Activity 2: Narrative Intervention

God dammit Paul. Can he not just listen to what I have to say? Why is he so impatient? Stupid boy, so oblivious to his surroundings, so oblivious to the world. I just wanted to teach him a lesson. I wanted to impart my knowledge, but he was too stubborn to listen and too spoilt to accept any other viewpoint. He needs to learn to appreciate the music, to understand the music, to ride the emotions of the music rather than just being stuck in his ways of sitting at a piano, touching the keys and playing the notes off the book in front of him. He needs to understand that I only want the best for him. I only want him to be what other kids of his age cannot be and to do what other kids of his age cannot do. I know he can press the keys and read the music but I want him to be able to do more.

He has great potential. I know it. I can sense it. He is like my son was. He is just like Eric. My dear, Eric. Eric had a gift but such little time to open that gift and use it. He was like a sponge: he took in a lot of information and did with it what he could. He tried to see what I could see and wanted to be the best he could be. This is the difference between Eric and Paul. Paul is impatient and stuck in his ways. He can’t hear the music.

Paul has no respect. None. Once he learns to respect myself, himself, the piano and the music, he will be a pianist. Without this he is nothing; like paper without a pen. At the moment I need him as much as he needs me and I will keep persevering to teach Paul everything I’ve learnt. Once I have done this, I will have succeeded and he won’t need me anymore. 

Chain of Hearts Research- Vietnamese Boat People and White Australia Policy

VIETNAMESE BOAT PEOPLE

• The Vietnamese boat people are refugees who fled Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the late 1970’s and 1980’s of the Vietnam War.
• In Vietnam, the new communist government sent many people who supported the old government in the South to "re-education camps", and others to "new economic zones."
• An estimated 1 million people were imprisoned without formal charges or trials.
• According to published academic studies in the United States and Europe, 165,000 people died in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's re-education camps. Thousands were abused, tortured, and executed.
• These factors, coupled with poverty and the total destruction of the country that happened during the Vietnam war, caused hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese to flee the country.
• In 1979, Vietnam was at war with the People's Republic of China (PRC). Many ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam, who felt that the government's policies directly targeted them, also became "boat people."
• On the open seas, the boat people had to confront forces of nature, and elude pirates.

• There were many different ways people used to leave the country: most were secret and transpired at night; some involved the bribing of officials, some people bought places in large boats that held 400 passengers; others organized smaller groups or went on makeshift rafts.
• Some forged identity documents, traveling 1,100 km to Danang by road. On arrival, they would take refuge for up to two days in safe houses while waiting for fishing junks and trawlers to take small groups into international waters
• Camps were set up in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Indonesia.
• According to stories told by the Vietnamese refugees, the conditions at the camps were poor.
• The women and children were raped and beaten.
• Very little of the aid money donated primarily by the United States actually got to the refugees.
• Refugees at Thai camps were maltreated and many were brutally bullied by the Thai guards.
• Some 77% of refugee boats leaving in 1981 were attacked by Thais.
• 863 Vietnamese were known to be raped, 763 people physically attacked and killed, and 489 people abducted.

THE WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY
• The White Australia policy was a system of both official and unofficial discrimination in Australian history, during which immigration policy and citizenship requirements were heavily biased to favour white European migrants, and more specifically Anglo-Saxon migrants over other races.
• Although in the present day Australia generally prides itself on being one of the most multicultural of the "western-style" democracies, its past contains a long period of government-endorsed racism that, among modern Western democracies, was matched by few and possibly exceeded only by the apartheid regime of South Africa.

Chain of Hearts Research- Vietnam War

• There seems to be no definite date as to when the Vietnam War occurred as there was no official declaration of war. From what I can see the Vietnam War was either from 1955-1975 or 1959-1973.
• The countries involved in the Vietnam War were France, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, United States, South Korea, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, People’s Republic of China, Republic of China, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, North Korea, Cuba, Canada, Poland, India, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Some of these countries only had non-combat or support roles throughout the war.
AUSTRALIA’S INVOLVEMENT
• Australia's military involvement in the Vietnam War was the longest in duration of any war in Australia's history.
• Australia’s involvement in the war started in July-August 1962 and ended on 11 January 1973.
• The Australian commitment consisted predominantly of army personnel, but significant numbers of air force and navy personnel and some civilians also took part.
• Almost 60,000 Australians, including ground troops and air force and navy personnel, served in Vietnam
• 521 died as a result of the war and over 3,000 were wounded.
• Australia supported South Vietnam
VIETNAM WAR PROTESTS
• In the early years Australia’s participation in the war was not widely opposed. But as the commitment grew, as conscripts began to make up a large percentage of those being deployed and killed, and as the public increasingly came to believe that the war was being lost, opposition grew until, in the early 1970s, more than 200,000 people marched in the streets of Australia’s major cities in protest.
• Vietnam war protests were at first small and non-violent and were organised by already established anti-war movements.
• They were made up of middle aged and middle class people and young radicals who favoured extreme change.
• The forms of protest included:
 Teach-ins took place from 1965. Speakers holding a variety of opinions debated the issues.
 The Youth Campaign Against Conscription (YCAC) – university students who organised marches and demonstrations.
 Save Our Sons(SOS) movement (1965) largely middle-aged women held silent protest vigils.
 Seamen’s Union in 1965 refused to carry war materials to Vietnam.
 From 1966 protests became more radical. Young men burned their draft cards and protests saw clashes between the demonstrators and the police.
 Some young men decided to go to jail rather than be conscripted. The courts could exempt those who could prove they were pacifists (opposed to all wars on religious or moral grounds).

• Grounds for opposition to the Vietnam War
 It was believed that Australians were being sent to fight for an unpopular and corrupt dictatorship.
 It was a civil war and we had no business being there.
 It was immoral to send young conscripts who were too young to vote. You had to be 21 at that time to vote.
 Television coverage showed the horrors of war eg use of napalm, execution of old people, women and children. Famous image of Saigon’s Police Chief executing a Viet Cong dead in the street.
 Fire free zones – places where Vietnamese villages were bombed ad machined gunned without restriction.
 "Mai Lai Massacre" in 1968 where 120 Vietnamese were slaughtered shocked the world.
 The question was, "Did we have to kill them, in order to save them? Could they have been any worse off under communism?"
• Protests increased and became more directed towards symbols of the United States in Australia.
• Public opinion began to change in August 1969 55% of Australians favoured withdrawing the troops.
• During 1970 and 1971 huge public protests called the Vietnam Moratoriums (stop the war) saw hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in protest.
• These protest finished when Gough Whitlam and his Labor Government were elected in 1972 on a promise to bring home the troops. (By this time most had already come home).
CALL OF CONSCRIPTION
• The Birthday Ballot
 Under the National Service Scheme, twenty-year-old men were required to register with the Department of Labour and National Service (DLNS), they were then subject to a ballot which, if their birth date was drawn, meant the possibility of two years of continuous full-time service in the regular army, followed by three years part-time service in the Army Reserve. As part of their duty, national servicemen on full-time duty were liable for ‘special overseas service’ including combat duties in Vietnam.
• The Defence Act was amended in May 1965 to provide that National Servicemen could be obliged to serve overseas.
• In March 1966, the Government announced that National Servicemen would be sent to Vietnam to fight in units of the Australian Regular Army and for secondment to American forces.
• Men who wished to avoid National Service could join the Citizen Military Forces and serve only inside Australia, claim a student deferment, or attempt a conscientious objection application.
• In 1965 a group of concerned Australian women formed the anti-conscription organisation Save Our Sons.
• Movement protested against conscription of Australians to fight in the Vietnam War and made the plight of men under 21 (who were not eligible to vote at that time) a focus of their campaign.
PUBLIC TREATMENT OF VIETNAM VETERANS POST-WAR
• Although initially there was considerable support for Australia's involvement in Vietnam, as opposition to the war increased service in Vietnam came to be seen by sections of the Australian community in less than sympathetic terms and opposition to it generated negative views of veterans in some quarters.
• In the years following the war, some Vietnam veterans experienced social exclusion and problems readjusting to society
• Excluded from joining the Returned Servicemen's League during the 1960s and 1970s on the grounds that the Vietnam War veterans did not fight a "real war".
• many Vietnam veterans were excluded from marching in ANZAC Day parades during the 1970s because some soldiers of earlier wars saw the Vietnam veterans as unworthy heirs to the ANZAC title and tradition,
• People spat at them
• Called them ‘baby killers’.
• They couldn’t find work
• Their own government turned their backs on them and many never got the medical or psychological care they deserved.
ONGOING HEALTH PROBLEMS OF THE VIETNAM VETERANS
• Exposure to chemicals including Agent Orange caused skin blisters, itching, flushes, nasal problems, blurred vision, respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, gastro-urinary, muscular and nervous system disorders, cancers and tumours
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Symptoms include:
 Tension and agitation
 Sleep disturbance including dreams and nightmares
 'Flashbacks' - intrusive memories and feelings
 Emotional detachment - 'coldness'
 Social withdrawal
 Self-preoccupation and/or egocentric behaviour
 Irritability
 Avoidance of reminders associated with trauma
 Moods swings
 Depression
 Anxiety, panic attacks
 Fearfulness
 Continual alertness for future emotional or physical threats
 Physiological reaction such as headaches, stomach upsets, rashes
 Poor concentration, loss of confidence
 Alcohol and other drug abuse

The Man He Killed and Men In Green

The Man He Killed
1. The Man He Killed was written in 1902 and discusses the Boer War which took place in South Africa.

2. The aspect that this poem discusses is the brutality, inhumanity and futility of war and to ponder how humans are often victims of sheer circumstance and fate. It also addresses the irony - had he and the other soldier met under different circumstances, they would probably be buying each other drinks in a pub instead of trying to kill each other.

3. One emotion conveyed by the poet Thomas Hardy is one of disbelief: “I shot him dead because—because he was my foe, just so…” - this shows how he is in shock to a degree as he cannot find a logical reason why he would do something like that. Another emotion is the infuriation at the futility of war: “Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down you’d treat, if met where any bar is, or help to half a crown” – this is showing how pointless war is in the fact that if the two men had met anywhere else, they would have probably bought each other a drink! Nostalgia with a touch of melancholy are other emotions conveyed, especially through this quote: “He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps, off-hand like—just as I—was out of work—had sold his traps—no other reason why” - this expresses his view of the “big picture” of war and how he enlisted simply for the sake of it - probably just like the man he ends up killing did - and thinking about the man he killed of more as a person, not an enemy.

4. The poetic devices used in The Man He Killed include rhyme, visual imagery and repetition. The rhyming is an ABAB scheme which makes the poem more mnemonic and memorable; an example of this is “infantry…face…me…place”. The visual imagery in the poem is used to help the reader to put themselves in the man’s position and imagine being there and being him at that time: “But ranged as infantry, and staring face to face, I shot at him and he at me, and killed him in his place…”. The last poetic device is repetition, which reinforces and emphasises the point of the sentence, for example: “I shot him dead because—because he was my foe, just so: my foe of course he was…”.

Men in Green
1. Men in Green was written in 1944 and discusses World War II in Papua New Guinea.

2. The aspect of war that Men in Green focuses on is the soldiers’ distorted perception of war and how quickly it can go from the soldiers being quite determined and filled with patriotism, to them having lost all hope and watching their friends dying right in front of them.

3. The emotions conveyed by the poet begin with determination: “…we set our course towards the east…”; fearlessness: “…they did not fear the ape-like cloud…”, and oblivion to the reality of war: “…the green men laughed aloud…”, showing how ignorant they were. These emotions quickly turn into ones of melancholy and sympathy, “...oh, there were some leaned on stick and some on stretchers lay, but few walked on their own two feet in the early green of day…”.

4. The poetic techniques used in the poem are rhyming, personification and zoomorphism and visual imagery. The rhyming is an ABCB scheme which also makes the poem more mnemonic and memorable, for example: “…green…gun…dawn…sun…”. Personification and zoomorphism are used on numerous occasions to give the objects human-like or animal-like qualities to help us relate to them, for example: “…nature had meet them in the night and stalked them in the day…”, “…spitting tommy-guns, “…white paws of cloud…”, “…ape-like cloud…” and “…hissing cannon shells…”. Visual imagery is used to allow the reader to put themselves in the soldiers’ place and to also imagine the scenery, “…the green men laughed aloud… a hundred hissing cannon shells… their eyes were bright, their looks were dull; their skin had turned to clay…”.

5. I believe the poem Men in Green was more effective at conveying the ideas and feelings associated with war than The Man he Killed as it gives a more detailed account of the distorted perception of war and how they later discover war and its horrible realities. The Man He Killed addresses some of the emotions associated with war and is quite simple: “…yes; quaint and curious war is!...” but Men in Green delves deeper into the thoughts and perceptions of the soldiers and almost tells the story of their feelings: “…they did not fear the ape-like cloud…”, “…the green men laughed aloud…”, “...oh, there were some leaned on stick and some on stretchers lay, but few walked on their own two feet in the early green of day…”. The Man He Killed only goes through the feelings of one particular man at war, whereas Men in Green addresses the feelings of all soldiers at war.

Metaphor for Life

Life is like a building: Starting with a sold foundation and adding floors and rooms as time goes by.

I believe this is my metaphor for life because is it about design, renovation and time. Everyone has a starting point in which they know what they are set out to do. Then they add little things to the starting point, making your idea and knowledge expand. Once you have your structure you can improve your structure and re-think your structure. In the end you will not end up with a master piece however you will have a solid structure, knowing that everything will forever need re-designing and renovations but it will come with time.

My Vivid Childhood Memory

While it's not a particularly significant memory which has fundamentally affected my life, it's one of my strongest and earliest! When I was around 4 or 5, we were at the beach and I was very thirsty. I asked for a drink and the only thing my uncle could offer me was some milk - warm, somewhat salty milk out of a carton! It had been sitting in the sun with us for a good half hour and the opening of the carton was lined with sand. Ever since that day, I cannot drink a cup of milk on its own! I can drink it in a milkshake or with cereal, but not out of a cup on its own.

Chapter Questions- 5

1. How has this chapter been written and structured to build the tension and suspense leading up to Tom Leyton's appearance?

Ths chapter has been written to build up the tension and suspense leading up to Tom Leyton's appearance by Joseph thinking constantly about Tom and how his own life could almost 'not go on' until the meeting with Tom was over. With all the gossip and rumors he had heard about Tom, the tension was greater as everyone, in particular Mrs Mossop had implied that Tom was 'evil'. I get the impression that Joseph thinks or wants to prove to Mrs Mossop that Tom Leyton is not 'evil'.

2. What impression does Tom Leyton gain from his first meeting with Tom Leyton? What does he notice about his appearance, his eyes and his voice?

The impressions that Joseph gets from his first meeting with Tom Leyton is that he is quite odd, tall and silent. He will always remember Tom's eyes from the first meeting; they were colourless, did not sparkle with life and were green with flecks of gold. He wore loose, dark clothing and had large hands, solid forearms, a reddish face, sandy hair and a beard. His voice seemed flat, emotionless and vague.

3. Why do you think Joseph offers to return to the Leyton's? Why do you think he seems to be 'drawn towards the shadowy figure of Tom Leyton?

I think Joseph offers to return to the Leyton's partly because he didn't want to disappoint Caroline and partly because he wanted to see if the silkworms would actually hatch. I think Joseph seems to be 'drawn to the shadowy figure of Tom Leyton' because of the face he was so vague, reluctant to see Joseph and is a man of not many words. Joseph wants to discover Tom's past and why he was acting so strangely.

4. Why does Joseph find his sketches of Tom Leyton unsatisfactory? Why is his memory of his art teacher Mr De Groot significant?

Joseph finds his sketches of Tom Leyton so unsatisfactory because when he looked at the images his searched for some answers but found none. He saw his sketches as 'little more than lines on a page- shapes without substance'. His memory of his art teacher Mr De Groot was significant as he had said that 'in order to paint what you see, you must truly see what you paint'. Meaning that the artist who sees the tree will paint the tree but the artist who has sat under the tree, smelt the flowers, listened to the sounds around the tree and crushed the trees leaves, will truly paint the tree.