’t until the introduction of the Universal Right to Vote in 1963 and the addition of the equality clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1985 that women are given the same right as men and are recognize as a person. Despite many years have passed and society have gotten a lot more liberal, it is still no surprise to hear on the news today that woman earn less than man working the same job and society have another standard for woman regarding how she should act. The inferior statue of women is a consequence of war time traditions from ancient times and double standards arisen as a result of that.

Women have been given as gift to the winning state or countries ever since the beginning of war history; take the relationship of China and Joseon (now Korea) as an example, young maidens were given to the Emperor to work in his palace, this tradition went on for thousands of years. Another example I would like to focus on is from the graphic novel Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco, and how women are being portrayed in the book.

Women are portrayed as weak and naïve in the book Safe Area Gorazde written by Joe Sacco which took place during the Eastern Bosnia War. In the chapter Silly Girls, the young girls were being called “silly” for wanting jeans, wanting to spent money on jeans rather than education is certainly wrong but what should one expect from a sixteen years old girl that grew up in a deprived society whom doesn’t know better? And compared to those older men, what right do they have to call them “silly” when compared to those girls, they are far more educated? In my opinion, women are just being unfairly depicted in this book, not once are women portrayed as strong or have a colorful character.

I hope you enjoy my blog post and hope you have a wonderful weekend 🙂

Hello readers!

This week on ASTU, we continued talking about the book Persepolis written by Marjane Satrapi. We not only discussed the style of the book in depth but also linked the style of the drawing to  the child’s view of violence and trauma.

The comic style of the book made it approachable and easy to read, she drew it in the view of a child and the child-like language used made it easily relatable. Despite the simplistic drawing technique used, what Satrapi is trying to convey to us readers are far more dark and not for the faint hearted. She tries to express her anger towards war, her hatred towards violence and her sympathy towards the innocents that died during the protest. Satrapi purposely drew out how she perceived all the violence as a child and how she imagined it to look. Take the mass murder scene as an example, everything is so neat and tidy, there is no blood nor broken limbs shown in the panel. As a reader, we know that the actual scene would be far more bloody, this gave us readers the opportunity to picture how it would actually look like. In another words, it is also because of the book’s simplistic drawing style that enabled us to focus on the main idea of violence. If the panel is filled with colour or patterns, those effects would over shadow the main idea of violence. Keeping the colour black and white give it a sense of seriousness which helps deliver her story and keep the readers in mind that she is talking about a serious issue.

Another feature I would like to point out is how simple the heading of each chapter is. Marjane Satrapi purposely named the chapter after commonly found things in her daily life in her childhood. For example the veil, the bicycle, the key…. This shows a child remember events by linking their memories to an everyday object, and each object have a story of its own. Every chapter, she will bring out a deeper meaning using the object mentioned in the heading as a lead. The fact that even the most common objects have a sad story behind it suggested that she has a painful childhood.

What I love about Marjane Satrapi’s book Persepolis is how well planned the book is, every panel and heading is purposely drawn or in a particular way to bring out a deeper meaning. I find this comic book an amazing depiction of the Islamic Revolution, it gave us insight of what is happening during that time.

Thank you for reading and I hope my piece is a delight to read!

By Rachel Lam

Hello readers!

I will admit I do not have the most exciting topic but please forgive me and hang with me here. Today in my ASTU I just had my Summary exam, to be honestly I find this task extremely challenging and would much rather write an essay than a summary. While I was writing my exam, I thought to myself. Why is having the skills to summarize an article so importance? The more I think of this question, the more real life application of summary can come into play. We all read the short summary paragraph at the back of the book before buying it; or perhaps read the comments on rotten tomato of a movie before watching it and most importantly we would read the summarized life of a person on Wikipedia when we need to do a research paper on a historic person. The list go on and on, and I am convinced that summary is extremely important in the world of literature.

You might be wondering what’s the purpose of me writing a short article specifically on why summary is important. Well, Let’s face it, we all love summary and we all read summary, which is also probably why we should all learn how to write a summary. I know this sounds cliché but summary is everywhere in our daily life!

In order to write a good summary, here are some things to beware of.

1. Writing a summary is no easy task, fitting all the key information from an essay into one short paragraph is a lot harder than it sounds. The key is to focus on the bigger picture rather than expanding on smaller details. Try to mention points that’s link to another point.
2. Always use present tense. Avoid switching tenses mid-way through the paragraph, not only will it cause confusion for the reader but it would also affect the flow of the paragraph.
3. Do not use the full name of the article as the introduction but use the words within the name of the article. Not only will it save much valuable space but also make the paragraph less bulky.
4. Avoid using the word “conclude” but use the word “argues”, “claims” and also “charts”.
5. Try to use direct words from the article and put it into the summary. It not only gives the readers a taste of the original article but also put more trust into your work.
6. Try to stay neutral and only use words like “intend” when you doubt or disagrees with the original text. Please be aware that after using these words, an explanation is required. You will have to explain why you disagree or what the writer is trying to prove but failed to.
7. Last but not least, always remember to introduce the writer. Avoid using information like which University he/she is from and try to mention something the readers would want to know or find useful! The writer’s field of studies is an example. For example: Biologist Rachel Lam proposed that in her recent article……….

I hope you find my article a delight to read and my pointers useful. See you next week!

Hello readers!

This week on ASTU we read the comic book Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and I must say this is a marvellous and well written comic book. The book enables us readers to oversee the whole Islamic Revolution in the view of a child, it helps deliver the serious message in a simple, childish and pressure-free way.

A scene in the comic resonated with me long after I read the book, in that scene Marjane Satrapi (the protagonist of the book) was in the car with her parent. She asked them why didn’t they leave the country and her father coldly replied, “So that I can be a taxi driver and you [Marjane] can be a cleaning lady?” (page 64) After reading this scene, I sympathize with Marjane and her family. I feel a sense of hopelessness because the political outlook of the country is so unstable; trapped because there is nowhere they can go. Moreover, this particular scene reminded me of the sacrifice my parents made migrating to Canada 20 years ago.

Hong Kong used to be a British colony until 1996 when Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese government. My parents were terrified of what will become of Hong Kong after the handover, they do not wish to raise their kids in a communist country and decided to migrate to Canada. They gave up the stable jobs and comfortable lives they enjoy in Hong Kong and moved to another continent. After moving to Canada, they struggled to make a stable living and have to put up with the constant racist comments and harassment from their co-workers. Some might ask why didn’t they switch jobs? Well, let me ask you a question. If you have a 2 years old child and another one on the way (the other one is me to be exact), can you afford to be picky? Besides, not much jobs were opened to new immigrants at that time.

It was especially hard for my dad, he earned a degree in urban planning and worked in the government in Hong Kong. Although he is a very talented man and is passionate about his studies, the only job he landed in Canada was to work in a fish market unloading boxes and boxes of seafood on and off truck. Due to the heavy load he carried everyday during that period, he severely hurt his back and is still in constant pain till this day.

Marjan Satrapi’s story reminded me of what happened to my parents and how influential the head of state or government can be. One wrong decision they make can severely affect the lives of millions. In event like these, both Marjane and my parents are choosing better the lesser evil and are asking themselves the ultimate question. Would they rather risk raising their child in a potentially unsafe environment but have a high social standing and a stable income or would they give up all they have just so they can have a stable life but earn an unstable income?

Overall I enjoyed the book, I have always been a fan of memoir or comic books. Having these two genre combine is just perfect. To those who are also interested in this genre of books, I recommend you to read “The Book Of Negro” written by Canadian author Lawrence Hill. This book is otherwise known as “Someone Knows My Name” in New Zealand and in the United State. Although it is not a comic book but a novel, it is not at all dull or boring.

I hope you enjoy my blog and find it a pleasure to read!

By Rachel Lam

PS: After my parents lived in Canada for 5 years, they realize Canada is not the promise land that the country advertised so they moved back to Hong Kong.

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