Stories of belonging (1)--edited by Kali Wendorf

It is the 'belonging' in the title attract my attention. But what on earth is belonging? Is it possible that we do belong to something? And belongs to what? I can not define it, so I want to see how other people think about belonging.

Not all of the stories are good enough, but some of them are quite impressing.

The second stories: Jasmine Petals by Banafsheh Serov.

The author tries to connect main events in Iran with her grandparents' lives, her parents' lives and her own life, in order to define their belonging in Australia. I appreciate her attempt, but unfortunately, parts of the connections are not smooth and well enough. However, the beginning and the ending of the story are touching and well express the real feeling of most of the immigrants. As an immigrant, he or she belongs to two countries or belongs to neither of them. More often than not, immigrants can not waive their memories and their family bond in their own country while they are not truely accepted by the country they are living in. It is kind of sadness of semi-belonging.

There are some of her words:

My grandmother found her sense of belonging in her devotion to her family and her religion. Her children, now living in exile, find their sense of belonging in common memories, culture and the language they share with others from Iran. Her grandchildren left Iran before they could form any lasting memories of their own, yet our dark features and slight accents set us apart from locals in our new country. We exist at the peripheral edges of both cultures and at times struggle with our identity and sense of belonging.

The end of paper books?

Some people said that the e-books will eventually take the place of paper books because they are costless, easy to be accessed and convenient. However, although I appreciate the merits of e-books, I do not share their opinion that the traditional books would lose in the market. Audio books and others can supplement, but not replace the traditional books.



Of course, e-resource has numerous benefits with the help of computer and advanced gadgets like iPad which are capable of storing and downloading large amount of books from the Internet. It is cheap, compared with the paper ones. And for some people, they can listen to the audio books while they doing housework or read e-books from the gadgets at anyplace and anytime. In addition, writers are also benefited from rich information online and the e-version of out-of-print books downloaded.



Nevertheless, the e-books may not replace the traditional books; instead, they could enhance people’s initiative in reading. More often than not, an e-reader would first access to e-book to see whether the book is worth reading, then he or she would buy the real book if he or she find the books appealing. On the other hand, the feeling of reading the real books is different from reading on the screen. Especially, the readers can mark, make notes or underline in the real books which can not be substituted by e-resource.



While the real problem lies behind this issue is the regulation and implementation of piracy. How can we make sure that the e-readers pay for the information? And what amount should we pay? If we do not pay, is that means we are committing crime? Mess of problems have to be resolved and discussed.



Overall, e-books would only make traditional books more important