For this blog assignment I will reference allusions associated with the characters on pages 29-38 from the 1993 edition of Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.

Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe and Hawkeye

The names of four First Nation elders, Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe and Hawkeye, allude to the famous literary, biblical and television figures of the West.

Flick outlines the allusions of each of these characters in her notes, which can be briefly summarized as follows. Lone Ranger is a hero of Western books, radio, television, movies, which is “[a]t the centre of stories about the Texas Rangers and the lone survivor of a raid. He is a Do Gooder. The Texas Rangers myth has it that one ranger could be sent to clean up a town” (Flick 141). Hawkeye is “a white woodsman and guide with knowledge of “Indian ways” (142), with “adopted “Indian” name. Most famous of the frontier heroes in American literature, when the frontier was in the East— Appalachia, before the frontier “moved” West” (141). Robinson Crusoe is a character based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who was deserted on an island but “survives through ingenuity and finds spiritual strength through adversity… King mocks Crusoe’s passion for making lists and for weighing the pros and cons of various situations” (142). Ishmael is a “[c]haracter in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick… when Moby Dick destroys the Pequod, Ishmael survives by staying afloat on Queequeg’s coffin. The name is Biblical: Gen.15.-15” (142).

Despite of the different roles of these characters in their narratives, they all had “their “Indian friend” (71) counterparts” (140). Lone Ranger had his “[f]aithful Indian companion” Tonto. Hawkeye’s best friend is Chingachgook. Robinson Crusoe befriended Friday, a “savage” he saved from cannibals, while Ishmael had a friend Queequeg, who was a cannibal.

Thus, King assigns names to the four elders, which allude to the names of four iconic characters from the Western tales, who in turn managed to befriend and receive loyalty from the “Indian friends”.  In other words, the names of the Indigenous storytellers allude to both, Western heroes and their Indigenous counterparts, and the creation stories they tell (from the name of the First Woman, Changing Woman, Thought Woman, and Old Woman) intervene the elements from Western and Indigenous cultures. To add the cycling complexity to the satiric allusions, King places the Indians elders in the land, “[f]rom where they… could see the edges of the world in all directions” (29), in other words in the God-like position, where Ishmael, the only character with biblical name asks: “Are we lost again? Have we made another mistake?” (29). Fluidity and complex portrayal of the four elders and their creation stories are acts of narrative decolonization, as well as an emphasis on the importance of non-binary thinking and diverse worldview.

Dr. Loomis

Next pages of the passage which I analyze include a flashback from Lionel’s point of view on his failed attempt to get a surgery on removal his tonsils.

Flick defines Dr. Loomis as “a private joke” in her notes (146). He was the one who recommended removing Lionel’s tonsils, while Martha Old Crow had diagnosed the boy with a “[s]imple thing” (King 31). She nicknames Dr. Loomis as “the Frog doctor” for his “inordinately long” (31) tongue, typical to frogs. Somebody with a long tongue is also pertinent a person, who talks too much. More to this, the Frog doctor can be interpreted as a “doctor”, who is only capable to dissect frogs, which, in turn, part of the biology classes in the middle and high schools. However, in many traditions around the globe, the frog is symbolic of belonging to water, as well as cleansing, renewal, transformation and metamorphosis attributes. This is why Dr. Loomis  recommendation for a surgery is symbolic to Lionel’s renewal and transformation, which I will discuss a little more one paragraph down.

John Wayne

“What would John Wayne do?” said Charlie (King 33). John Wayne is the actor famous for his western movies, including “anti-Indian” roles, like in The Searchers (1956). “Lionel’s childhood desire to be John Wayne and to have his jacket signals his denial of “Indianness” (Flick 147).

So, Lionel, being uncomfortable with his Indigenous heritage, insists on his throat operation, which is, in combination with the Frog doctor’s blessing is symbolic to Lionel’s transformation to the John Wayne-like cowboy, through removal his Indianness (tonsils). The referral for “an easy operation” is arranged by the white doctor, who weekly comes to the reserve even though people prefer to see their own doctors. Doctor Loomis’s regular arrivals to the reserve land remind the colonial settlers, which continued to arrive in hundreds of ships. For Lionel,  perspective, what seemed to be as simple as tonsils removal in Calgary, turned into something more serious, which could have been handled in Toronto only (where the Frog Doctor studied), and involved no less than “fixing” his heart.

Thus, new comers take the land (the allusion to the reserve’ visits by the Frog Doctor). Then they take away the Indigenous children and place them into the residential schools to renew and transform their identities (the allusion to sending Lionel away from his mom with the intention to operate his heart and make it work the “right way”).

Transformation story for Lionel was not ended up with his return to Calgary from Toronto. He continued to face the consequences of his attempt to transform in the form of his health records for years. As he admitted, it turned out to be one of three mistakes in Lionel’s life, “the kinds of mistakes that seem small enough at the time, but somehow get out of hand” (30).

Works Cited

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature161/162 (1999). Web. 12 Mar. 2020.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

King GGRW

Sources

Harris, Elena. “Frog Spirit Animal: Totem Meaning.” Spirit Animal Info, Web. 12 Mar. 2020. https://www.spiritanimal.info/frog-spirit-animal/

“John Wayne.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 27 Apr. 2017, Web. 12 Mar. 2020. https://www.biography.com/actor/john-wayne

O’Dell, Cary. “The Lone Ranger (Episode: “The Osage Bank Robbery”) (December 17, 1937).” The Library of Congress, 2006, Web. 11 Mar. 2020. https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/LoneRanger.pdf

Power, Chris. “Best Book of 1947: Call Me Ishmael by Charles Olson.” Granta, 11 Feb. 2020, Web. 12 Mar. 2020. https://granta.com/best-book-of-1947-call-me-ishmael-by-charles-olson/

“QUAINT #3 Hawkeye from The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.” Beyond Victoriana, 19 Jan. 2011, Web. 11 Mar. 2020. https://beyondvictoriana.com/2011/01/19/quaint-3-hawkeye-from-the-last-of-the-mohicans-by-james-fenimore-cooper/

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Robinson Crusoe.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 Jan. 2019, Web. 12 Mar. 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Robinson-Crusoe-novel

Assignment 3:5 – Auditory Allusions

6. Find three examples of names that need to be spoken aloud in order to catch the allusion. Discuss the examples as well as the reading technique that requires you to read aloud in order to make connections. Why does King want us to read aloud?

In his novel Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King’s continues Robinson’s storytelling traditions to blend oral and written cultures. In order to emphasize the importance of oral stories, King also includes multiple allusions in his text, which I would call auditory allusions, because they can be caught only if the text is spoken aloud. Some of such allusions come up with the reading aloud of the names of the characters, such as Dr. Joseph Hovaugh, Alberta Frank or the combination of three: Louis, Ray and Al.

Dr. Joseph Hovaugh runs the mental hospital from which the Indian elders escape. If to abbreviate his first name as “J” and read it aloud as one word with the last name “Hovaugh”, it sounds like “Jehovah”. Therefore, Joseph Hovaugh’s name is an allusion to one of the pronunciations of the name of the Christian God in the Old Testament (OED). From the first introduction of Dr. Hovaugh in the text, I could sense his God-like personality traits and position he observes the world from: “Dr. Hovaugh sat in his chair behind his desk and looked out at the wall and the trees and the flowers and the swans on the blue-green pond in the garden, and he was pleased” (King 16). He plays the role of God when he wants to report the four missing Indian elders as dead: “They are dead… I can feel it” (47). His pre-occupation with his superior self-identification is perfectly reflected by Babo Jones, a janitor at the hospital: “Dr. Joseph God Almighty Hovaugh” (220).

Alberta Frank is a Blackfoot woman who works as a university professor. Her first name immediately alludes to the province, because she lives in Calgary. I was also thinking of her last name Frank as a dispatch to her personal characteristics, i.e. she is frank, with free-minded personality. However, I had a feeling that it should be something more hiding behind the name of this character. Upon some investigation, I found out that unlike in the previous example, in order to get to a clear allusion, you need to pronounce Alberta Frank with the pause between the first and last names, and better start from the last name “Frank”, i.e. Frank, Alberta.

Frank is a small town in the District of Alberta, North-West Territories, known for Canada’s deadliest rockslide in 1903. The slide was caused by the collapse of the Turtle Mountain. The name of the mountain makes me to think of the allusion which is contrary to the first creation story in the novel. The world started when the First Woman fell on the back of grandmother Turtle (39). Frank Slide alludes to the collapse of the world, when Turtle Mountain has fallen.

Double allusions in the Alberta Frank’s name suggest that King prepares readers for something really important and crucial for the narrative.  I can also see that Alberta is a character, who is closely connected to her land and traditions, struggles to find her way as a woman and mother, without going through the tensions of marriage. She feels that whatever decision she takes, it will cause the catastrophic rockslide to the direction of either Charlie, or Lionel, or both of them.

One more example of the allusions, which may be lost on the reader when silently reading, are the names of the characters “Louis,” “Ray” and “Al”. If we read aloud these names as one word, we can hear the play of words which lead to the name of Louis Riel. Here, King helps us to catch this allusion, when Latisha repeats the names of the visitors in the correct order. In addition, one of the visitors (Ray) clarifies, that all three of them are from Manitoba, and each year “they get together” (334), i.e. this works as a tip to read all three names “together” and catch the allusion to Riel Louis. According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Riel Louis was a Métis spokesman, and regarded as the founder of Manitoba, teacher and leader of the North-West rebellion, one of the most controversial figures in Canadian history.

I think that the auditory allusions created by King in the novel remind us how important is to listen, hear, and think of what has been said. He encourages us to stop, read certain fragments again and again, and make further research to get full understanding of the meanings intervened in the story.

Works Cited

“Biography – RIEL, LOUIS (1844-85) – Volume XI (1881-1890) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography.” Home – Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Web. 03 Mar, 2020, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/riel_louis_1844_85_11E.html

Frank Slide, Alberta – When a Mountain Fell on a Town, Web. 05 Mar, 2020, http://www3.sympatico.ca/goweezer/canada/frank.htm

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

OED/Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Web. 06 Mar, 2020, https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/view/Entry/100996?redirectedFrom=jehovah#eid

Sources

Chester, Blanca. “Green Grass, Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel.” Canadian Literature 161/162 On Thomas King (1999). Web. 03 Mar, 2020, https://canlit.ca/article/green-grass-running-water/

In her article, “Green Grass, Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel,” Blanca Chester observes that “the conversation that King sets up between oral creation story, biblical story, literary story, and historical story resembles the dialogues that Robinson sets up in his storytelling performances (47). She writes:

Robinson’s literary influence on King was, as King himself says, “inspirational.” When one reads King’s earlier novel, Medicine River, and compares it with Green Grass, Running Water, Robinson’s impact is obvious. Changes in the style of the dialogue, including the way King’s narrator seems to address readers and characters directly (using the first person), in the way traditional characters and stories from Native cultures (particularly Coyote) are adapted, and especially in the way that each of the distinct narrative strands in the novel contains and interconnects with every other, reflect Robinson’s storied impact. (46)

For this blog assignment I would like you to make some comparisons between Harry Robson’s writing style in “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England” and King’s style in Green Grass, Running Water. What similarities can you find between the two story-telling voices? Coyote and God are present in both texts, how do they compare in character and voice across the stories?

What similarities can you find between the two story-telling voices?

In his article “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial”, King refers to Robinson as a creator of oral voice within the written stories with “an oral syntax that defeats readers’ efforts to read the stories silently” (186). King says that Robinson’s prose has become a source of inspiration and influence for other Native writers, including himself (187). His novel “Green Grass, Running Water” is an example where King follows Robinson’s storytelling traditions to create “metamorphosis – written to oral, reader to speaker” (187).

Robinson’s story “Coyote Makes a Deal With the King of England” and some of the storylines in King’s “Green Grass, Running Water” both include that “oral syntax” which prompts for text to be read aloud. The most prominent similarity in the two story voices is that they use short, broken or incomplete sentences with colloquial language which resemble the ways in which one would tell an oral story in a casual manner. At times, it seems like if you read such fragments in your head, you may miss subtle nuances which are crucial for understanding of what is said.

Coyote and God are present in both texts, how do they compare in character and voice across the stories?

Both texts start their narrations from the figure of Coyote. Coyote on the water. The presence of the water immediately made me think of the creation stories.  But the first question in my head was about Coyote. Who is Coyote? Why he is present in both stories?

In some Native stories, Coyote is the Creator or has the power of creation. In other stories he is a trickster, outsmarting people and animal-people, or messenger, bringing culturally significant information to people (Lockwood).

In Wendy Wickwire’s Introduction to “Living by Stories”, she identified Coyote in the story “Coyote makes a Deal with the King of England” as the central figure, which was not “the trickster/seducer/pest”(11). He was portrayed as the “original ancestor of the “Indians” … In this story he represented goodness” (11). Because of this uncommon representation of Coyote comparatively to Robinson’s earlier stories, Wickwire “bracketed this story as an anomaly” (11).

In Robinson’s story, Coyote calls himself “king”(69), as well as other Indigenous characters: “That’s Coyote. That’s the king for the Indians.” (83). There are no Kings in the Indigenous world, but when Coyote or TOH-ma speaks to European people, they use the term for Coyote which would be clear to them. Coyote’s presentation as a “king” suggests that he is superior figure for the Indigenous people in the story.

In King’s narration, Coyote is not portrayed as superior to the Indigenous people. The Oregon Encyclopedia explains the figure of Coyote as “playing his role of scheming, self-seeking trickster, stirring up trouble, testing and violating moral precepts”, which is in my opinion is close to Coyote’s representation in King’s novel. Here he is rather a trickster with a mystic nature, who appears in the story together with four old Native people, and seems to be like one of them. Four old Indians and Coyote certainly have some common goal, which suggests to me that Coyote’s role in the novel is to help to these people.

Similarly to King’s narratives, Coyote in Robinson’s story is also a mystical creature. This is evident from the beginning of the story, when white people from the East can see “somebody on the water” (Robinson 64), but they are not able to get close to him. When Coyote comes to England, nobody can see him or his boat (67), unless Coyote wants to be visible.

Further similarity in the two storylines is that Christian God is also present in both Indigenous narratives, but the relationships between Coyote and God are shown differently.

In Robinson’s story, Coyote goes to Europe to meet with the King of England, because this was an order he got from God:” he’s got to go because they wouldn’t say no” (68). This is why God is superior to Coyote in the Robinson’s story. By contrast, in the beginning of the King’s novel, God is portrayed as helpless and angry, because he is not “in charge of the world” (1). It appears that Coyote is the one who got a leading role in the story, so Coyote is superior to God in King’s storyline.

Thus, from what I’ve read so far in “Green Grass, Running Water”, Coyote is not represented identically in Robinson’s and King’s storylines (“king” vs. trickster, different relationship between Coyote and God), but in both stories this is a mystical figure, which connects and intervenes elements from different creation stories, traditional Native stories and contemporary world. I’m really looking forward to continue reading King’s novel, and, at times, reading aloud!

Works Cited

Chester, Blanca. “Green Grass, Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel.” Canadian Literature 161-162. (1999).Web. 20 Feb, 2020.

Coyote (legend). The Oregon Encyclopedia, A Project of the Oregon Historical Society, Sep. 11, 2018, Web. 20 Feb, 2020. https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/coyote_legend_/#.XlK7FUp7mUk

Frederick N. Wilson, “Coyote Went Up the River (detail)”, Collection of Glenbow, Web image. Web. 28 Feb, 2020.https://www.gallerieswest.ca/news/romancing-the-canoe-in-calgary/

King, Thomas. “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial.” Unhomely States: Theorizing English-Canadian Postcolonialism. Mississauga, ON: Broadview, 2004. 183- 190.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Lockwood, Jeff. Two Coyote Stories by Jeff Lockwood, SNReview (SNR), 2005, Web. 20 Feb, 2020. http://www.snreview.org/0205Lockwood.html.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005, 64-85. Print.

For Midterm evaluation I would like to submit my three latest blog posts. As I read more lessons, course materials, my classmates’ blogs and comments, I feel that I’m not only learning, but getting more confident in what I understand, reflect and write. This is why I think my later blog posts are better than the ones which I‘ve started from :).

Assignment 2:6 – Orality about Literacy in Salish Culture

I was especially interested to learn and reflect on the question about literacy in Salish culture in Assignment 2:6,  because my current home is on the land which belongs to the Coast Salish people (Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast).

Assignment 2:4. Lutz: Assumptions

That was one of the most challenging questions to respond so far. I’d read relevant fragments from the Lutz’ text so many times, that I was able to read them aloud from my memory. But… I’m still not convinced that the questioned assumption is fair :(.

Assignment 2:3 – A Common Idea of Home

I enjoyed so much reading blogs of my classmates about their sense of home and finding out how significant are our common grounds in our perceptions about home.

Jones, Emma. “Burlap Sack: The Word ‘Midterm.’” The Gateway, 23 May 2018. Web image. Web. 24 Feb, 2020

Question #7: Following Carlson’s discussions on literacy as “part of a broader genre of transformation” (61), try to explain what he means when he says that transformation is an “act of literacy.” This can be confusing at first, but if you follow his discussion beginning with “how Salish people understand the process or act of transformation in relation to literacy itself” and pay attention to how he uses etymology to shape his insights, you should be able to extract an explanation for conceptualizing transformations as writing and as readable.

In Chapter 2 of “Orality about Literacy”, Carlson discusses unique perceptions of literacy by Salish people through representation of their oral stories, which “challenge us to reconsider both the history of Native-newcomer relations and our understanding of such core concepts as the relationship between orality and literacy” (Carlson, 43).

As one of the arguments, Carlson refers to the story about Great Spirits, called Xe:xál:s, the Transformers, which travelled the land and had incredible powers of alteration “people and things into their permanent forms, thereby creating the world we recognize today” (Carlson 46).  Bertha Peters, Stó:lō Salish elder, shared a story about transformed chiefs, which were given the gift of written language by one of the Xe:xál:s. The chiefs promised to share this knowledge and teach people how to write, but they kept the gift to themselves. As a punishment, they were turned to stone (43).

According to Carlson, the act of transforming to the stone “was an act of literacy” (62) where the Transformer “was engaged in the act of writing” (62). He explains, that for Bertha Peters, “literacy was not necessarily a source of knowledge or power in itself. Rather, it was principally a tool for preserving certain kinds of knowledge” (48).

Therefore, Salish people offer different perspective of treating literacy, which assumes “documenting the change from one state to another” (61). Under these terms, act of literacy may include transformation of abstract concepts like knowledge into the permanent states in the form of physical objects, which are represented by the marks left by the Transformers (61) as the legacy of their work.

I can see a similarity between traditional understanding of literacy (as the ability to read and write) and Salish transformation of a story or message into the different state. We transform our thoughts into the lettering and symbols, thus changing the initial state of the message from the abstract form to visible “marks” on the paper. Only literate person would be able to read the message conveyed in these marks. Being literate means to know what each mark stands for. You are literate if you know the alphabet and how letterings add up to form the words, because you can understand the message conveyed in the written text. If you know the oral story which explains what is the mark is for, you are also literate, because you know what message and moral are symbolized by the marks. In other words, marks left by the Transformers like the stone in Salish story, function as memory devices aimed to recall the oral stories and knowledge passed by the ancestors and thus connecting many generations.

The other interesting insight used by Carlson to reinforce the significance of the concept of literacy in Salish culture is the etymology of the word xelá:ls. It is used by Salish people for the verb to write, and is not a borrowed word from any other language, but of their own. This suggests that the concept of literacy in Salish culture was not “something imposed on or introduced to Aboriginal people as part of colonization” (45). Therefore, according to Carlson, Salish literacy predated European arrival and challenges not only the traditional understanding of this concept, but questions the binary approach to the relationship between orality and literacy. In Salish terms, literacy is not following orality, it is within orality.

Works Cited

Bianco, Francesca, and Holly McKenzie Sutter. “Set in Stone: Stó:Lō Ancestors’ Spirits Live in Fraser Valley Landmarks | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 28 Apr. 2017. Web. 16 Feb, 2020. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/spirits-stolo-ancestors-live-fraser-valley-landmarks-1.4074785

Carlson, Keith. “Orality about Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History”. Ed. Carlson, Kristina Fagna, & Natalia Khamemko-Frieson. Toronto: Uof Toronto P, 2011. 43-72.

Wonders, Karen. “Coast Salish.” First Nations – Land Rights and Environmentalism in British Columbia, Web. 16 Feb, 2020. http://www.firstnations.de/development/coast_salish.htm.

“Xá:ytem / Hatzic Rock National Historic Site of Canada”. HistoricPlaces.ca . Parks Canada Agency/Agence Parcs Canada, Smyth, 1997. Web image. Web. 17 Feb, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20151018163007/http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/image-image.aspx?id=2256#i1

Question 3: We began this unit by discussing assumptions and differences that we carry into our class. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes an assumption about his readers (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). He asks us to begin with the assumption that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties.” He explains that this is so because “one must of necessity enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans.” Here, Lutz is assuming either that his readers belong to the European tradition, or he is assuming that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances – than the other way around. What do you make of this reading? Am I being fair when I point to this assumption? If so, is Lutz being fair when he makes this assumption?

In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance”,  Lutz discusses the challenges in communication and mutual comprehension between Europeans and Native peoples in their first encounters. In my reading, the author does not appeal exclusively to the European audience, but rather assumes that his own perceptions are shadowed by the European tradition, because “we have insufficient distance from our own and our ancestors’ world view” (Lutz, 18). I also assume that Lutz warns about his own imperfect comprehending “the performances of the [I]ndigenous participants” (18) and transmission of the Indigenous belief concepts, because cultural perceptions represent “a challenge that can be met, at best, only partially” (18). He regular includes the first person writing in plural form in the text, which suggests that he places himself on the same boat as his readers, without distinction for their belonging to European or Indigenous tradition.

At the end of the paragraph, which is addressed in this question, Lutz’ concern about hidden challenge “to step outside and see one’s own culture as alien and to discern the mythic in the performances of one’s own histories” (18) has been addressed to all readers, whether they are with the Indigenous or non-Indigenous background. The latter prompts to doubt that the author assumes that it is more difficult for Europeans to understand Indigenous performance than the other way around.

However, I noticed that while reading the chapter after this paragraph I constantly think of the invisible but invincible barrier between the European and Indigenous cultures. It appears that on the one hand, the author encourages his readers to challenge towards better familiarization and understanding each other’s traditions. On the other hand, he establishes a strong assumption for us that the only way to overcome the cross-cultural comprehension barrier is to radically alter our original perceptions that have been taught to us. I feel that such approach can be very dangerous and cause damaging and isolation between people from different cultures. It even sounds to me like imposing a binary thinking, when one may register either European or Indigenous world view without the possibility of mutual understanding between two traditions.

I agree that there are many challenges on the way of comprehension of cultural differences, which are not limited to communication between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous people; they are natural for international relationships all over the world.  I strongly believe that we can reduce and remove the communication challenges through learning each other, rather than alienating our own perceptions. One way to start looking at the same things from different cultural perspectives is to recognize, respect and reconcile the differences in cultural context, as suggested by Avindra Fernando.

Works Cited

Fernando, Avindra. “Think Global: How to Overcome Cultural Communication Challenges.” OpenCource.com, 18 Oct. 2018. Web 04 Feb. 2020. https://opensource.com/article/18/10/think-global-communication-challenges.

“First Nations History in the Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Area”. Bytown. 24 May, 2013. Web image. Web. 06 Feb, 2020 http://www.bytown.net/nativehist.htm

Long, Ryan. “The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Binary Thinking . . .” Center for Internet and Society, Web blog post. 21 Oct. 2015. Web. 06 Feb, 2020 http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2015/10/good-bad-and-ugly-binary-thinking.

Lutz, John. Myth and Memory, Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. E-book, Google Play, 2007, 16-32. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=vo8xZDz6j2oC&pg=GBS.PA30.w.1.0.0.

Throughout reading my classmates’ blog posts about their sense of home and stories that made home what it is to them, I learned how many common assumptions and values we include in our definitions of “home”.

We all have different personal stories associated with our homes, but we also have so many shared perceptions of what home is. Most of these ideas could be expressed in three common themes:

• Home is people
• Home is memory
• Home is peace of mind

Home is people

All my peers’ blogs I refer to in this post agree that their sense of home inseparably lies in people. No matter where home is, as long as there are people there that we love, who love us and care about us. They are from our family, neighborhood or community; they are our friends, teachers, singers from your choirs, co-workers and many others, including “the regular customers that remember my name and tell me they miss me,” as noted by Chase.

Home is not just the place where we are; it’s people who make those places meaningful. People make our homes desirable to be there, and they open the doors for us to come in, as well as to go if we want to, this is why, as noticed by Wongelawit’s, home is “where I feel connected to the places and people outside of my house.”

Home is memory

We all have personal associations with our home. They have been accumulated over time and reserved a solid block in our minds. As soon as we sense familiar images, sounds, smells, we recall those memories and think of what we call home. One of such memories for Katarina is the CD with Shania Twain’s Greatest Hits, which she and her family always listened to on road trips. For Chase it can be “smelling my favourite dish being made for dinner.” For Georgia, this is “hearing the sound of waves lapping against a pebbled shore” and “seeing the silhouettes of skyscrapers against the pink-hued sky.”

These associations work in both directions. If we hear, read or tell the word ‘home’, we extract one or the other event or association from our memory, which, in turn, may encourage us to call our parents, friends, schoolmates, or buy a ticket to go and visit them, or cook that favorite dish from the childhood, or find and turn on the CD with Shania Twain’s Greatest Hits.

Home is peace of mind

Another common theme across many of the stories in the class is how we associate home with places where we are comfortable and in harmony with ourselves. For example, Sashini speaks “about being vulnerable, and being your true self” at home. Coco portrays her sense of home as “a feeling that makes you feel relaxed and comfortable… Home is where the heart is”. For Georgia, home is where “you allow yourself to sink into stillness.” My interpretation of all these expressions is about peace of mind, a particular emotional state when we feel comfortable, safe, relaxed, where we are happy because we can be indeed ourselves.

This assignment has been an eye-opening exercise for me. It’s amazing that we all, being from different parts of the world, have common attachments to what we call home. Not everything is matching in our understanding of home, however using different words and expressions, recalling diverse associations and stories, we naturally share main ideas about home, which places us to common ground.

Works Cited

Han, Coco. “Assignment 2:2-My sense of home.” Coco Han ENGL 372 Blog, Web blog post. 28 Jan. 2020, Web 30 Jan. 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/cocohanengl372/.

“Have we forgotten the meaning of home?” Centre Staged Inc. Home Staging & ReDesign. 15 Dec. 2016. Web image. Web. 31 Jan, 2020

Masaki, Georgia. “Assignment 2.1: Home”. Oh Canada. Web blog post. 27 Jan. 2020. Web 30 Jan 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/georgiamasaki/2020/01/27/assignment-2-1-home/.

McAndrew, Frank T. “Home Is Where the Heart Is, but Where Is ‘Home’?” Web blog post. Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 03 Aug. 2015, Web. 31 Jan, 2020. www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/out-the-ooze/201508/home-is-where-the-heart-is-where-is-home.

Smith, Katarina. “Assignment 2:2: Home is a Beach.” Oh Canada. Learning & Reflections in ENGL 372: Canadian Studies. Web blog post. 28 Jan. 2020. Web 30 Jan. 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/katarinasmithengl372/2020/01/28/assignment-22-home-is-a-beach/.

Thomson, Chase. “Assignment 2:2 – Home is More”. Chase Thomson’s ENGL 372 Blog. Web blog post. 28 Jan. 2020. Web 30 Jan. 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/chasethomsonengl372/2020/01/28/assignment-22-home-is-more/ .

Weerasundara, Sashini. “Assignment 2:2 Home, oh my wonderful home.” Eng 372: Canadian Literature, Web blog post. 28 Jan. 2020. Web 30 Jan. 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/sashini/.

Zewde, Wongelawit. “Home Is Community.” Ooh Canada. Web blog post. 28 Jan. 2020. Web 30 Jan 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/english372wongelawit/2020/01/28/home-is-where-family-by-choice-are/.

“Home may be in another time and place, and yet it holds us in its power here and now.” (Chamberlin, 76).

My perception of home is quite ambiguous. It’s abstract and tangible, it’s plural and continuously expanding over time. As Pico lyer told in his TED talk, “home are many pieces which we bring together; what connects all these pieces is me.”

On the one hand, I associate my home with physical locations and spaces, where I lived and which I remember. My earliest home memory is about a small studio rented by my mom until I was eight. The studio had just one window, but what a fantastic view it provided! I could spend hours sitting on the window sill, looking down on the ever-hurrying people, signaling cars, pigeons occupying power lines, windows of the condominium across the street.

I had my own secret home in our studio, right under the couch. That was a really bewitched spot because adults couldn’t see it, and I often found candies, cookies, or oranges in the little FedEx box attached to the bottom of the couch. I think of my girl-friends’ home as my own home. My jammies and toothbrush were always there for me. My neighbor’s apartment was also my home. A sweet old couple (Ms. and Mr. Frolov), retired teachers, lived there. When I began to go to school, they insisted me to do homework in their place, because there was no space for a desk in our studio, where I could study. I’m very fortunate because I’ve always had multiple places where I could go to and which I call my ‘home’ without hesitation.

On the other hand, home for me is a special state of mind when I am comfortable, relaxed, and can be myself. I may also feel relaxed, safe and comfortable in new places, but it will take a while before I can call that or the other place as one more home in my life. This is why the sense of familiarity is one more component that contributes to my definition of home.

What does make me feel firmly attached to some places more than the others? I’m sure it’s people. People made those places meaningful to me, deepest inside me, and so desirable to be in. When as a child, I was sitting on the window sill of our studio, I was waiting for my mom to come back from work. Whenever she entered our yard, she raised her head and motioned to me. I couldn’t see her face from a distance, but I knew that she was smiling. My heart fills with happiness when I recall my seventh birthday party. My friends’ parents hosted it in their apartment,  because there was not enough room for all my friends in my place. Also, when I was doing my homework in the neighbors’ apartment, Frolovs were there to help me, offer snacks or tell the stories.

Their stories were my reward and motivation to be efficient with my homework.  Frolovs shared their stories only after I finished all the homework and if it was not too late to stay longer in their place. They told me the stories of their life, how they met each other, raised their children, worked together in the same school for nearly 50 years. When I returned home, I asked my mom to tell her life stories, about games she played when she was little, fights with her brother, family stories she heard from her parents. When my girl-friend came to my place, we crawled under the couch and shared the stories from our parents. So, the stories which connect me with my home are family stories and stories from other people who I know and love; their stories are about their life, their concerns and hopes. This is why my sense of home is associated with people I met there, with whom I shared my happy moments.

Susan Clayton, an environmental psychologist, makes a comparison of Western and South Asia viewpoints on a home. She claims that in the West, people feel a sentimental or nostalgic attachment to the places they’ve lived; in the end, they see them as separate from their inner selves. For many South Asian communities, people and the places where they reside are engaged in a continuing set of exchanges, they are part of a single, interactive system. In other words, home is where you are and who you are. The latter concept is closer to my sense of home because, for me, it’s as the integrity of physical place, people who reside there, and the state of mind. All of that form our identity, embody how we live and see ourselves.

Works Cited

Beck, Julie. “The Psychology of Home: Why Where You Live Means So Much.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 29 Dec. 2011, Web. 25 Jan. 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/the-psychology-of-home-why-where-you-live-means-so-much/249800/.

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?:Finding Common Ground. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.

TEDtalksDirector. “Pico Iyer: Where Is Home?” YouTube. YouTube, 2013. Web. 24 Jan. 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m6dV7Xo3Vc

It was a Big Day for boys from the village, who turned 12 that year. The boys went through the ceremony, after which they could be called men. They became eligible to go hunting with their fathers and older brothers, or defend their village in case of danger.

Not long before the Big Day, 12 years old left their homes early morning. They were expected to spend three days and three nights in the bush – alone, unarmed and barefoot, without food or water carried from home. Their task was to find and kill one land predator, one bird and catch a salmon.

Not all boys returned from the bush timely for the ceremony, and some of them would never come back home… Quite a few boys did not bring the proof of their successful hunting in the bush; they were not allowed to come to the ceremony.

At the Big Day just three boys, who had returned from the bush, stood in the center of the ceremonial glade, in front of the Elders. Boys’ parents and all other villagers surrounded the glade.

When time came, the first boy emptied his handbag. He demonstrated a wolf’s pad, duck’s wing and salmon’s tail. The Elders nodded in recognition of the boy’s achievements.

The second boy raised his hands with the lynx’s ear, goose foot and salmon’s head. Elders nodded again.

The third boy said that his bag is empty.

“Then you shouldn’t be here,” one of the Elders said.

The boy asked for a permission to explain, how he spent the last three days. The Elders nodded. The boy told, where and how he found a breeding ground for salmon, and that it was not hard to catch fish in that place. The boy told, how terrified he was, when he faced a grizzly bear when he was coming out of the water with fish in his hands. But the animal did not attack him. That was a very young bear, and he was hurt. Bear’s feet were all bloody and he could barely walk. The boy told that he could kill that bear and cut the claws for the proof, but he didn’t. He threw his salmon to the bear and walked away. The boy told how happy he was , when he turned around and saw the bear, lying on the ground and eating the boy’s gift. A pure thing wouldn’t be able to catch salmon in that condition, said the boy.

The boy told, that he found a place with many-many nests with the bobwhite quail’s eggs in it. He could wait for the birds to come back to their nests and catch them, but he didn’t. He wanted nestlings to have parents to look after them.

It was silent on and around the ceremonial glade. Some villagers smiled, some had tears in their eyes. The Elders nodded one after the other. The villagers quickened with excitement.

“Follow me,” one of the Elders said to the young man after the ceremony.

“What you did in the bush was right. We believe you. What you have told to us – isn’t right. You confronted the ceremony, which our ancestors followed for hundreds years. What should we do the next year, when other boys will have to go to the bush? What we will tell them after all? I wish you called 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 (King, 10).

Reflection

I have never tried to make up oral stories. Even though I expected that creating a story would be more challenging for me, than writing a text for reading, I was surprised how difficult it turned to be. After reading aloud the first draft of the story to myself, I realized that everything should be changed in it – the style, the choice of words, the length of sentences and dialogues. I had to think, how the story would sound.

I am not a great speaker. When I do oral presentations, I usually read the most of the presentation from my notes on the paper. This is why another challenge for me was telling the story without the printed text.  However, I enjoyed my little storytelling experience. If I didn’t learn my story by heart, I would miss the magic of the storytelling, as I wouldn’t see and feel my audience, what’s their response, whether I managed to hook their attention.

One of the key points I took away from the first chapter in The Truth About Stories is that there are many different patterns of telling the same story (King, 2). We can also change the essence of the story, adapt it for a particular audience or situation. We can change stories, because we are changing too, and “the truth about stories is that that’s all we are” (2).

Works Cited

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

Parrott, Charles. “On Telling Tales and The Art of Storytelling.” Storytelling, Self, Society, vol. 10, no. 2, 2014, pp. 258–262. JSTOR, Web. January 20 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/10.13110/storselfsoci.10.2.0258.

Peterson, Lani. “The Science Behind The Art Of Storytelling.” Harvard Business Publishing, Lani Peterson /Wp-Content/Uploads/2018/12/HBPubCorpLearn_wide_crimson.Svg, 17 Oct. 2018, Web. January 22 2020. www.harvardbusiness.org/the-science-behind-the-art-of-storytelling/.

Consider two aspects of digital literature: 1) Social media tools that enable widespread publication, without publishers, and 2) Hypertext, which is the name for the text that lies beyond the text you are reading, until you click. How do you think these capabilities might be impacting literature and story?

Social media for widespread publication

OED defines social media as websites and applications which enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. A crucial point here is that social media users are able to make their material publicly accessible without publishers.

Social media tools provide instantaneous access to published content to broad audience from all over the world. Only in Canada there were approximately 25.3 million social network users in 2018, which are expected to grow to 27.1 million in 2023 (Clement).

Self-publishers in social media benefit from opportunities to attract audience which are not available in non-digital world. Particularly, comments in writing blogs help readers to provide feedback on the text, direct interaction with the writer and other readers. Speakers in the past could communicate with the audience at the time of their public speech only. Today, comments in the platforms for recorded talks connect the speakers with their audience without timing and territorial restrictions. Thus, social media tools provide the space to the readers in the web, where they can act as writers in the context of feedback and interaction with their authors.

Social media remove barriers between authors and their audience and set communication channels between them. The communication works both ways, from authors to the audience, and from the audience to the writers and speakers, with the writing initiative shifted to the audience.

Hypertexts for new horizons

Written texts in the social media are often accompanied by linking structures in the form of hypertext, which pose new opportunities for writers and readers. Each hypertext links the original text with another written text of the same or different author, image, audio, video and other media. In other words, hypertexts functions as a doorway to various web pages reserved on the background of the original text.

Hypertexts challenge the readers by changing the pattern and structure of the narrative. They introduce non-consistent patterns of narration, which switch from written texts to oral or visual representations, building the diverse and expanding body of the story. They create a challenge for writers because hyperlinked texts to other hyperlinked texts act like labyrinths with infinite exits available to readers. In the worst case scenario from the writer’s perspective, readers can be carried away from the original text without return. The only solution to this problem is to write a text, which does not have a chance to be forgotten in the middle of narration. Thus, hypertexts provide unique opportunities to readers to become listeners and viewers, and choose whether to come back to the original story, or continue to explore new horizons.

How these capabilities might be impacting literature and story

Social media tools come to millions of users in many forms. They vary from social networks, writing blogs and forums to visual-sharing platforms and social games. As pointed out by Courtney MacNeil, “the computer does not initiate the dominance of one media form over another, but rather encourages their fusion within the pluralistic realm of the “global village”.

Technological advances provide a unique opportunity to demonstrate the beauty and harmony of integration between various narration techniques. This integration is not forced and not a permanent form, it’s developed to show “the spaces in-between places… where different paths meet and merge, for a time, and then go on their way ”, as concluded in the story at the end of Lesson 1.2 of this course.

Works Cited

Clement, J. “Number of Social Network Users in Canada 2023.” Statista, 2019, Web. January 11 2020. www.statista.com/statistics/260710/number-of-social-network-users-in-canada/.

Courtney MacNeil, “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. January 11 2020. http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/

Nielsen Jacob, “History of Hypertext”. Nielsen Norman Group, 1995. Web. January 09 2020. www.nngroup.com/articles/hypertext-history/.

OED/Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Web. January 11 2020. https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/

Erika Paterson. “Lesson 1.2” English 372 99C Canadian Studies. Web. January 09 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl372-99c-2019wc/unit-1/lesson-12/