I tried to understand and this what I came up with...

Here are my final thoughts...it is interesting to note how many cultures there are and how many there are in Vancouver. Many people come from all over the world to Canada and by doing this they inadvertently add a hyphen to their life. Even the people in this blog group with me are all of different ethnic backgrounds. The aspect that each person comes from many different backgrounds and different expectations but we all come together in one city, or school and get exposed to these aspects and share our lives with others is great. I like to think that even though we are established with different backgrounds we can all just be ourselves and establish new hyphens in our lives by the different people we meet and sometime sit can be hard but you got to fight through it. Sometimes it can be hard living up to expectations and wanting to just be your own person but the I think the hyphens in ones life allow one to grow and these links are a good thing even if they can sometimes be hard to understand. Hyphenated life is more than just cultural diversity it’s about making links to establish oneself in the world. I hope that this makes sense because I’m really still trying to grasp this concept but I feel I have and basically tried to understand my self a bit better.

everyone is hyphenated-Bernecia

In my last bit of final comments, I just wanted to say that I think everyone of us is hyphenated in some way, not only culturally, but from family values, doing post secondary, the roles at work and at home etc. I think that University students are hyphenated in the way that we lead both a social and academic life and both must be balanced somehow. If one overtakes the other we somehow lose part of ourself. Also, some of us have little ones, and have be good parents, as well as strong academic students, and hard workers when earning money. It seems that hyphenation is not just a cultural first generation but something that is in everyone's life.

Franglais-Bernecia

Ah yes, the hyphenated life in relation to culture.I think Canada is one biggiant hyphenated nation. I'm not just referring to the idea of the amazingmodern diversity that we share as a nation, but I'm referring to theFranglais history of Canada. I was reading a blog about the history ofCanada concerning the French colonies, and I began thinking about how Canadahas been hyphenated since the very beginning of our nation's history. Forexample, after France had lost the Canadian colony, or rather had lostinterest in the colony of Canada due to internal problems within the mothercoutry of France. The French-Canadians were the first group of people tolive a hyphenated life, but also before them, there were the firstgeneration of the Métis people, who were a mix of French and First nations,but many children of such union ended up being more European in culture. Over time however, the Métis became recognized as a separate nationaltogether. But going back to the French Canadians, I was thinking abouthow they have been living a hyphenated life throughout history. Theymanaged to preserve their language as well as lots of interesting parts oftheir culture such as the celebration of the day of Bastille and the primaryreligion, Catholicism . Even after attempts of assimilation, theFrancophone people were resistant and still fought to maintain theirculture. I think this makes Canada diverse from the beginning, or possiblya hyphenated nation from the beginning.

The hyphenated Religion-Bernecia

In agreement with Shafin's comment, I think the Hyphenated life candefinitely relate to Douglas Coupland's "Hey Nostradamus," but I wasthinking more in the sense of trying to balance religion and the new cultureof modern Canada. What I mean by the culture of modern Canada is the lessrigid standards of today's society concerning morals. There seems to be tooends of the spectrum and not enough balance concerning religion. Forexample I think the earlier version of Reg is an example of Christianity init's most severe and extreme form. But I also think that there can be apoint where Christianity can be in too much of a wishy-washy love form-forexample, loving the repentant gunman. The fact that he repented does notmean that he should not have to suffer for what he did, or at least havepeople realize that he did kill people before repenting. As the Bible says,In God's love there is severity. I think that this is a fantastic exampleof hyphenation on a large scale. One can be loved and love, but it's notreally unconditional, because if one has committed sin there is aconsequence that one must eventually face. Now in the way of balancingreligion and new culture, I think that life must become hyphenated to belivable. I came across an interesting quote once that says "God only helpsthose who help themselves," and strangely enough this doesn't come from the Bible. Basically it means that if one is driving along the road and gets a flat tire, one should get out and fix it, and not continue driving and say that God will fix it. Basically there is a balance with how far one takesthe principles of the Bible; reverting back to "Hey Nostradamus" Reg demonstrates the extremist version of Christianity in that he gets angry athis son for killing the gunman when it was Jason's actions that saved lives. Just on a side note about "Hey Nostradamus," Dr. Ogden was right about Christianity being a taboo of society, but it seems that it is one of the least respected religions also. For example, one would think twice beforesaying that the Torah or Koran is to be read as a work of fiction, simplyout of respect, but for some reason, some seem to be able to say the sameabout the Bible without thinking that they would be disrespecting the Christian populace.

Bernecia accidently posted her blog in comments!

I can't believe I accidently posted my blog entry in comments! I think Monica may have been fixing my blog entries (big thanks)! The idea of the Hyphenated Life does not just come from the idea of culturaldifferences, but it also ties in to gender roles in society. As Mariomentioned earlier, his female cousins only brought someone that they weredating to a family function unless they were totally in a serious relationship. The modern woman refers to the idea of a career woman, or awoman who strives for higher learning, but is it truly possible to become amodern woman? Culturally and religiously, women tend to have the role ofbeing the loving mother, the multi-tasker, and the faithful and loyal wife. The modern woman is expected to be ambitious, non-apologetic for beingsuccessful, non-submissive, and competitive. This is quite a contrast fromthe usual Victorian role type. So, in our society today, a woman mustbalance out her family life where at home she is a mother and/or a wife, andat work she is tough and competitive. When I read Ethel Wilson's "InnocentTraveler," I was struck by how Mrs. Porter is viewed by the Victorian-typesociety . She is viewed as a "blue stocking," which basically means that anacademic woman is undesirable as a wife because she is viewed as masculine. Because of the values of different cultures, along with the opportunitiesoffered in Canada, women are held to a double standard-on one hand they mustbe a family woman and on the other a career woman, and thus to some extentlead a hyphenated life.

Hyphenated Life in the class texts

This is Shafin again and im gonna try and identify the concept of hyphenated life with regards to the texts of this course one could analyze them and search for "hyphenated lives" within them but not necessarily using the definition of a mixture of cultural values but rather the mixture of life/life values. In Innocent Traveler one could say that when topaz and her family moved to Canada the Grandmother and niece were living hyphenated lives trying to mix their expectations of their lives in England with those that are expected of them in Canada. Whereas Topaz just didn't necessarily care and made her own expectations and lived her life but in a sense seemed highly influenced but the people she was with and her surroundings so one could say she lived numerous lives depending on whom she was with or where she was.
In the short story Broken Teeth it is probably one of the most obvious examples of a cultural definition of hyphenated life because the family in the story is obviously still going by cultural expectations and traditions of their Asian heritage and the eldest of the family don't know how to change and the mothers child in the story was raised it seems as a hyphenated child because the mother didn't want to raise him as she was raised with such high cultural expectations.
In Hey Nostradomus! Jason can be seen living a dual life. He has this anger inside of him, which controls him, but he also has his days where a happier side or perhaps memories of good times controls him. It was his fathers expectations for him to be this devout religious son who followed every inch the bible and Jason once Cheryl died didn't want to have to live up to his fathers expectations.

Marios 4th Entry

For my last post, I had a hard time finding other blogs that were relevant to the topic that we are discussing, so I looked over some of the postings that people in this group have made. It seems that all four of us are from different backgrounds, and all face the issue of a "hyphenated life" After reading some of their descriptions on how their lives are i noticed once again that a lot of similarities can be found in seemingly different cultures. I also found it comforting that a lot of different people throughout the school and the community are facing similar issues as I am in the respect of trying to balance two different types of lives, one within their home and one outside of it. I also came to notice that there are basically two different ways of handing these types of situations one is to be the exact same inside your house with your family as you are outside of the house even if surrounded by people that wont necessarily understand everything about your personal life. And then the type of person who tries to balance the lives and acts a little different inside the house then he or she does outside, i guess this is kind of the easy way out as you kind of lose some individuality and sort of conform to the perceived "normal" ideas, but it also seems to keep things a little bit more simple, at least from my personal experiences. The great thing about Canada is that it is home to a number of different cultures and creeds and posses a lot of ethnic diversity, and I believe that remaining and individual and staying true to certain beliefs is important but I guess that needs to be decided by the individual based on their feelings and individual circumstances. Either way culture is good. Stay unique. This project has been great, really informative and it helped me to learn a lot about different cultres, the way people handle the idea of a "hyphenated life" and reinforced the cultural diversity that Canada has and the importance of that.

Marios Blog Analysis

I was reading through some blogs trying to find something that i could relate to the idea of a hyphenated life. In doing so i managed to come across a blog written by a Asian-Canadian who’s family migrated to Canada. In the blog she talked a lot about how life was i her family and the kinds of morals and virtues that were important to her family. While reading this i thought a lot about some of the stories in Vancouver Short Stories, such as "Broken Teeth" and "The Jade Peony" even though when i first read those stories they seemed a little stereotypical after reading some of the postings on this girls blog i realized that maybe they were more realistic then i originally perceived them to be. I also noticed that even in two seemingly completely different cultures; Italian and Japanese I was able to pick out a lot of strong similarities. For example she talked about a strong emphasis on both family values and religion, which is something that I am more then familiar with coming from an Italian background. It was interesting to see how someone from a different background also faces a lot of the same issues in her everyday life and a lot of the same problems when it comes to the idea of a "hyphenated life" and balancing a her life at home with social life outside of the house. So in a nutshell i found it interesting how two seemingly completely different cultures have a lot of the same values and learned that the stories from Vancouver Short Stories may not have been as stereotypical as i had originally thought them to be.

Marios Experience Balancing Two Types of Cultures

So im back again to make another postin, last time I made a post about some of the examples of how life from an Italian perspective differed from a common North American perspective, so Im just going to go a little further into that. When facing these differences I am kind of forced to also make some adjustments, to my behaviour and this is how the idea of a hyphenated life comes into play. I need to act differently around my friends then I do around my family and relatives. Certain things are parts of life that my friends and even myself would consider normal, my family has a hard time processing, so when Im around them everything changes. I have to talk differently around them, pretend im more focused on the aspects of life that they are interested in, and sometimes even leave out certain things abuot my life when they ask me questions. I know it seems like that is a little bit fake but to me it seems like whats necessary in order to kind of keep everything in a somewhat harmonious state. Parrallel to that i also sometimes need to keep my family life separate from my friends, I have a lot of Italian friends living in similiar situations so with them we all understand eachother and can talk openly but I also have a lot of friends who are native to North America for 3 or 4 generations and with them it was clear that i sort of need to separate out my family life and maybe not get into too much detail because even though they are all open minded and willing to listen it was clear early on that they didnt totally understand all of the things and aspects of the culture, so to keep things simple i just try to cut it out. So thats the last post ill make about my life.

Marios Hyphenated Life

Ok so I'm not sure if I am even doing the right thing but I’m going to make an attempt. I have personal experience with the idea of a hyphenated life. I myself am 100% Italian. One of my parents was born in Italy as well as all four of my grandparents. I Know this might not be an excellent example a lot of people probably wouldn’t think that there is a huge difference or much of a hyphenated life, but I would beg to differ. Experiencing it first hand there is a lot of differences and I often come across a lot of circumstances that would my life "hyphenated" For example needing to be able to speak and understand a separate a good majority of my family, either speaks none, or very little English therefore in order to communicate properly with them I needed to learn Italian, or at least the basics of it so that I would be able to at least partially communicate. Another thing that becomes clear, especially when talking other people is that my family places different emphasis on certain parts of life for example religion, and a big one of up-keeping personal appearances within the community, there is also a certain responsibility placed on women, this is obvious when I look at some of my female cousins and see for example that none of them are allowed to bring any guys around unless they are in a totally serious relationship. These are just some of the examples about how my life, coming from Italian background my seem hyphenated to the common conception of a North American lifestyle.

still trying...

So I'm still trying to understand what this concept of hyphenated life is or what it is. I even tried googling it with minimal results but did find a couple things that helped me to believe that this isn't an imaginary concept.

First-http://shiksafrommanila.blogspot.com/2007/03/hyphenated-life.html
This person talks about the hyphen and its significance as to who he is or as she puts it:
A hyphen is a small bar that looks like a minus sign. The dictionary further describes the hyphen as a punctuation mark used to divide or connect two words; to describe a person who performs more than one function; to describe a unit of mixed or diverse backgrounds.
Understanding the actual term helps as it helps to clarify what the the term means and n relation to this blog. So I'm not sure really struggle with hyphenated life in my own life other than previously mentioned and this concept is to "deep" for me because i would rather keep things simple and be me and do what i want to do rather than have to juggle between different parts of me.
Obviously i can see why people find this important trying to maintain the different parts of them and trying to act based on cultural or ethnic expectations which i guess is fine but i would rather not ave to do that and rather make my own expectations to live by.
So i guess this is all for now by the way this is Shafin again, thought i would mention it again so people would know who is speaking.

Furthermore...

I am glad that things are getting done in our blog, but for more clarifications, I would like to shed some light on what is still not understood:
1. The hyphenated living is not necessarily just a question or dilemma of cultural race, but it can also be of being torn between beliefs, between opinions, from yourself and what is commonly acceptable, or what is expected to be done. Relating to the post prior to this, the hyphenated issue in it is the writer's decision of being different, which is I expect, not that acceptable for their respective belief. The writer is in between that unchartered space of acceptance and individualism. -That is what can be one of the many faces of hyphenated living.
2. It is our goal as well to find this issue in the fiction stories we tackle at class. recently, I was able to find a good one, the matter involving Jason at "Hey Nostradamus!". Jason, in short lingo, can be identified as: believer-pessimist. Just comment if further elaboration is wanted.
Again, I am willing to aid for more clarificatons regarding this theme. And so far, we are doing a great job.

Not to sure if this makes sense but i'll try...

So I’ve finally gotten around to posting here but I guess its better than never right? This is Shafin by the way, but this whole idea of hyphenated life still has me confused but from I gather on reading the entries and what I was told it was is the cultural expectations or expectations of living as a culturally integrated person in Canada. I my self am Ismaili Muslim and my parents grew up in eastern Africa but I was born in Canada. My parents expected me to follow my religion; I even had to go to religious school. I guess I don't follow up because I don't even follow my religion except for the fact that I don't eat pork, although I have tried it and didn't like it. I'm pretty sure my parents are disappointed but its not a rebellion thing its more of a I don't care about religion aspect and I personally I don't like organized religion, maybe its because of having it forced upon me when I was young and having to go to mosque. I'm not necessarily sure where I am going with this right now its just me typing here and thinking that why follow cultural expectations? For me I would rather live life and find out about it on my terms and make mistakes rather than have to conform to a set belief value. I really hope grammar and spelling don't count.

In motion...

Hi there, Bernecia from Monica's group here! I can relate to the hyphenated life. I myself am of mixed heritage by blood. My parents both are from Guyana, South America, although describing my heritage as Guyanese seems to be an inadequate way of explaining who I am in terms of race. I can relate very easily to the whole idea of the Hyphenated Life, and I love how our short stories, such as "Broken Teeth," demonstrate the gap between the first generation Canadians and the previous generation. Personally, I think because of the amazing diversity Canada contains within its borders, the cultural diverseness defines our national identity as Canadians.

Heart to Heart

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Oh yes, I fell in love. How I suffered! Driving down with John to dinner and driving home again. My greatest joy and misery too. I loved him for seven years of my life, and it was wasted, wasted. I'm proud of it now, not everybody could do it!

-Topaz Edgeworth

Ethel Wilson's "The Innocent Traveller"

Perhaps we're all funny like that... all these preconcieved ideas! There seems to be more mixing-up of people here than in Ware, and I like it. And it's so beautiful...

-Topaz Edgeworth

Being In-Between

The main issue we are presenting in this blog is the seemingly anonymous way of living we are having in this genre. Some are, what we can coin, as 'in-betweens" -people wallowing in the recesses of their roots (various roots)....
Personally, I call myself as a Filipina, and yet, I'm also half Chinese and half Spanish by blood. With these ancestral hodgepodge, I was able to live and grow, pleasing every category, living each expectation from each culture and belief. We chose this topic to emphasize the brilliance of some literary minds and their stories that touches this multi-faceted denominator of life nowadays.

HYPHENS

For the next entries, me & 3 of my colleagues will be tackling "living a hyphenated life" -in accordance with our english101 class... further compositions will be interesting, thought provoking and very realistic. Further elaboration on our chosen topic will be posted this weekend.

Yes, Out Of My Bushel

Since I'm in a class that somehow promotes the use of blogging, starting to get accustomed to it might be fruitful someday. Even though it is such a foreign realm for me to write without writing, I'll give it a shot.

P.S. Will be posting every time my muse is around.

-audacity