1. In my words i think that a single story is a certain type of story that talks about the negative aspects of a country making them seem dumb, poor, etc. Like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in the ted talk she talked about how her mother only talked about how fied was poor making her believe that fied’s family was only poor and nothing else and also how Americans  misjudge africans throughout history making us believe that they are uncivilized and always fighting making us pity them. These show that a single story can make stereotypes making us believe that just one story about someone makes us think of the whole country  chimamanda  gave us a good example by talking about a student who told her that he felt bad she has an abusive father which is a stereotype he believed after reading a story about a single person.
2. I grew up reading stories about fictional characters like the three little pigs, Winnie the pooh, mickey mouse, cinderella, snow white etc. To be honest i forgot about most of the plots from some of the stories but in fictional comics like these the author portrays the protagonist or in this case the(princess or the three pigs  ) who always faces a problem and then gets a happy ending i think this does portray a single story like Adichie described because in these stories its always a happy ending making kids optimistic that there will be a prince in shining armor or a fairy to help them but in reality these kids will grow up to realize that its not true and it will not always be a happy ending like in the stories.
3. Yes i believe that modern technologies do contribute to these single stories because these day in our phone, computer and even the news show only the bad side of something for example whenever we look at the news they always show the negative aspects of something to gain more people to watch but i have never seen any positive sides of the story and the same goes with social media and youtube they all show only the negative aspects of countries like Africa etc but never the positive. And just like Adichie said there are talented and smart people everywhere you just need to give them a chance. One day i was scrolling through youtube looking at engineers and people building technologies and came across this one video that really blew my mind there was a kid i’m not sure where he came from because i forgot but he was incredible because even though he came from a country with little resources he still managed to learn by reverse engineering technologies that had been thrown out and he even got a chance to go to MIT and work with all of them they were also blown away by his intelligence at such a young age.
4. These two pieces are overlapping issues because the ted talk talks about a single story and how it can create stereotypes of many people just based on a single story or person while Hassans story talks about how he was mistaken as white and how he was forced to pronounce his own name by his teacher he told us how he took 19 years to pronounce his own name given to him by his mother.
5. BONUS= The story surrounding my name is simple when my mom and dad had me they gave me the name Yeshi Wangchuk because there was once a high priest whose name was also Yeshi Wangchuk they gave me this name while wishing i have a good life and live honestly.

1. I think a single story refers to certain stereotypes about things or people in different countries. People can’t know a person or a thing completely. What people know about a thing or a person is either from what other people say about it, or from a book that has some description of its life or facts, or from the news, none of which can give a complete view of a person or a thing. It is a metaphor for the fact that people cannot know the truth about a person or a thing, and that people are easily influenced by all kinds of information from the internet and have incorrect opinions and ideas about a thing or a country.

2. I grew up reading not many stories, most of them are fairy tales, such as Snow White and Cinderella, most of these stories are about a girl who will have some accidents, life is very hard, or meet some bad guys, such as stepmother and sister, but will be very optimistic, and when in trouble she will meet a person to help her, such as the prince or other characters will appear to protect her. I think this kind of story was kind of guilty of portraying a single-story such as Adichie describes, because each time it describes a girl facing unfair treatment or encountering some accident, there will always be a person there for her, helping her to solve all her problems, giving me the feeling that it also says that one must go through some difficulties or challenges in order to have a good and happy life in the future.  

3. I do think modern technology somehow contributes to these single-stories because a lot of people are now learning about things or people of other nationalities through cell phones, computers, all electronic devices that have the Internet, where people can watch videos or news reports about other countries. However, in the news or a video, it is not possible to fully understand what a person is like or what an event is like, because the news always reports something that attracts attention, such as murder or violence, they do not report on the life of any normal person, and in a video, the producer shows the video may be only a part of it, something attractive and argumentative, instead of a complete video, and that is what contributes to a single story.

4. I think these two pieces are speaking about overlapping issues of identity because Adichie’s speech talks about how people are influenced by what they have learned, seen, and heard when dealing with others and thus have preconceived ideas, while in Hassan’s video, it talks about having a name that is supposed to be white thus giving others preconceived ideas about him and thinking he should be a white man with blue eyes, which shows another kind of single story.

I can relate  myself to Mohamed Hassan’s poem “Unlearning my Name”. I was impressed that there is someone who made a poem about this topic, he is brilliant. My teachers were trying to do their best to make me happy pronouncing my name last 16 years. I heard several versions of it, you name it. I loved my name even more, because it was my identity and I would not change it. I can understand also how difficult is to pronounce new name, and it is obvious when people are exposed to new foreign name, mistakes are inevitable.

Adichie’s ted talk was incredible and interesting. She described how can one single story crate chaos in our perception. She is utterly talented. After listening to her, i started thinking about my childhood, how was my imagination about single stories. I would red fairy tale from different story tellers specially I adored the brothers Grimm. I would like to bring one example from fairy story. I am from republic of Georgia and I was introduced to typical Russian folk tale, I am sure that every child knew and read about it in Russia.  She was character of supernatural female, her name was “ Baba Yaga”. she was an ugly old woman with a long nose, she lived in the forest in small house, which was standing on chicken legs.  When I was little girl, I truly believed that there is somewhere “angry grandmother”, and she will hurt me if I will enter into her house. When I became older my perception changed, luckily my frontal lobe was developing properly. I was not anymore petrified of “Baba Yaga”.

Is it inappropriate to judge a person or nation only after reading or listening single story?  How many times we would imagine something incorrectly because we do not try to get underneath? I was asked many times if in Georgia people had toilet inside. I was not embarrassed but was     surprised because many times they had no clue where Georgia was, but  they were brave enough to ask me that weird question.