On A Mission To Understand

It’s my last blog post this year for In-depth.  Overall, I think it’s gone really well.  I’ve definitely learned a lot, and already, my website looks better.  I haven’t been able to do quite as much as I wanted, in terms of design, but I’ve learned a lot, even if I haven’t been able to put it into practice.  In terms of how I’m going to present it at In-depth night, I want to show my website to people.  I’ll have a laptop (need a power bar), with my website displayed, and maybe a sample of my code printed out.  I will also have a short little paragraph about the differences between CSS and HTML.  I don’t want a really fancy thing.  I want to stay with the theme of HTML, which is simplicity, and easiness of use.  I just want to have a minimum of text, and more of what my finished product is.  I’m really happy with what I’ve been able to accomplish over my two years working with web-design.  I’ve started with little or no knowledge at all, all the way to being able to craft websites, with little help at all from tutorial websites.  I’ve figured out the form and structure I need, as well as how to solve the problems that consistently pop up.  In conclusion, I think that it’s been a really amazing project, and I want to thank my mentor, Ian MacKenzie, for helping me along the way.  He definitely helped my project along, especially when I ran into roadblocks.  HTML and CSS is incredibly difficult at times, but when it works, and I can see my finished project, that’s when I believe it was worth it.

The pandit spoke first. “Mr. Patel, Piscine’s piety is admirable.  In these troubled times it’s good to see a boy so keen on God.  We all agree on that.” The imam and the priest nodded. “But he can’t be a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim.  It’s impossible.  He must choose.”  ”I don’t think it’s a crime, but I suppose you’re right,” Father replied.

The three murmured agreement and looked heavenward, as did Father, whence they felt the decision must come.  Mother looked at me.

A silence fell heavily on my shoulders.

“Hmmm, Piscine?” Mother nudged me.  ”How do you feel about the question?”

“Bapu Gandhi said, “All religions are true.’ I just want to love God”

This passage was Pi’s first introduction to interfaith dialogue.  Throughout his life, he has only tried to find what he believes in.  For him, it turns out to be a mixture of 3 of the world’s biggest religions.  Unfortunately, this isn’t accepted by these religious men.  It’s strange, how all religions are the same, yet we create barriers to differentiate ourselves.  Nicholas said something in class that I thought was extremely profound, and while he was talking about political parties, it works just as well when talking about religion.

There are no differences between them, there are only perceived differences

I feel like it sums up religion.  Everyone is looking for their own path to enlightenment.  Each of us wishes to find our purpose.  Each of us, as Pi says “wants to love God”.  Yet we all create boundaries and barriers, lines we cannot cross, words we cannot say, all in the name of religion.

Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed, hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see the God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God are hat wearing Muslims

It’s strange, how all religions are linked.  It’s like with our borders.  There were no countries before we made them.  There were no differences between us.  We were all one.  Just one species.  One type.  One human.  But then we diverged.  We had countries, religions, skin colour, jobs.  All for one purpose.  To tell who was who.  To create a pecking order.  In order to say “I’m better than you, but worse than him.”  Yet our quest for uniqueness and difference would still be ok, except for the motive.  Instead of using it to create social hierarchy, we should instead enjoy our differences, and take pride in it.  We should not try and hide our differences, but instead loudly show them off.  Show that we are different, and unique.  Proclaim it from the rooftops, yell it in the streets, and shout it from the sewers.  From all walks of life, from all religions, ethnicities and  countries, we should share and rejoice in our differences.  Yet sometimes, a special person comes along.  A person like Pi.  A person who is not only so taken with our differences, that he seeks to close them.  To bridge the gaps, cross the divide.  To blur the once-clear lines, and break down our barriers.  To share and truly believe in 3 different religions, and live in a French town, and be Indian and Canadian, all at the same time.  And at the same time, part-animal.  For how else could he understand the nuances of Richard Parker’s behaviour, come to understand him so thoroughly that he came to regard him as a savior, partner, and most of all, a friend?  Because he cared.  He cared enough to make the effort to try.  He cared enough to love him.  He cared enough to save him.  It was this love, and this ignorance of differences between the two, that led to the hope he carried within that he would survive his ordeal.  And when you think about it, that’s what enables us to survive our daily ordeals too.  By understanding, trying, and most of all, loving.  Loving each other for our sameness.  Loving each other for our differences.  And loving each other for who we are.  Because isn’t that what we’re all trying to get out of religion?

There are many themes in  Life of Pi, some of them subtle and intricate, others slapping you in the face.  So far, everyone’s talked about the religious aspect.  So many have touched on the believability of his story, and what it means to truly believe.  I see where these people are coming from, yet I don’t think that was the point of the story.  Yes, sparknotes may disagree with me.  They may claim that the theme is about

believing in something

but I disagree.  Sure, I recognize and accept the fact, that on one level, it’s important to take that leap of faith, and accept that that is true.  The first time I read it, I so desperately wanted it to be true, simply so I could believe in miracles.  I wanted it to be true, so that I could accept that great things happen to normal people, that even the most dire of situations can have rewards within it.  Yet to accept this, and to stay focused on this, is to do a great disrespect to this book.  To simply believe that this book is about religion is like keeping your eyes closed in room full of light in order to fool yourself into thinking it dark.  It’s like swimming with sharks, yet believing they’re fish.  We need to recognize that the religiousness of this book wasn’t the point the author was trying to make.  Yes, it comes along with the territory, but as all great teachers say, “it’s like saying the house has pink curtains, without telling me the house is on fire.”

I think that it’s about self-realization.  About what is false, and what is true.  About whether you can actually lie to yourself.  It’s the constant struggle within yourself, with every decision you make.  It’s about realizing your shortcomings, and knowing how to handle them.

There was one part for me that really drove this point home.  At the end, during the debriefing Pi Patel goes through, the two Japanese men, Mr. Chiba and Mr. Okamoto, try to puzzle out the character roles in the two different stories Pi tells them.

“So the Taiwanese sailor is the zebra, his mother is the orang-utan, the cook is…the hyena – which means he’s the tiger!”

“Yes.  the tiger killed the hyena – and the blind Frenchman – just as he killed the cook.”

Other more knowledgeable experts claim that this duality of roles is to differentiate between those who believe, and those who don’t.  The religious ones will believe in miracles, the agnostics will choose to believe the story with humans in it.  I beg to differ, and claim a third option.  It has to do with how Pi views himself.  He has grown up a vegetarian all his life, and is reduced to tears and sadness when forced to kill a fish, in order to survive.  Yet he is also forced to commit much greater acts of brutality, things like killing the cook.  Many people try to write about how you change once you’ve killed a man, but nothing can come close to the actual feeling.  To know that you have willingly taken a man’s life, I think that would produce a wrenching change in yourself.  For Pi, he has no way to cope.  There is no support group to rely on, no psychiatrist to talk to, no where to go to share how he’s feeling.  So he talks to himself.  He makes up an alternative story, one that he can accept and believe, one that won’t cause him grief and pain every day of his life.  He comes up with Richard Parker.

There is so much symbolism within this relationship, it’s hard to know where to start.  It feels like it’s a perpetual battle, between good and evil, light and dark.  Richard Parker is the physical manifestation of Pi’s dark side.  He’s the carnivore, the ruthless killer, the animal with no morals or ethics.  He’s the typical dark side, the side you fear, the side you try to keep hidden inside.  The side that you know you can never resist, the side that can destroy you at any moment.  The dark side.  And Pi is the light side.  The vegetarian.  The man who truly believes in 3 different religions, the man who tries to foster interfaith dialogue by saying “Bapu Ghandi said ‘All religions are true’“.  He’s the good side, the side that cries over killing a fish, the side that never forgets his family.  He’s the side of truth, love, and happiness.  The side of you that you try to develop, the side where small deeds do big things, the part that seems weak, but is the strongest of all.  But, inevitably, as with all of us, we come out gray.  It’s like ice cream.  Put a drop of vanilla in a scoop of chocolate, and the chocolate will eat it up.  But put a drop of chocolate in the vanilla, and suddenly the vanilla is brown.  And for the rest of our lives, after that first drop of chocolate, we’re forever regretting it and trying to scrub away the stain.

I think that Life of Pi is Pi’s story about trying to scrub away his stain.  Trying to distance himself from the deeds he committed, his solution is to create a story he finds acceptable, one that won’t place mental strain upon him.  Life of Pi isn’t about religion, it’s about the battle within yourself to find your sense of balance.  One quote that I find particularly enlightening for this situation:

Without shadows, you cannot have light.

Just as there is one setting in this book, so there is one conflict.  The relationship between Richard Parker and Pi Patel is the main focus of the book.  Theirs is an evolving relationship, one that is often turbulent and rocky.  It’s the modern manifestation of the relationship between man and animal, the continually changing struggle for survival.  Many years ago, man was always the underdog.  Men just weren’t developed enough, didn’t have the thick hides and sharp claws that the animals possessed.  Slowly over time, although they still didn’t possess these attributes, they created facsimiles of them, in order to gain dominance over them.  And soon it was the humans who were defeating the animals through their thick metal armor and sharp metal claws.  Now, we are the dominant ones, building our habitats where we like, and intruding on others whenever we have a mind to.  The relationship between Pi and Richard Parker also closely mirrors this timeline.

In the beginning, Richard Parker is the dominant figure.  He walks where he likes, and forces Pi off the lifeboat, because he feels that this is his territory.  However, by the end, Pi Patel is the one controlling the tiger, and forcing Richard Parker to submit to him.  In fact, he does it using many of the same methods our ancestors used previously.  He uses his weapons, his turtle shells and his whistles, and while his weapons are not sharp on the body, they are sharp and cutting on the mind.  He forces Richard Parker to associate unease and pain with Pi, and as such, creates the feeling that to challenge this dominant male is to receive pain and suffering.

I think one of the most surprising things about this conflict was the way that Pi adapted.  He lost the trappings of humanity so quickly, and reverted to the animal ways of his ancestors.  Within days of being stranded, he had settled into his routine, having a schedule laid out from sunrise to sunset, having that routine that all animals do.  He learned lessons from Richard Parker, closely copying his habits.  He doesn’t do much during the middle of the day, preferring to rest then.  He’s most active during the mid-morning, when the temperature is cool enough to be bearable.  He marks his territory, and frightens off other animals through loud noises and aggressive behaviour.  He adapts to become something that Richard Parker can understand.  The one rule in nature, is that if you don’t adapt, you don’t survive.  The lifeboat essentially becomes a microcosm of the world, filled with everything, from bugs and cockroaches, to vegetarians (the orangutan and zebra), all the way up the food chain to the predators (the hyena, Richard Parker, and Pi).  And didn’t you notice that the ones that adapted, or could adapt, lasted the longest?  The orangutan couldn’t adapt to a foreign environment, and was thus eaten by the hyena.  The zebra couldn’t adapt while it was injured, and became the first victim.  The hyena, having never met a predator like a tiger, couldn’t adapt to this new threat, and was subsequently killed off.  But Pi, who had been exposed to all of these animals and their behaviours, had some idea of what would or could happen, and thus was the most adaptable, and in turn, ended up at the top of the food chain.  Throughout this novel, Yann Martel creates a simplified version of the earth, giving readers an insight into what it really means to adapt through conflict.

Here’s a link to my new blog post!  While you’re at it, check out my website as well!

The Life of Pi is very simple, in terms of setting.  There is only one main setting during the entire book.  With the exception of the first couple chapters, which are set in the past in India, and at the beginning of a few chapters, which is set in the present, in Toronto, the entire novel uses one setting.  A boy and a tiger.  On a lifeboat.  In the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  It is this tidbit that first draws you in, the first thing you see when you look at the back cover.  It’s the main hook, the way to get readers interested.

And it works.  The setting is the ideal way for a story based around the theme of man versus beast.  It’s so small, it forces interactions and conflict.  There is no way you can survive on a 26-foot lifeboat with no interaction.  Plus, it leaves you with a lot of anticipation of conflict as well.  There is an element of cabin fever written beautifully into the book, the anticipation of that moment where one will get so sick and tired of the other that they will snap.  Yann Martel does an excellent job of leading the readers on, dropping hints of a final confrontation, just enough to keep the audience reading, yet not so much as to ruin the ending.  The size of the lifeboat does wonders for this story, it contributes to the conflict, as well as to the cliffhangers.

The other reason this setting is the ideal place for a book is the location.  Out on the Pacific Ocean, there’s nowhere to hide.  One of humans’ first instincts when faced with danger is to run.  Yet, in the lifeboat, there is no room to run.  All the clichés, about having your back to the wall, do-or-die, must-win situations seem almost laughable when used in sports compared to this book.  It’s the epitome of having no escape.   It’s fight-or-flight, except, in this case, there is no flight option.  You’re alone, isolated, with no chance for help.  It’s not until Pi realizes there is no hope of a rescue that he actually begins to take proactive steps to survive.  You can’t help but think that if he had sat around waiting for a boat, Richard Parker would have sensed his weakness.  Pi would be dead, having put his faith in others, instead of in himself.  The setting creates a modern-day Colosseum, where he must fight off the gladiator tiger in order to survive

Yann Martel creates the opportunity for the perfect storm in his novel.  The lifeboat, which seems small in certain situations, can also become as large as a continent in others.  There is no escape from the hidden nightmare on the boat, and no chance for help.  It’s the perfect way to write a story.

We’re doing a novel study in TALONS right now, and we have the option of choosing a novel, album or movie.  Me personally, I love to read.  As much as I enjoy watching a good movie, or listening to my iPod, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of tearing through a good novel.  To me, books are a sacred thing.  Albums and movies are for entertainment, books are for knowledge.  Knowledge about the world, knowledge about others, but most importantly, knowledge about yourself.  Things like what kind of books you read, or who the main characters are, gives you a sense of identity.  For example, I like reading fantasy, or action.  So I’m a dreamer, yet I love to make things happen.  I want to believe in miracles, yet I also delight in things I create with my bare hands.  Books are a way to discover yourself.

This year, I chose Life of Pi to read.  I’ve already read this book a couple times, and each time, it never ceases to amaze me.  The first time I read, I tried to get through it as fast as I could, at the beginning, because I found it boring, and at the end, because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened.  The last few times I’ve read it, I’ve read it a lot slower, trying to pick up on the various themes of the book.  Each time, I feel like it’s an onion.  I’ve peeled away a layer of meaning, yet there’s always one more underneath.  I think what makes this book so intriguing, is that it has a wild plot, yet something about it is so realistic that you have to wonder whether there is a grain of truth hidden inside there.  Margaret Atwood said it beautifully:

it’s a finely twisted length of yarn – yarn implying a far-fetched story you can’t quite swallow whole, but can’t dismiss outright

For me, I alternate between believing, and denying.  For me, I want to believe that adventures like this really do happen, yet I’ve grown up in a world of skepticism and liars, where even the most clean people can have dirty histories.

I think that what draws me to this book is the wonderful lifestyle this boy leads.  To basically live in a zoo, where

my alarm clock during my childhood was a pride of lions.  Breakfast was punctuated by the shrieks and cries of howler monkeys, kill mynahs, and Moluccan cockatoos.  I left for school under the benevolent gaze not only of Mother but also of bright-eyed otters and burly American bison and stretching and yawning orangutans.

It’s every boy’s dream, to be surrounded by animals every day, where each moment can bring something unexpected.  I started off by saying that I loved fantasy and action books, and I’ll end by saying the same.  The reason why I enjoy Life of Pi so much is because it’s my type of book.  A little bit of fantasy and imagination mixed together with a ton of adventure, all to produce a fantastic book.

Here’s a link to my newest in-depth post, on my website.  I’ve started doing some CSS, and it already looks a lot better!

In TALONS this week, we’re talking about the history of Canada, especially around the time of the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway.  British Columbia only agreed to join the Confederation of Canada if the government would agree to build a trans-continental railway to connect BC to the rest of Canada.  There was a deadline of 10 years set, so the government really had to work hard to finish it, after progress had been halted due to financial difficulties.  The cheapest way for CPR to complete the railroad was to bring a bunch of immigrant workers from China, and pay them up to a third-less than other European immigrants to do the labour.  Nowadays, these Chinese workers are celebrated, and much is made of the tough conditions they worked in, but how much have the working conditions really changed?

This is the statement from the Canadian Pacific Railroad, regarding the use of Chinese immigrants to help build their railroad.

On May 27, 2005, Canadian Pacific Railway named the railway interchange in Kamloops, British Columbia after Chinese labourer Cheng Ging Butt. The Cheng Interchange honors the many labourers who toiled, some sacrificing their lives, to build the western section of the CPR from Port Moody to Craigellachie, BC. For many years, the contribution of the Chinese railway workers went largely uncelebrated. Fifteen  years ago CPR, working with the Chinese community, erected a  monument in Toronto honouring Chinese railway labourers.  More recently, the Royal Canadian Mint launched a two-coin commemorative set marking the 120th anniversary of the  completion of the CPR and the important part played by the Chinese workers in building the railway. In 2005, CPR, once  again building track to expand in the West, took the opportunity  to celebrate the Chinese workers from the 1880s  with the dedication of the Cheng Interchange.

Huh.  That’s very nice and all, but it doesn’t tell the true story.  What really happened was that the white people didn’t treat the immigrants very well.  The Caucasian overseers were abusive, both with their language, as well as their actions, often whipped and beaten.  They also disregarded any contracts signed by the Chinese.  Where it said they would only work in 8 hour shifts, the Canadians had them working 12.    The crews were short-staffed, yet the company expected quicker and quicker progress, in order to meet deadlines.  It was no wonder that more than 600 workers died trying to complete the tunnel.  In addition to the hard work, workers were also subject to atrocious living conditions.  Resorting to wrapping their feet in newspapers in order to ward off the frostbite, the Chinese were totally unprepared to work in the winters of BC, many of them having never even seen snow before.  There was little to no food, many days there was barely enough fuel to cook the food, let alone heat the cabins.  The cabins themselves were ramshackle, insulated by newspaper, tin, even mud was used as a way to try to stop the chilly wind from blowing.  It was miserable, and the worst part was that at the end, they were cheated out of their wages.  Already being paid less than other workers, they also had to pay off expenses of the cost of passage, rent, food, tools, and clothing, everything that they used, they had to pay for.  Even in the winter, when it was too cold to work, they were still charged for expenses, although no wages were coming in.  By the time all expenses had been deducted, there was not enough money to even go back to China, let alone be rich, as they were promised in the ads.  This led to the growth of Chinatown in Vancouver.  Overall, it was a horrible situation, from start to finish.

Many people claim that working standards have improved, yet have they really?  Just recently, men were found to be living in a logging camp that was like that of a “third-world country.”  This in Greater Vancouver, which has been voted as the nicest place to live.  Sure, it’s nice to live, but these working conditions were horrible. 25 men slept in shipping containers, with little food, no safe water to drink, and no toilet facilities.  They’re meals went something like this: For breakfast, bread, with jam or peanut butter.  There was no lunch served, and it was unrefrigerated meat for dinner.  Yummmm.  In fact, when the workers went on strike to protest their long working hours, often up to 14 hours a day, they had no food at all, in an effort to force them back to work.   All this shows us is that although there is lots of talk about how much we have improved, the government and the companies haven’t.  They try and gloss over their mistakes, refuse to publicly acknowledge the horrors they inflicted, and continue to violate workers standards.  In fact, it was just recently that the Canadian government apologized for the head tax placed on all Chinese entering the country, in 1885.  That’s 1885.  They didn’t apologize until 2006.  That’s more than a hundred years, 121 to be exact, that this country has tried to hide the fact that they racially discriminated against minorities trying to make a better life for themselves.  We say that we have improved, but have we really?

I recently asked Mr. Jackson for help with my This I Believe essay.  Just to let you know, I’m one of the few people who enjoys people editing my work.  I can never manage to cut enough of my work out, I’m too caring about.  Thankfully, there’s Mr. Jackson.  Where I go through it with a scalpel, trying to keep too much of my work, Mr. Jackson comes through and chops it all up with a chainsaw.  I like to call it the chainsaw edit. By the time he’s done, my paper is highlighted all over, there is now pen in the margins, and my once beautiful essay has been ripped to shreds.  But when I piece it back together, it comes back stronger.

One of the main things Mr. Jackson does for me is he really cuts to the heart of my papers.  Often I dance around the subject, making points that don’t have a direct relation to my thesis.  Mr. Jackson cuts out all of this, and finds what I’m really talking about.  A lot of times, it’s not what I originally set out to prove.  He chops up my essay, and rearranges the various elements in order to make what I say stronger.  For example, in my first draft, I started with the paragraph about being in a dark place, the place where you feel like you want to quit.  Mr. Jackson however, suggested that I should possibly follow the course of the race, starting from the moment the gun goes off, and ending when I burst across the finish line.

One of the things I noticed about putting my events in a logical order was that it made it easier for my readers to follow the events that were happening in my essay.  Also, he picks out the truly important ideas.  As reading it from a new point of view, he’s easily able to pick out which are the most powerful parts of my writing.  Phrases like “the sound of the starters gun” or ” yet underlying that, like the dark foreshadowing in a movie” or even “the pain I must endure in order to run faster.”  He points out parts, trim this bit, ex

pand this part, take out this section, and most of all, create more emphasis and take us inside this paragraph, because that’s what you’re truly talking about.  I think that one of the more important things Mr. Jackson has done for me is to enable me to get to the bottom of what I really want to say.  I know WHAT I’m trying to say, I just can’t transfer it easily from thought to paper.  I know what the destination should look like, but I have no road map of getting there.  Mr. Jackson helps give my writing the direction it needs to get to the place I want it to go.

One other thing that I enjoy about having Mr. Jackson edit my work is that he cuts out the really unnecessary words.  Or better yet, changes them around to create a more powerful impact.  They are small, subtle changes, but it really improves my writing.  For example, in one sentence, I originally had it as “Alone in the trees that once seemed to be filled with sunshine, are now dark.”  Eventually, with a little bit of guidance, it became changed to

I run, alone in the trees. Trees that once seemed to glow with sunshine are now dark.

Just little things, like changing the you’s to I’s, makes my writing more personal and powerful.

The main reason I love having Mr. Jackson edit my papers is simply because he’s so good.  I find it hard to read my own writing, my brother isn’t old enough, and my mom is simply too nice.  Mr. Jackson is good because he can look at it from another point of view, and cuts through to the heart of what I’m saying.  He puts my half-formed thoughts and ideas into something tangible, and the end result clearly shows just how much a good English teacher can do for you.