Week Three [Snippets] ---[Fi]

This is similar to what Geneva wrote in her blog about the dove pattern on Marjane's dress. Dove symbolizes peace and love.
In this page we could easily see that the pattern of shapes on Marjane's grandma's dress is Jasmine flowers (look at the second panel). This was the last memory she has with her grandmother before she left for Austria. They spent a night together before Marjane's departure. The reason I think Satropi uses jasmine flower as the pattern of grandma's dress is because her grandma routinely used to put jasmine flowers in her bra: to Marjane, jasmine flower has become a symbol of her grandma. From this, we could see that Satropic really pay attention to details when she draw the panels.

P154
This page is completely blank, representing the separation between childhood and teen-hood of the protagonist, Marjane. We can also interpret as a life switch. Life switch because she is no longer confine in a freedom-less country , Iran, but exposed to the outside world and experienced the taste of freedom. The blankness of this page does not only represents a new beginning for Marjane, but also to reader because I think the arthur wants the readers to take a pause and rethink what had happen so far in the book before they move on. Instead of the gutter between panels, this blank page is like a gutter of the book.

Week Two-Feedback (Alice)

I was raking my brains for an idea for the feedback... and I saw Fion's feedback, so I am doing a review on the conference, too.

The Cypress Students Summit conference at Mulgrave had a tremendous impact on me. The first workshop I attended was called "Peace-It-Together", conducted by Omar. (I have his business card! If you are interested in this, just ask me for it.) This workshop introduced the program, "Peace-It-Together", which brings ten Palestinians, ten Israeli, and ten Canadians to Bowen Island, where they interact with each other and make films about the conflict in the Middle East. Omar, one of the participants in Peace-It-Together 2008, showed the produced films and shared his experiences. It was quite interesting; I saw the much-hated seperation wall (a wall that divides Palestinians from Israelis; a tremendous nuisance for the former) and got to hear stories of average, yet extraordinary young men and women, who are no different from us. It truely touched my heart.

When they all went shopping during the camp, one Palestinian guy bought a pair of shoes. It cost around $60, and he was so happy to get them. He treated them in a manner that we would treat a 60 carat diamond, shining it and doing everything in his power to keep it clean. When other people asked him why those shoes were so precious to him, his answer was that it was because he had to run away fast when the bombs were dropped nearby. He needed strong, decent pair of sneakers, not because it matched his cool jeans, but because his life depended on it.

It was like a punch right on my face. Staring at the screen in awe, the fact that I took EVERYTHING for granted sunk in. These people bought shoes in order to survive. I bought shoes because my runners were too "old". They waited for three hours to get into another city 30 minutes away--the Palestinians had to pass stations called "check points", guarded by Israeli soldiers, to get out of or into a village. Many of them never left their tiny community. I had the freedom to travel across the country and back if I wanted to. They had to carry blue or green cards--which Israeli soldiers checked at every check point-- to pass through their country. I had a passport that could take me virtually everywhere in the world. I realized that I was truely spoiled. I didn't have to worry about soldiers barging into my house in the middle of the night, or bombs and missiles falling from the sky. What shocked me the most was that this person, who worries about these things everyday, was around my age.

Yet, it seemed too fantastic to believe. These stories felt like they came from a land far far away, perhaps not even from Earth. That was the definite proof that I was an utterly pampered child. I wasn't the only one who felt disconnected from the Middle East, though. The guest speaker of the last workshop, Haiti, told the group that she wished that Canadians, as well as the rest of the world, would pay more attention and care about the conflicts in the Middle East. Because we have been cuddled by peace that cushioned the impact of the harsh world, we became superficial. This conference really opened my eyes. I was left thinking: what am I doing--sitting here and doing nothing, when people in the Middle East were struggling to live through one more day?

week Two [Feedback] Cypress Student Summit [FION]

This weekend a few of the grade 10's attended the Cypress Student Summit 2009 at Mulgrave School. The topic for this year is "Human Aspect of the Conflict in the Middle East," undoubtly has a direct relationship to Persepolis. Here are a few parts out of the many from this conference that I think are very inspiriting and worth telling.

On Saturday, during one of the workshop, a student presented an organization called Peace is together. In 2008, there were ten Palestinian, ten Israeli, and ten Canadian teens (age15-20) came together in Vancouver to participate in an "extraordinary dialogue and filmmaking experience". The participants lived and learned together for three weeks. During the first two weeks, they were in the process of getting comfortable with each other, and on the last five days, they started to make short films based on some of the issues happening in the Middle East.
I think it must have been a valuable experience for all participants because although these three groups of teenagers grew up from different countries with different cultural backgrounds and experiences, they do have many things in common and became great friends. They also produced many amazing films which I would urge you to take a look at the following website:

http://www.creativepeacenetwork.ca/


Full group simulation(cultural splash)
In the afternoon of Saturday, all the delegates came together and line up in pairs ready to enter a room, which we had no idea what was about. The room was filled with silence and darkness. I was told to take my shoes off and sit on the floor. Soon after everyone was in the room, I realized that all the girls were sitting on the floor with shoes off, and all guys get to sit on the chairs with their shoes on. It was some kind of sexism I thought. After 10 minutes, the room was still completely silent. Then a few of the Grade 12 students started to hand out freezing grapes. I then soon realized that all the guys didn't have to eat by themselves, they were fed by the Grade 12s, yet the girls has to take the grapes with their hands and feed ourselves. From my perspective, this was unfair to the ladies because we didn't get to sit on chairs, or get fed by others, and has to take our shoes off; however, I was wrong. The grade 12s explained that the ladies were actually getting the benefits not the boys (women give birth to babies): we, the girls, get to take our shoes off and sit on the ground is a privilege because we could get closer to the earth, while the boys were farther away from the earth b/c they were separated by a chair and their shoes. We have the privilege to feel/touch our food (grapes) before we eat while the boys don’t because the grapes were fed directly into their mouth. This group simulation make me realized that our perspective about other cultures might be different than we expected. We might think that it is "normal" for one that get to sit on a chair has a higher position than the one sitting on the floor, however we could not use our "normal" way of thinking to determine others to be "abnormal", because at the end, what is normal and what is not?

The last part of the day, Gwynne Dyer (the first photo) was there as a guess speaker talking about the Middle East. It was fascinating to hear him talking and making connections on social, economic and political relationships between the Middle East and the rest of the world and specifically, the US. He also talked about the roots of terrorism and its formation and strategy. One other interesting thing he pointed out was that the Middle East is actually one of the most stable area in the world because after all that they have gone through, no major changes has been made.

•••••••••FION.LZ

Week Two-Literary Feature Hunt (Alice)

Lit. Feat. Hunt

The style of this graphic novel is quite interesting; it has a first person, omniscient and limited omniscient point of view, and is heavy in irony and metaphor; which is understandable, since Persepolis is an autobiography, and the history itself is very ironic. I found that it might be a bit biased, since the author based her story mostly from what she heard in Iran; but she might also have researched in depth after incidents, which gives the book an omniscient point of view as well.

Week Two- Class Act (Alice)

class act

This is not related to anything anybody said in-class. What I am going to write is the thing that I need to understand by writing them down here. (paraphrase, Mr.McGuigan!)

I was fortunate to attend the Cypress Students Summit conference, and one of the workshops they conducted was on the view of Iran from the perspective of a student. The presenter explained that Iran is segregated, and do not allow men and women to interact with one another, which I knew before I got there, because of Persepolis. He(the presenter) said that children went to girls-only or boys-only school until they reached university. University was their dream; the systems allowed more freedom and allowed interaction between the two sexes. However, in the book, on page 295, the author said that the university students had to take different staircases according to their gender. When I pointed this out, the presenter said that was not true, and it was only a rumor. This made me reflect on the book and ponder hard about the reliability of the information presented. Because Marjane lived in Iran, and this is a autobiography--not a diary, the facts and the popular rumors might have merged in her mind as time went by. Also, many things that Marjane illustrated about war against Iraq and revolutions might have been influenced by propaganda. Until that workshop, I naturally assumed that all facts in Persepolis were true; now I know that even an autobiography might need the "origin, purpose, value and limitation" interrogation.

Week Two-Snippet (Alice)

SNIPPET

The panels on page 102 contrast each other, but are similar in many ways. The first panel, which depicts young boys from the poor neighbourhoods of Iran with golden keys around their necks--which, are the keys-symbolically speaking-to "paradaise" of afterlife, being killed by landmines. The panel depicts of silhouettes of these poor boys being thrown in the air because of the impact of explosions from the bombs.
The second panel, which illustrates Marjane's very first--and therefore very exciting-- party. Everyone is dancing to the music, jumping up and down in joy. These two panels contradict each other in their meaning. The boys from poor backgrounds in the first panel are dying in agony while the rich kids in Tehran are having the time of their lives in a punk rock party.





However, the drawings that are supposed to be used as a context to the situation, has a hidden meaning behind it, a connotation; and therefore, are ironic. The first thing I noticed when I looked at these two panels were the almost-identical motions of the people. For example, these two people have indentical poses--and many others match up as well. It made me think that although their backgrounds are different, they really are the same people.
The boys in the first panel might have parished in anguish, but they must have imagined that when the pain was over, they would be transported to the paradaise, and rejoice in the last minutes of their devastating lives, like the children--including our protagonist, Marjane-- were doing in the second panel. I think, overall, the panels show them as happy individuals. Maybe, under their silhouettes, the boys might have been smiling.
This made me think of suicide bombers. They too, are convinced that by dying for a worthy cause--religion,they are sent directly to heaven. The golden keys had the same effect on the young boys. Therefore, I think there is no correct definition of the cause of happiness. For the boys who died in the minefields, happiness might have come from death, which could bring the fabulous afterlife. Their mothers will disagree, but that is what they believed in. As for the children in panel two, happiness comes from special occasions that spark up their boring lives, like a party.