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jflashandclash · 2 months

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You write a lot of characters from very diverse backgrounds (the Pax kids, Calex, Euna and Joey, etc) but you still manage to include details from their cultures that really show their connection to it. What kind of research do you do to be able to represent them well?

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASK ANON!

*cries with relief that you're asking this instead of asking me why I'm so bad at it*

I am terrified of misrepresenting cultures. Someone I informally use as a sensitivity reader has told me that I overthink this. I screw up. A lot. Cultures can alter drastically depending on the geography and time frame. Sometimes I can't find anything on certain ethnic groups and other times I'm scared of misappropriating something. The last thing I want to do is hurt someone with how I portray something. But, I really want to have a diverse group that can connect with a lot of people, and would rather me told when I make mistakes so i can correct them, then not try.

Short answer: asking millions of questions and doing dumb amounts of research that STILL won't be enough.

Long-winded answer is below.

Where I... cheat? (Can skip to see where I don't)

Euna, Joey

I used to date a woman who is Korean, have two friends who went to teach in Korea, and live beside one of the biggest Korean immigration points in my country. Many a shopkeep has made fun of how bad my accent is when I try a little, "감사합니다," as I offer my payment with my right hand, left hand touching my elbow.

Korean culture is the only culture, so far, where I had someone speak out against how I represented a facet. I debated on altering the scene, and spoke with three cultural informants about this who said it was fine. However, it is something I am altering in the remake of the series that will ONE DAY happen.

Hiro, Yoshida

I have a friend who taught in Japan for a long time and speaks fluent Japanese. He's been an invaluable aid for both of them!

Flynn

I took Mandarin and college and had a VERY patient professor with my millions of questions. Also, I had a Cantonese friend who could give me some information about how it was for his family (different region though!)

Merry, Mercedes, Zaneera (and a little bit of Calex and Lapis)

(You don't know Zaneera yet.) This is several fold. I used to love studying religions when I was younger, so that has helped. I used to tutor and I owe a great debt to the Indian family that took me in and would have proper chai and homemade meals with me. They were not from the same district as Merry. I intentionally picked an underrepresented region for Merry, since most Indians portrayed are from Northern districts. However, I feel like I haven't been able to do proper research there and have been considering picking different districts for her parents, for fear of generalizing and misrepresenting.

My sister-in-law happens to be Pakistani Muslim and most of my brothers friends are from Pakistan or India (or... randomly proud country rednecks. His parties are, um, disjointed at times.) I absolutely adore her Amma and she's very patient answering my sheepish questions about her religion and culture. My sister-in-law also used to do a lot of work in West Africa and in Egypt.

One of my friends went to Granada, Spain, and provided information on Mercedes' hometown.

Where I flail and pray I don't screw up: The Real Research

Calex

I hit the books and newspapers and blogs a lot for Calex. He's one of the hardest ones to balance out all the facets that are nothing like my life experience. And. I got him wrong version one. Very. very. very. wrong. Embarrassingly. No one called me out, but I'll call myself out right here:

The original ethnic group he's part of was the Yoruba people. THAT ETHNIC GROUP IS MOSTLY IN NIGERIA, BENIN, AND TOGO. NOT LIBERIA. THERE ARE TWO WHOLE COUNTRIES WEDGED BETWEEN LIBERIA BEFORE YOU HIT ONE OF THOSE COUNTRIES. (In my corner of ignorant shame)

I didn't want this to happen again.

For the remake, Calex's ethnic group is now the Kpelle. I have.... loads of books on the Kpelle now. But, unfortunately, most of the research I found is decades old, and written by people who aren't always friendly to Liberia as a country. (Either Europeans or African countries that historically don't get along with their far neighbors.) So, um, I subscribe to a Liberian news blog. For Calex, I needed to research, trying to be aware of bias and bigotry...

Kpelle society

Liberian society, economy, etc

the Second Liberian Civil War

Sierre Leone's Civil War (they're neighbors)

The Ebola Out Break of 2014

Racism in Britain

Football clubs in Britain

British culture and slang (according to 2014. Gods it has changed so much already)

Mixed race and religion families in Britain

Racial theory on exoticizing and fetishization of black individuals

This involved preliminary research with, honestly, kids books to get a broad, sweeping scope of things, then digging deeper with adult books, then digging into academic articles for specific information. I'm still struggling with information about Kpelle religion. In the remake, I like to read authors who are West African that eventually settled in Britain before I write Calex's point of view. Liberian Journalists are also great for this (thank you Helene Cooper!) There's SO much more information out there today, and I'm excited to hop back into researching once I'm done with TFMO!

Ajax Pax and Axel Pax

These boys.

These gd boys.

Okay, so I went to Belize. I was really lucky and fortunate that I was in a situation where I could go. And I know I still don't have everything right. I lucked into our tour guide being Maya. No one had ever asked him questions about the modern day culture, and he was so kind with all the questions that I had. I was... gods, that person on the bus. Super obnoxious. Hand going back up as soon as he had time to breathe.

Maya people are treated as second or third class citizens in Belize. Their culture was being eradicated by some of the prostheliziation happening in the area. (Okay, hear me out: modern day Catholics often don't mind melding with other religions. Check out Vodou Catholicism as a great example of this. Not all, but most Protestant religions will often stomp out localized religions when they come in. Around the time that Axel and Pax leave Belize, Protestantism is stepping in and knocking out things like the Deer Dance. Fortunately, Maya cultural groups are fighting back against this and preserving it.) Their beautiful ancient dig sites are also often plowed over and dug up to make new, fancy tourism spots for rich, predominatelywhite travelers. This is actually where some of Santiago and Frasco's character development comes in.

The only original documents I could find on Mopan Maya were in Spanish. So, uh, I started trying to learn Spanish to learn Mopan Maya. So, with the boys, I looked into....

Belizean Creole

Mopan Maya society and culture

Ancient Maya history and rituals

culture and history of Belize, how their tourism industry affects that culture

Spanish

Latin American and Caribbean drug trade (Santiago)

Racism against Indigenous populations, both in Belize and here.

Catholic school systems in Belize

Circus/performance culture, busking, and homelessness.

I also tried to consider how people interact with their culture when they've been separated from it. Being from Belize means a lot to the Pax boys' identities. However, Pax tends to lean more towards identifying as a California kid and a Camp Othrys rebel. Axel, on the other hand, feels very nostalgic for Belize and is reminded of his connection to Maya mythology every time he looks in a mirror or checks his nails. Claws. Nail-claws. Because Pax was younger when he was removed from his home culture, there is a real chance he'll start to lose the ability to speak Mopan Maya if Axel doesn't drill it into him. I have a lot of friends who can understand their home language, but lose the ability to speak it if they don't practice enough. Pax could already be falling into this.

Axel

Okay so look.

You hear, like, two things about Axel's mother. And she should be WAY BIGGER and WAY MORE OF A BADASS.

...... I couldn't find any research on her ethnic group. *hangs head in shame* I've been considering altering her culture of origin to be from somewhere that I can have more research and give her a fuller character design. I've had a wonderful person who is very patient with my book-babbling suggest Maori, since they're very open about sharing their culture.

For all of this Research

I started my research in 2014, TEN YEARS AGO, and did the majority of it about 7-6 years ago. There are SO MANY MORE RESOURCES NOW! *DROOLS* and BLOGS and YOUTUBE CHANNELS! I'm all about verifying resources, but I'm so excited by how much research is out there and how much ethnic groups are getting to share their own cultures and instead of being talked about by those outside of it. My original degree was in cultural anthropology, so this is a passion of mine. Once I'm done with TFMO, I'm really excited to dive back into the newer resources--maybe getting to alter and fix up somethings for the next version of the series!

.... I hope this long-winded rant helped >>''''' Thank you for reading all of it if you made it this far!

#asks #THANK YOU ANON #I'm still learning how to do this properly myself ^.^'''''

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omgsatisshroffme · 5 years

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Book Review: Satis Shroff Book Review-Kathmandu Blues: The Inheritance of Loss and Intercultural Incompetence by Satis Shroff 'My characters are purely fictional,' says Kiran Desai. In her book (The Inheritance of Loss) she has tried to do exactly that, namely to capture her own knowledge about what it means to travel between East and West, and to examine the lives of migrants who are forced to hypocrisy, angst of being nabbed, and have biographies that have gaps, and whose lives are constructed with lies, where trust and faith in someone is impossible, as in the case of Sai and Gyan. Migration is a sword with sharp blades on both sides. The feeling of loss when one leaves one's matribhumi is just as intensive and dreadful as having to leave a foreign home, due to deportation, when one doesn't have the green-card or Aufenthaltserlaubnis. Everyone copes with such situations differently. Some don't have coping solutions and it becomes a traumatic experience for the rest of one's life. Some pull up their socks, keep a stiff upper-lip and begin elsewhere. The problem of illegal migration hasn't been solved in the USA, Britain, France, Germany and other European countries. It is an open secret that the illegal migrants are used as cheap laborers according to the hire-and-fire principle, for these people belong to the underclass. In the USA it's chic to have Hispanics as baby-sitters, just as Eastern Bloc women are used by German families to do the household chores. Nepalis work under miserable conditions in India as darwans, chowkidars, cheap security personnel and the Indians have the same arrogance as the British colonialists. The judge, Lola and Noni are stereotypes, but such people do exist. It's not all fantasy. I'm sure the Gurkhas looking after photo-model Claudia Schiffer and singer Seal's house and guarding the palace of the Sultan of Brunei are well paid and contented, in comparison to other people in Nepal and the Indian sub-continent. What does a person feel and think when he or she goes from a rich western country to the East? And what happens when a poor Indian comes to the USA (land of plenty) or Germany (Schlaraffenland)? Is there always a feeling of loss? I've been living thirty years in Germany and I have met and seen and worked with migrants with biographies from Irak, Iran, Turkey, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Kosovo, Albania, Croatia and East Bloc countries. The worst part of it is that the Germans ignored the fact that it had already become, what they call 'ein Einwanderungsland.' They thought they'd invited only guest workers after World War II, with limited stay-permits, not realizing that they'd encouraged human beings with families and emotional ties, hopes and desires of a better future in the new Heimat with for their children and their grand-children. Kiran Desai flashes back and forth, between Kalimpong and New York, and she uses typical clich's and Indian stereotypes that have also been promoted by Bollywood. She's just as cynical and hilarious with her descriptions of fellow Indians in the diaspora, as she is when she describes the Gorkhalis in Darjeeling. Her portrait of the Nepalis in Darjeeling is rather biased, but what can one expect from a thirty-six year old Indian woman who has been pampered in India, England and the USA? Her knowledge of Kalimpong and Darjeeling sounds theoretical and her characters don't speak Nepali. She lets them speak Hindi, because she herself didn't bother to learn Nepali during her stay in Kalimpong. The depiction of a Gorkhali world might be true, as far as poverty is concerned, but she has no idea of the rich Nepali literature (Indra Bahadur Rai, Shiva Kumar Rai, Banira Giri to name a few), and folks music in the diaspora. Gyan's role was overdone, especially when Sai demands that he should feel ashamed of his and his family's poverty and so-called low descent. What is Gyan? Is he a Chettri, Bahun, Rai Tamang, or even a Newar? Describing a country, landscape is one thing, but creeping into the skins of the characters is another. The Gorkha characters remain shallow, like caricatures in Bollywood films, and she overdoes it with the dialogue between Sai and Gyan. For someone like me, who also went to school in Darjeeling, Kiran Desai's book was a pleasant journey into the past, where I still have fond memories of the Darjeeling Nepalis, their struggle for recognition and dignity among the peoples of the vast Indian subcontinent. I'm glad that peace prevails in the Darjeeling district, although I wish Subash Ghising had negotiated more funds from the central Indian government, and a university in Darjeeling. Gangtok (Sikkim) also does not have a university. The recognition of Nepali was a positive factor, but a university each for Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong would have given more Nepalis (pardon, Gorkhalis) the opportunity for higher education and better jobs, if not in the country, then abroad. To eat dal-bhat-tarkari at home and acquire MAs and PhDs within one's familiar confines would have immensely helped the Gorkhali men and women, even more than the recognition of Nepali. We can regard it as a small step towards progress. The description of Gyan's visit to Kathmandu was extremely superficial. Kathmandu is a world, a cosmos in itself, with its exquisite temples and pagodas and stupas and the culturally rich Newaris families from Lalitpur, Bhadgaon and Kathmandu. Kiran is, and remains, a supercilious brown-memsahib, like the made-over English characters of Varindra Tarzie Vittachi's fiercely satirical book 'The Brown Sahibs' in her attitude towards Gorkhalis and the downtrodden of her own country. I can imagine that the Nepali author D.B. Gurung is piqued about Desai's portrayal of the Nepalis in Kalimpong as 'crook, dupe, cheat and lesser humans' and his own emotional rejoinder regarding the Bengalis as 'the hungry jackals from the plains of Calcutta.' Since D.B. Gurung is known for his poetic vein, perhaps he can treat the long standing problems between Indians and Nepalis, or as Desai puts it, Bengis and Neps, in his lyrical verses. But please, less of the vitriol and more of tolerance, because even a poet and novelist can make or break human relations. I, for my part, am for living together, despite our differences, for variety is the spice of life in these days of globalization. Vive la difference. The story is served like a MacDonald's Big Mac for the modern reader, who has not much time, and there are multi-media distractions craving for his or her attention. As small morsels of information, like in a sit-com. I found the story-pace well timed and interesting, and she has a broad palette of problems that migrants face when they leave their homes, and when they return home. You can feel with Bijhu when he embraces his Papa in the end. A foreign-returned son, stripped of all his belongings. It was a terrific metaphor. I'm glad that there are women like Kiran Desai and Monica Ali (Brick Lane) who've traveled and experienced what it is like to be in the diaspora and try to capture the emotional and historical patterns in their lives as migrants. When you read the last page of the Desai's book you feel a bit dissatisfied because you wish that the unequal love affair between Gyan and Sai will go on and take a positive turn. There are so many Nepali-Indian couples who live happy conjugal lives with their families. I know at least three cases of Nepali women who're married to Bengalis. The Nepali women speak perfect Bengali, but their husbands don't speak Nepali, even though they live in Gorkhaland. They are proud that they can speak English instead. Nepali (Gorkhali or Khas Kura) is such a colorful and melodious language and we ought to listen to Sir Ralph Turner's when he says: 'Do not let your lovely language become the pale reflexion of a sanskritised Hindi.' Dinesh Kafle calls Desai 'schizophrenic.' Well, when you talk with an Indian he always praises the achievements of India in terms of the second Silicon Valley (Bangalore), the Agni and Prithvi missiles, the increasing nuclear arsenal, the expanding armed forces etcetera. But, Gott sei dank, there are Indians, who like Gandhi, are humble, religious, practice humility, are poor, deprived, castless, untouchables and, nevertheless, human and full of empathy, clean in their souls and hearts, and regard this world as merely a maya, an illusion, an earthly spectacle to be seen and felt---without being attached. D. B. Gurung is wrong when he assumes that Desai seems 'unable to acclimatize herself to either the western milieu or her own home.' But where is her home? She's a rootless, creative jet-set gypsy, who calls India, England and USA her home. The gypsies (Sintis and Romas) were originally from India (Rajasthan), weren't they? Even V.S.Naipaul (Half a Life, The Mimic Men), J. M. Croatzee (Youth), Isabel Allende (The Stories of Eva Luna) and Prafulla Mohanti (Through Brown Eyes) haven't gone so far in their description of a race or nation the way Desai has in her book. What is missing in her writing is the intercultural competence. Instead of taking the trouble to learn Nepali and acquiring background knowledge about the tradition, religion, norms and values, culture and living style of the Gorkhalis in Darjeeling and the Nepalese in Nepal, and comparing it with her own Indian culture, and trying to seek what is common between the two cultures and moving towards peace, tolerance, reconciliation---she just remains adamant , like her protagonist Sai. She does not make an ethnic reflection, but goes on and on, with a jaundiced view, till the bitter end. The dialogue between Neps and Bengis, between Neps and other Indians (Beharis and Marwaris and others from the plains) or between the British and Indians cannot be described as successful intercultural dialogues. The dialogues are carried out the way it should not, because there's always a fear that one is different in terms of social and ethnic status, even between her two main protagonists: Sai and Gyan. There is no attempt to reveal the facts behind an alien in a new cultural environment, no accepting of the problems of identity and no engagement for equality and against discrimination. If you're looking for frustrations-tolerance, empathy and solidarity with the Gorkhalis in the book, it's just not there. The characters necessary for intercultural interaction are joy in interaction with foreign cultures (not arrogance and egoism), consciousness of one's own culture, stress tolerance, tolerance of ambiguity, and bucketfuls of empathy. Had she shown empathy towards the Nepalis from Darjeeling and Kalimpong and made a happy-end love story between Gyan and Sai, the Nepalese would have greeted her with khadas and marigold malas. The way it is, she has only stirred a hornet's nest. Kiran just doesn't have empathy for Neps, despite the Booker Prize. Great women are judged by the way they treat the underprivileged and downtrodden. Perhaps it's time for meditation and self-searching in Rishikesh, like the Beatles. Pic of Kanchenzonga, courtesy: pixaby

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