“What you're seeing is young men having been through a very traumatic experience and trying to process that experience. These guys on the ground, hey had no idea what was going on or what they were part of, and there was a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty, a lot of tension between the human and the historical scale. It's difficult to put into words which is why you make the film and use the image rather than write an article about it. Because it makes you feel something that is true and relevant.” Christopher Nolan, interviewed by Alison de Souza, on his new movie Dunkirk in Life (19 July 17)
Hmmmmmmm... hard to put into words... is that why we do ceremonies, commemorations, church services, the way we do? With much visuals, moving music, special awe-inspiring moments and atmosphere to win you over, to make you feel before you can think, embrace before you can reject, draw you in before you even know it.
If that is so. How powerful. How true also we get inspiration from war-time propaganda campaigns.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Monday, July 17, 2017
A new topic
Doing research or writing a thesis eventually is like painting a picture. You first need to try to figure out what is currently known about that topic or issue, and this could be like trying to find out what colours to use for this painting, trying a few strokes on the paper. The more you read up on what others have done, the clearer you will have an idea of what is available to form your picture, your art. And later on as you have that good understanding, you can start to create with it your art. You can introduce things that are new but with the backing of the old. And as you create this image, you will eventually get a complete piece of work that is coherent and tells your story. But see, your story cannot be told without first reading the many other stories told by other people.
Wow!
I feel like I'm again at the first stage... I am scared and excited at the same time. This new project potentially will use very new skills and require me to interact with very different people including people of authority, people planning the policy (government officials), people implementing them (principals and teachers) and people receiving this curriculum (students!). I have only interacted with teachers before, and I have no idea how to interact with the others!
But before I worry about methodology, let me read whatever I can about commemorative events! Gosh, because there is so little about it, and what there is so is hard to find, it brings the explorer-adventurer out of me, like the feeling that because this seems difficult, it's going to be worth it!
Wow!
Sorry, I am surprised sometimes how exciting research can be, especially research into a little known area!
(I feel like I talk like the young spiderman... :|)
Wow!
I feel like I'm again at the first stage... I am scared and excited at the same time. This new project potentially will use very new skills and require me to interact with very different people including people of authority, people planning the policy (government officials), people implementing them (principals and teachers) and people receiving this curriculum (students!). I have only interacted with teachers before, and I have no idea how to interact with the others!
But before I worry about methodology, let me read whatever I can about commemorative events! Gosh, because there is so little about it, and what there is so is hard to find, it brings the explorer-adventurer out of me, like the feeling that because this seems difficult, it's going to be worth it!
Wow!
Sorry, I am surprised sometimes how exciting research can be, especially research into a little known area!
(I feel like I talk like the young spiderman... :|)
Friday, July 14, 2017
Public Memory
So I have moved away from Storytelling and what could I be potentially moving towards? Commemorative events... How schools shape public memory through the four NE days?
"... the stakes involved in public memory are far more complex. What is being remembered? Who does the remembering? How is it done, and why? What is the context in which memory work is being carried out?" (Tai, 2001, p. 1)
"The Greek playwright Agathon is reported by Aristotle to have declared: "Even God cannot alter the past." Samuel Butler answered back across two millennia: "It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can." Others, besides historians, can and do alter it as well. "It's a poor sort of memory that works only backwards," remarks Lewis Carroll's Queen in Through the Looking Glass. Indeed, memory works forward as well as backward; the past is shaped by the future as much as the future is shaped by the past. Memory creates meaning for particular events or experiences by inscribing them in a larger framing narrative, be it personal or collective. Whether implicitly or explicitly, in this larger narrative is embedded a sense of progression and vision of the future for which the past acts as prologue. In Penser la Révolution française, François Furet pointed out how the political sympathies of different actors, including historians, led them to conceptualize the French Revolution either as the end point of the narrative of the French nation or as the beginning of the Republican narrative. In Vietnam, deciding how to remember a century's worth of historical change is a matter of grave difficulty for a society filled with uncertainty about its future and only just beginning to rethink its past." (Tai, 2001, p. 2)
Oh my gosh, Tai writes so beautifully. I was immediately drawn into her words.
References
Country of Memory : Remaking the Past In Late Socialist Vietnam, edited by Hue-Tam Ho Tai, University of California Press, 2001.
"... the stakes involved in public memory are far more complex. What is being remembered? Who does the remembering? How is it done, and why? What is the context in which memory work is being carried out?" (Tai, 2001, p. 1)
"The Greek playwright Agathon is reported by Aristotle to have declared: "Even God cannot alter the past." Samuel Butler answered back across two millennia: "It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can." Others, besides historians, can and do alter it as well. "It's a poor sort of memory that works only backwards," remarks Lewis Carroll's Queen in Through the Looking Glass. Indeed, memory works forward as well as backward; the past is shaped by the future as much as the future is shaped by the past. Memory creates meaning for particular events or experiences by inscribing them in a larger framing narrative, be it personal or collective. Whether implicitly or explicitly, in this larger narrative is embedded a sense of progression and vision of the future for which the past acts as prologue. In Penser la Révolution française, François Furet pointed out how the political sympathies of different actors, including historians, led them to conceptualize the French Revolution either as the end point of the narrative of the French nation or as the beginning of the Republican narrative. In Vietnam, deciding how to remember a century's worth of historical change is a matter of grave difficulty for a society filled with uncertainty about its future and only just beginning to rethink its past." (Tai, 2001, p. 2)
Oh my gosh, Tai writes so beautifully. I was immediately drawn into her words.
References
Country of Memory : Remaking the Past In Late Socialist Vietnam, edited by Hue-Tam Ho Tai, University of California Press, 2001.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Writing on demand
Recently, I have been trying out some writing for non-academic purposes, such as writing for the newspaper, for competition, for forum, for editorials, and like I always do, for blogging. These has teach me something called "writing on demand", the ability to command yourself to write and just do it. There is no mood thing, or setting aside a daily time to write thing, it is: I need this now, so I write it now.
This has been liberating in a way. Discovering that writing is not something magical or iffy that you can only do some times and not others, but when you need it, you produce it. It's like driving a car, riding a bicycle or going for a swim, a skill you have mastered, regardless how skillful you are at it, you know it can be counted on to function when you need it.
So yes, writing has changed for me. It has become a skill. And I learned this through exposing myself to different types of writing. For academic writing, you have all the time in the world to write it, a few months? Hence, you can afford to take your time and find time to write. But not for writing for a lay audience, where timing and speed is key.
This has been liberating in a way. Discovering that writing is not something magical or iffy that you can only do some times and not others, but when you need it, you produce it. It's like driving a car, riding a bicycle or going for a swim, a skill you have mastered, regardless how skillful you are at it, you know it can be counted on to function when you need it.
So yes, writing has changed for me. It has become a skill. And I learned this through exposing myself to different types of writing. For academic writing, you have all the time in the world to write it, a few months? Hence, you can afford to take your time and find time to write. But not for writing for a lay audience, where timing and speed is key.
Sunday, July 9, 2017
Need to keep perspective...
"In the spirit of keeping perspective on your graduate career, I offer a little food for thought. As you read this book, remember and reflect on what a privilege it is to be in graduate school. Whether you are attending a public or a private university, taxpayers are subsidizing your education, as are individual and corporate foundations, alumni, and donors. Even if you pay your own tuition, it is only a fraction of the cost of your doctoral training. It is a privilege to be able to spend time reading the works of some of the greatest thinkers in your field, discussing important concepts, and writing about their work and your ideas. Please do not ever take this opportunity for granted; embrace this time and make the most of it. Enjoy and savor every moment, and then, in your own way, give back to others the privilege that you have received."
- Peg Boyle Single, Demystifying the Dissertation Writing
- Peg Boyle Single, Demystifying the Dissertation Writing
Friday, July 7, 2017
An update
What has happened to me? I have not blogged in a month!
In the past six months, I completed a Diploma course for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), I changed my research topic from patriotism to storytelling, wrote a paper on storytelling, presented it in Korea, wrote the confirmation document (over 30 pages) and realizing I did not like storytelling, comtemplated quiting the PhD (and my job and traveling to Mozambique to do marine conservation volunteer work), wrote many pieces of writings, asked for many opportunities to write (only to be ignored and rejected), and then now, wanting to turn my PhD research topic back to patriotism.
Writing 30 over pages on storytelling made me realized I don't really want to research this...
I am back on familiar ground now... What a journey it has been...
Life can be such a meandering path with so many detours!
During this period of searching, questioning, struggling with my path and future, sometimes I became very anxious. There was a nagging heavy feeling in me, especially the past month. I'm glad to finally have some inkling what to do and where to go.
What a journey!
In the past six months, I completed a Diploma course for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), I changed my research topic from patriotism to storytelling, wrote a paper on storytelling, presented it in Korea, wrote the confirmation document (over 30 pages) and realizing I did not like storytelling, comtemplated quiting the PhD (and my job and traveling to Mozambique to do marine conservation volunteer work), wrote many pieces of writings, asked for many opportunities to write (only to be ignored and rejected), and then now, wanting to turn my PhD research topic back to patriotism.
Writing 30 over pages on storytelling made me realized I don't really want to research this...
I am back on familiar ground now... What a journey it has been...
Life can be such a meandering path with so many detours!
During this period of searching, questioning, struggling with my path and future, sometimes I became very anxious. There was a nagging heavy feeling in me, especially the past month. I'm glad to finally have some inkling what to do and where to go.
What a journey!
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