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The experience in E SEM is exciting and fresh. I enjoy the atmosphere that everybody can express her ideas freely. I began to understand the Liberal Arts Education has a provided a great environment for me to really exploring the new perspective of my mind. Following are some thought of reading of Thomas King’ THE TRUTH ABOUT STORIES and our discussion on Thursday.

1.       Each chapter starts with “THERE IS ASTORY I KNOW”. Then, he would tell a Native Indians’ creations Myth. Except the detailed-told version in first chapter, each one in the following chapter has slight difference in the audience who ask about the number of turtle which is the object underneath the earth in the story. For me, these various repetitions are the ways that Thomas King was trying to say that the stories can be approached differently when the storytellers change some details on their own purpose.

2.       On the Page 26, Thomas King said that “Is it our nature? Do the stories we tell reflect the world as it truly is, or did we simply start off with the wrong story? ” This part really got me into deeper thought. I felt a little lost during the class when we got the topic of religion. I can’t say much about the Christian belief since I don’t really know much about Bible or Jesus. However, I agree with King on the point that the stories somehow have their marks of their cultural background. In Biblical creations myth, the creations closely related to the God. In the Chinese creation myth, Pangu represents represent an omnipotent figure that creates the world on his own. This is the image that every empire in Chinese over 3000 thousands’ years feudal society by claiming their identities as the “sons of dragons.”  The characteristic shown on Pangu happens to be the praised quality Chinese society promotes. The same connections are presented in the elements, such as the religious beliefs, spiritual prides, in the Hawaiian creation myth and Mayan myth. I think all these similarities referred to the point that Thomas King was trying to make that the stories sometimes depends on how you want to interpret and what’s the intention of the storyteller. The cultural background and the environment around the storyteller will definitely affect the tone of the story.

3.       On Page 43, Thomas King said that: “What the camera allows you to do is to invent. Not records of moments, but rather imaginative acts.” This sentence really touched me about how Indians are set in everyone’s head that they are the native, the uncivilized. Most of us already have a stereotype of Indians in our mind which leads the photographs which are supposed to be documentary tend to match the imagination existed. No wonder, Thomas King, a half-blood Indian, received doubt, “You’re Not the Indian I Had in mind” Though we are trying to see people or a kind of culture without prejudice, we can’t resist the first impression we already have long before we even met the person or the culture.