Research Log #1

"The Magic Fish" by Trung Le Nguyen (2020)

Background Information:

This graphic novel's story focuses on a second-generation Vietnamese American boy, Tiến Phong, who helps his mother learn English by reading fairy tales all while he struggles to come out and talk to his mother about his sexuality since the word "gay" does not exist in the Vietnamese language. As first-generation Vietnamese Americans who immigrated due to the Vietnamese War, the mother finds it hard to adjust to American life and continue to preserve her Vietnamese identity all at the same time. 

Possible connections to Worldbuilding:

✦As a Vietnamese-American cartoonist who identifies as gay and non-binary, the author creates this work of art that is aimed towards the marginalized queer community, specifically immigrant families, to tell a story of fictional characters who showcase a struggle of cultural differences between three generations of Vietnamese & Vietnamese-Americans who attempt to build a world where, although there is an obvious language barrier, they can communicate and understand one another.

✦Connects back to the idea of worldbuilding seen in The Decameron, "Framing devices: tales that generate worlds". There are three stories and narratives being told within this story, (the inner story frame would be the fairytales that the characters tell, the second inner frame would be the mother's immigration story, and the outer frame would be the story told by the characters within the main story), essentially, three different narratives are being showcased in this source. 

"Our Dreams at Dusk" by Yuhki Kamatani (March 6, 2015 – May 16, 2018)

Background Information:

This Japanese manga series consists of 4 volumes and focuses on the story of the main character,  Tasuku Kaname. After he is outed by his peers as gay, he is tempted to commit suicide due to the fear of being queer in an unaccepting culture. That is until he stumbles across a mysterious person who invites him into a lounge that contains various people who had similar struggles and were  "just like him" (queer).

Possible Connections to Worldbuilding:

✦How the characters in the story conform to their differences in queer identities by creating a safe space in which they have created, the lounge, is kind of like them building a utopian world, a safe space for the queer community, away from the oppression and worries of their society, even if it's just for a little while.

✦As a Japanese manga artist and illustrator who identifies themselves as asexual and X-gender, they express their creation of this media as a way to write about their own experiences of being queer in an unaccepting society and write about their views and identity in their work as an attempt to understand their current struggles.  So the way the media was built connects to the lecture on A+B stories, in the way that the author speaks of their own experiences as a member of the queer community, and then writes a fictional narrative story built on characters that go through similar experiences as the author in an attempt to suggest that conforming and being comfortable with your identity is sometimes not easy to understand ourselves.