Where the Concrete Desert Blooms - Class Novel Study

Where the Concrete Desert Blooms

by Tings Chak

Part 1: Hong Kong to Thornhill

1. A simile is when we use ‘like’ or ‘as’ to compare two things.  What simile does Tings use to describe storytelling?   /2

1. Make up three of your own similes.   /2

1. What does Tings mean when she refers to ‘the grass through the concrete’?   /2

1. Tings is from Hong Kong.  Describe the political situation in Hong Kong in 1989.   /5

1. Make a connection between Tings’ description of the settlement of Thornhill and what we learned about land allotment in the graphic novel ‘Louis Riel’.    /3

1. According to Tings, what makes Thornhill unique, and what makes it generic?   /3

1. What does Tings mean when she says, “so in a way, you already know where I come from”?   /3

1. What makes a place generic?  Draw a place you know that is generic.  Is there anything that makes it unique?   /4

Part 2: First Impressions of Hamilton

1. What was Hamilton called, and who lived here, before colonization?  /2

1. Draw an image of what you imagine Hamilton looked like before colonization.  /4

1. Where does Hamilton’s modern name come from?  /2

1. Explain some of Hamilton’s nicknames.  /4

1. If you were to give Hamilton a nickname, what would it be?  /2

1. Tings makes an awkward first impression.  Describe a time when this has happened to you?  /3

1. Why was downtown Hamilton stigmatized?  Does this stigma still exist today?  Explain.   /4

1. Why does Ancaster give Tings a sense of placelessness?  Have you ever had this feeling?  Explain.  /4

1. A metaphor is when you compare two things without using the word ‘like’ or ‘and’.  Explain the Donut metaphor.  /3

1. Come up with three metaphors of your own.  /3

1. A reference is when you refer to a work of art or literature within your own work.  What reference does Tings make to Yeats?  /3

1. Draw an image based on the Yeats poem.  /6

1. Do you agree with Tings’ first impression of Hamilton?  Explain.  /3

1. Describe the aspects of the city that Tings refers to as a ‘revelation’.  /6

1. How does one ‘become a tourist’ in their own town?  /3

1. Tings asks two questions: “What happens when residual stories linger around a place?” and “What happens when old voices meet new ones?”  Answer one of these questions.  /4

1. What does Tings mean when she says “from abandonment comes opportunity”?  How can you relate personally to this statement?  /4

Part 3: University and Social Activism

1. Tings expected university to be a place of activism and social change, based on images of the student movement from the 1960s.  Find out more about this movement, and describe it.  /6

1. Have you ever been disappointed by the reality of something, compared to the idea that you had in your head?  Describe.  /4

1. Who is Bryan, and what does he mean when he says that “today we’re up against the larger masses, and those who are involved are involved in a deeper way.”?   /4

1. Who is Randy, and what does he mean when he says “The settlers’ legacy has left us with a fear of the forests.”  /4

1. What kind of imagery comes to mind when you think about “compromised nature”?  Draw an image.  /4

1. What does Tings mean when she says that “the natural and alternative spaces around us can become lived spaces”?  /2

1. What does Tings want to know about Binkley’s Pond?  /2

1. The image of Binkley’s Pond had a powerful effect on Tings.  When has an image affected you emotionally?  Explain.  /3

1. What does Tings mean when she says “our physical landscapes, no matter how permanent they seem, can indeed be changed, towards or even back to something we would like to see, something we would like to preserve.”  /3

Part 4: How to Love a Place

1. Explain Tings’ simile about love and the city.  What does she mean?  /2

1. Write three of your own similes about love.  /6

1. Tings says, “What you love, you will invariably respect, care for, and protect.”  Give an example of this in your own life.  /3

1. Answer Tings’ question, “Are we entitled to a place, just as we inherit our family histories?”  Sketch your answer.  /4

1. Tings uses the Japanese term “mono no aware” to express the sadness of a landscape that has been irreversibly altered.  When have you experienced the sadness of ephemera, of things that did not or will not last?  /4

1. Tings says, “No matter how much we change a landscape, it’s always there, and sometimes when you look hard enough, you can still see it.”  Look out at a part of the city’s landscape, and re-imagine it.  What would you do if this space was yours to re-create?  Sketch this.  /4

1. What do you think would happen if developers had to negotiate with the people who live in a community, before they tore down homes and built parking lots and condominiums?  What would your community look like?  Sketch or write your response.  /3

1. Respond to Steve’s experience.  What have you found, haphazardly, that fills you with delight?  Sketch it.  /3

1. Tings says that her story is about “being present.”  What does this entail?  /2

1. Tings describes a ‘contagious sentiment’ among her peers to live downtown.  When have you experienced a ‘contagious sentiment’?  Describe this.  /3

Part 5: To Live Creatively

1. Tings describes an ‘overwhelming desire to live creatively, make art, eat good food, and build community’.  What are your overwhelming desires?  /4

1. Go to Whitehern and look at the gardens.  Sketch what you see.  /6

1. Tings says ‘I drew, only to know…”  Wander the city without an agenda, as Tings did, and let your eyes float and settle.  Draw what you see.  /6
2. Mack says, “There’s a lot of character in decrepitude.  People like that stuff, for whatever reason.”  What is the reason, do you think?

Part 6: The Scale of Things

1. Tings finds an old bike, that becomes dear to her.  What have you found or inherited, that has become dear to you?  Sketch it.  /3

1. Ray goes into a state of shock when he first begins working at Stelco.  Have you ever experienced shock?  Describe your experience.  /3

1. Why do you think a sense of futility pervades the steel mills?  What is the relationship between scale, and nihilism?  /6

1. Tings responds emotionally to the ‘stripping’ of the marble off of city hall.  Describe a time when an object has evoked these kinds of emotions in you.  Sketch the object.  /6

1. Tings says, “Hamilton is a city with few symbols, and what was happening to City Hall seemed indicative of the way Hamilton fails to embrace and preserve what it has.”  Respond to Tings’ statement.  What symbols does Hamilton have?  Sketch these.  Can you embrace these symbols?  /6

1. About Hamilton, Graham says, “Being the proud poor that it is, Hamilton will always give you the shirt off it’s back.”  How can you relate to this statement?  /4

1. Tings says, “reclaiming an old building might be the most political thing you can do here.”  If you can’t afford an old building, what else can you do to save Hamilton’s bones?  /3

1. Tings asks, “Is it elitist to want to celebrate the qualities we have?”  Respond to this question.  /3

Part 7: Take Up Space

1. One of Bernadette’s holy moments occurred when she and her daughter “looked up at the same instant to see a shooting star split in two.”  Describe one of your holy moments.  What did it mean?  /4

1. Bernadette returns to Kentucky, only to find Hamilton inside an old trunk as she was closing up her family home.  What uncanny coincidence have you experienced?  What do you make of it?  /4

1. Bernadette spends the new year “paying attention to the earth.”  How do you pay attention?  Sketch this.  /3

1. Tings says that the city “seems beholden to the modernist logic of replacing the human scale, the street level store front, and the pedestrian language of the city with automobile arteries, skyscrapers, and mega complexes.”  What is the problem with the modernist logic?    /4

1. What did downtown look like before 1971?  Find an image, and respond to it.  How do you feel?  Do you prefer the city now, or before?  Explain your response.  /6

1. Bernadette describes Hamilton as having two identities.  One is “male, with a donut and a cup of coffee in his hand,” and one is “an artist - a tough artist.”  a) Which parts of the city reflect the first identity, and which parts of the city reflect the second?  b) Is this duality appealing, or do we need a new, united sense of self?  /6

1. Tings describes what Gary and Barbara did to the Pearl Company, saying “The Pearl Company symbolizes the possibility of community building that takes place when a single space is liberated and its value realized.”  How do we liberate space?  Sketch this process.  /4

1. Tings meets a woman who says “the richness of our lives could be better measured by songs and poems than by our average household incomes.”  If you measured your riches in art, music, and literature, what would that look like? Sketch this.  /6
2. Tings quotes Plato, the Greek philosopher, saying, “There is no greater good in a state than that the citizens be known to each other.”  Sketch of the map of the city using only images or symbols of the people you know.  /6

1. Tings learns about the importance of “claiming a place as your own, starting with your home.”  Describe or sketch the part of your home that you have claimed as yours, using detail.  /6

1. Tings discusses the importance of throwing away our inhibitions and founding a community.  Why do we need community?  Why do we need to let go of our inhibitions?  Explain.  /4

1. Tings says that a lot of activism is “claiming and creatively re-imagining a place.”  Describe a way that you have done this.

1. Tings says, “activism is, can, and should be a form of playful, public art.”  Imagine your own brand of public art activism.  What does this look like?  Sketch or describe.  /6

1. Tings asks, “how do we take up space?”  Respond personally to this question.  How do you, or how should you, take up space?  /4

1. Tings describes the waterfront trail as a place where “community health begins.”  a) Go and walk the trail, and then explain what Tings means. b) What else contributes to community health?  /6

1. Bryan points out that the waterfront trail is an example of development that results in community pride.  a) Should all civic development result in civic pride?  Explain.  b) What parts of the city are you proud of?  Sketch or describe.  /6

1. Tings likes to block traffic.  Why is traffic blocking good for civic pride and community?  /4

1. What is the difference between how you treat people who are known to you, and how you treat strangers?  Sketch or respond.  /4

Final Project:

At the end of her book, Tings instructs us to “dream up a new city,” but she also reminds us to look back before moving forward.  She says, “the grass through the concrete, in a town once called orchard city, this is where the concrete desert blooms.”  

Using imagery from Hamilton today, and from its pre-industrial past, dream up a new city, and draw it.  Print your image, using at least 2 colours.  

Evaluation:

Imagery reflects Hamilton’s past, present, and future.

Imagery reflects the student’s own original thoughts and ideas.

The student uses the principles and elements of design to create a visually appealing image.

The student follows the steps of the print-making process in order to create clean, professional-looking prints.