To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
19
Feb
2017
I don’t know much about bullying. Either by being bullied, or being a bully myself.
I had a boss, for a short while, who was a bully. And when I was a skinny kid with an English accent, the boy next door attempted to bully me, but a bigger kid took me under his wing, and that ended the bullying.
I won’t pretend my high school had no bullying. I didn’t get bullied – at least, not that I can remember. \But I remember one boy who seemed to get constantly picked on – perhaps because he never fought back. One day some of the other kids locked him into a locker, too cramped to move, with no light, for a whole period.
I didn’t stop them. Maybe that makes me an accomplice.
But here’s the thing – not one of those people would have called what they were doing “bullying.”
Bullying is defined by the victim. Never by the bully.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: bullying
4
Dec
2016
Newspaper journalists are supposed to be dispassionate observers of the subjects they write about. They’re not supposed to have feelings themselves.
Stan Chung flips that dictum upside down. In the columns he writes for the Kelowna Courier, he’s more than just personal. He spills his guts. And then he lays his guts out on the operating table and dissects them. Stan bares his soul to grab us by the heart.
He describes his writing technique as “creative non-fiction.” It’s real. It’s fact. But it’s dramatized for impact.
Most of us – and I include myself in this generalization – tend to sandpaper smooth the raw edges of our psyches. We find rationalizations for our actions. We shift some of the blame to someone else.
Stan refuses to buy into that pattern. He’s ruthlessly honest with the feelings most of us try to forget. Or to bury. He writes a biography of pain that is also a celebration of survival.
Tags: stories, immigrants, bullying