It is almost the end of the year 2016. Starting from the 

When I was in high school, one of the mandatory subject was Korean History. During classes, my history teacher wanted to

After finishing reading Obasan, my mind went completely blank. 

The reason why I did not write blog about field trip: 

Unfortunately, I could not go to Rare Book Library, because I was very sick for around two weeks. If I can, I want to visit this place personally and explore stories behind books. 

It is a main question that I have answer during whole ASTU class. It is such a simple question, but the meaning behind cannot be define easily. When I type word ‘memory’ in Google, there are various answers for this question. In other words, there are many different perspective towards the concept of memory and its definition. In ASTU class, I had to read an introduction of the book, Tangled Memories, which explain and elaborate about what memory is. The author, Marita Sturken, explains that ‘memory is a narrative rather than a replica of an experience that can be retrieved and relived. ” (Sturken 7). Also, she added the relationship between forgetting and memory that “all memories are created in tandem with forgetting” (Sturken 7). She has her own definition of memory explaining that forgetting also contribute to development of memory. Based on her idea, throughout discussion, we discuss how different people value different aspects between remembering and forgetting.

I think depends on what kind of experience that people have, people rather choose to forget or remember. I am type of person who try to forget but changed after my middle school experience. Before my middle school, I thought memory is not as important as my school grade, because memory did not play important role. Also, my parents, who influenced my ideas a lot, are type of people who believe forgetting is best way to move on with their lives. However, in my middle school year, I had series of hardship that I had to overcame. It was a turning point of my short life time, in both negative and positive way. It is impossible to explain my experience in public (but someday I want to), but I realize it is important to keep my memory in order to move on and not to make same mistake. It was a traumatic experience for me, but ironically, I was able to step forward by reminding myself. In addition, I kept my memories in different forms such as writing journals.

Every single person have different perspective about memory.

What about you?

Which side are you in, to forget or to remember?

After reading Running in the Family, written by Michael Ondaatje, I was very puzzled and fascinated. Specifically, the format of this book was unexpected to me. I heard it is a memoir, but unlike Persepolis, Running in the Family, does not have chronicle order, instead this book has series of poetries and short stories. Some stories are related to author’s father and other family members, on the other hand, other stories were recorded through author’s perspective. Throughout his book, I was able to see that author is on the gray zone between two culture, both Canada and Sri Lanka (Ceylon), which were used to express his own identity.

The concept of identity appeared throughout chapters in this book. Personally, one of the most important part is where author illustrates and describes his own perspective of Asia, such as “I was already dreaming of Asia” (pg. 4) and “Asia. The name was a gasp from a dying mouth. An ancient word that had to be whispered…” (pg.4). He kept describe and emphasize Asia as a foreign land, which explains that he does not have strong relationship with only one culture from his homeland.

From his book, I started to think about my own identity in various perspective. I lived in Korea around 18 years, but studied in Canada for two years (grade 5 to 6) and international school for four years (grade 9 to 12). Since I was influenced by my family and education, I never felt that I am part of one single society.  Also, after coming back from Canada, a middle school that I went was very conservative towards other culture, even though there were large number of students who studied foreign countries. As a result, I did not have chance to think deeply about my identity. I was stuck in a gray zone.

After going to international school, I was exposed to teen-culture from other countries, which gave me second chance to understand  and explore other culture. Studying with teachers from many different cultural background (most of students were Korean…but speak english) again, I have reached to the point where I get concerned about my identity. Now, since studying Canadian University, it is inevitable to stay in gray zone of two different culture or might be more than two depends on what I choose to work. However, as Ondaatje wrote about his identity, someday I will be able to tell others about my own ‘mixed identity’.

If I need to select a scene from the ‘Persepolis’ I will pick:

“The key to paradise was for poor people. Thousands of young kids, promised a better life, exploded on the minefields with their keys around their necks.”

It is the narration on pg. 102 with a explosion illustration. This page was discussed in the class on Thursday, when my group had to share our ideas and analyze about the impactful scene in Persepolis. Specifically, this scene contain faceless young boys with plastic key painted gold around their neck and brutally killed by a explosion.

Ironically, under the explosion scene, there is a scene which Marji is having a party with her friends. This scene not only emphasize the ironic side of society, but also emphasize violent side of the society (in the past), how many people were sacrificed due to the war and foreshadowing fact that there will be more people sacrifice to fulfill ideology of religion.

Interestingly, Persepolis is not the only graphic narrative, which depicted on violence in the past. Maus, written by Art Spiegelman, is a story about his father who is a Holocaust survivor. Unlike Persepolis, Maus frequently change its setting, moving back and forth between Holocaust period and present time (when Art interviewed his father, Vladek Spiegelman and spend time together). Since it deals with one of the horrible memory among human history, the description for violent scene appears very often in the book.

In the book, rats represents Jewish people and cat represents Nazi. In other words, it described as prey and predator relationship. Using symbols, author effectively illustrate violence happened during Holocaust. Representatively, there is a scene that hang Jews to the public in order to make as an example for other Jews. In addition, there are many scenes with violence and insult to show the reality of the Holocaust such as physical punishment. According to these scenes, I realize violence was used to highlight how Nazi oppressed and sacrificed Jews to tried to develop ideal and perfect world for Nazi’s themselves.

It is devastating to see the violence from books. However, these violence still exist around the world even though Iran War and Holocaust is over. The violence is still repeating in other places. Why human make same mistake again and again? It is going to be possible to cease everlasting peace?