Whose story is this?
One of my international students, L, told me she had an “aha!” moment in class yesterday.
As a storyteller & teacher teaching Digital Storytelling for the first time this semester, I was ready to embrace and treasure any increment of positive feedback from my wonderful student who also happens to be my research assistant. So, before we jumped into discussing our weekly research tasks, I curiously let her take me to the moment in class when we discussed A Clean Well-lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway in terms of gaps and narrative contestation:
“Whose story is this? Who owns it?” I asked my students.
Instead of designating a single owner, such as the author or the main character, students distributed the ownership among characters and they all agreed on the first owner to be the Old Waiter. They claimed the story is steered into a certain direction through the Old Waiter’s words and he is also the one who says the final words in the story — his ownership of the story was not debatable.
But an American student, M, and my Chinese assistant, L, disagreed on the second owner.
According to L, the Old Man was the second owner because the entire story was about him, his sufferings, his drinking, and being lonely in old age… If it weren’t for the Old Man, the waiters wouldn’t even have a topic to talk about.
For M, on the other hand, the second owner was absolutely the Young Waiter because he spoke way more words than the Old Man. The story was about the Old Man but it was not his story.
I thanked both students’ for their answers and told them that there wasn’t a right or wrong answer; they had different ways of seeing and evaluating ownership of a story. And I continued with the class…
The part I didn’t know was the fact that L was utterly shocked when I said there was no right answer. She said “since primary school there has always been a right answer and the teachers have provided that answer.” Realizing that there did not always have to be a right answer and the fact that she could invent her own right answers was big.
After expressing how much I appreciated L’s insights on the differences of educational systems and values in the USA and China, I further explained how different cultures treat stories and ownership differently. Unlike Chinese culture, American culture is a very low context culture and it is way more individualistic. Therefore being verbal is very very significant for communication. In other words, the one who speaks the most words “owns” the story because we hear their perspective and thoughts the most. But, from a Chinese reader’s perspective that may not feel fair at all.
I also took this opportunity to ask L if she felt offended that her classmate disagreed with her in class.
“Yes” she responded with a shy smile, “Maybe tiny bit…”
I told her that it was ok to disagree with an idea- including that of your professor’s; it is also ok to recognize that awkward feeling we feel when our idea is challenged in a way we are not used to in public in a new culture. There are no right or wrong cultures either; there are differences.
She nodded and smiled — like I do sometimes when I need a bit more time to ponder over some new cultural awareness that hits me even after years of living in different cultures and teaching intercultural communication.
April 18, 2024/ USA
