should cultural immersion be practiced?

Should "cultural immersion" etc listening to music or eating food from a culture be practised along with the obvious research in order to get a sense of it if you are writing about another culture? How far should it go? I've started listening to Cuban music since writing CL.

edited 17th Aug '12 9:53:09 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

It helps if you have the time/money/faculties to do it properly in a way that isn't watered down or Americanized, but first and second resources, such as books, articles, diaries, or accounts from human beings will generally suffice. Excessive cultural immersion also has chance of causing cultural fetishization, which is probably about as bad if not worse than not caring at all about accuracy.

edited 17th Aug '12 10:06:13 PM by CrystalGlacia

@Crystal Glacia: None of the sources I've found is Americanised or watered-down. I have used "Havana Before Castro" and "Havana Nocturne", which are non-fiction books by foreign writers. By "Cuban music", I mean "old records that have been put online." The only faux-Cuban song I listen to is "I'll See You In C-U-B-A" by Irving Berlin, which is referenced on the first page as being used in English-language tourist ads.

edited 17th Aug '12 10:31:27 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

I was not saying that your sources are watered down/Americanized; I was making a general statement. Note that if a person immerses themselves too much for the sake of 'accuracy', they run the risk of fetishization. It has to be kept in mind because it's such an easy pitfall when one goes to the trouble of researching.

Also, just listening to the music might not be enough. Music, like food and games, is written to make people happy or to serve a specific purpose, such as creating a mood for a ceremony. It reflects culture and way of life. Are you thinking about, or researching what the singers sing about, why they're singing about it, why they chose those instruments, where the beats came from or what they're influenced by?

edited 17th Aug '12 10:38:38 PM by CrystalGlacia

@Crystal Glacia: Yes. I wouldn't write this without a knowledge of that sort of stuff. A lot of it (the stuff I'm listening to) is popular music, aiming to entertain other people, like guajira (country music). I've found albums of Santeria religious music, (influenced by Yoruba religion) and Havana Carneval music.

edited 17th Aug '12 11:38:52 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

BTW, could you define "cultural fetishisation"? Is it just an excessive focus on cultural aspects, or something more? I've never heard of this term in fiction.

I would think it refers to treating one culture as superior to all others, except that white people throw around the term "fetish" to denounce other whites who appreciate non-white peoples and non-Western cultures.

edited 17th Aug '12 11:59:44 PM by nrjxll

@jabrosky: Does it still count if you aren't White, like me? (I'm Asian- Chinese)

edited 18th Aug '12 12:05:59 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

Let me say right now, that this thread is not going to be allowed to derail into accusations and arguments about whether cultural fetishism is restricted to whites. Jabrosky, you could have made your point without the general dig at "white people".

OK?

edited 18th Aug '12 12:08:16 AM by Madrugada

@Madrugada: Sorry. What, in your opinion, is cultural fetishism? I've never heard that in the context of fiction, so I'm curious. (BTW, Batista himself was part-Chinese.)

edited 18th Aug '12 12:23:31 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

BTW, right now I think I've gone momentarily insane, because I'm listening to Desi Arnaz drumming and singing "Babalu" on You Tube. I don't really like I Love Lucy. The song is about an orisa (lesser Yoruba god) known as Babalu Aye, "father of the earth" who is depicted using a crutch and with huge sores on his legs that are licked by dogs. According to The Other Wiki, his actual name is never spoken because Santeros believe that if you speak the name, he will trigger an epidemic, and he brings and heals diseases.

edited 18th Aug '12 2:37:20 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

I've not run into the term itself before, but extrapolating from a common use of "fetish" in the second and fourth definitions here:

fet·ish

n.

1. An object that is believed to have magical or spiritual powers, especially such an object associated with animistic or shamanistic religious practices.
2. An object of unreasonably excessive attention or reverence: He made a fetish of punctuality.
3. Something, such as a material object or a nonsexual part of the body, that arouses sexual desire and may become necessary for sexual gratification.
4. An abnormally obsessive preoccupation or attachment; a fixation.

and the third definition of "fetishism" here:

fetishism   noun

1.belief in or use of fetishes.
2.Psychiatry . the compulsive use of some object, or part of the body, as a stimulus in the course of attaining sexual gratification, as a shoe, a lock of hair, or underclothes.
3.blind devotion: a fetishism of sacrifice to one's children.

I'd say it's an obsession with or devotion to a culture other than one's own; immersing oneself so deeply in a foreign culture that one abandons or tries to abandon one's own culture or significant parts thereof.

edited 18th Aug '12 3:30:23 AM by Madrugada

Thanks. *example* There's nothing wrong with say, wanting to sing "Babalu" after hearing Desi Arnaz do it. (but he sings SO FAST, I can't catch the words.) The problem is when people start saying and acting like "culture x is so much better than MY CULTURE!" and start adopting other customs without any real reason. *end of example*

edited 18th Aug '12 4:52:29 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

The lyrics to "Babalu", in both Spanish and as it is sung in English.

I have no real idea how accurate the English ones are, in meaning. A quick run of the Spanish, line-by line,through an online machine translator,though, suggests that the answer is "not very."

Example:

Ta empezando lo velorio = <something> beginning the vigil

Que le hacemo a Babalu = That him(her,you) hacemo (make,give,ask) to Babalu

Dame diez y siete velas = the Lady of seventeen candles

Pa ponerle en cruz. = <something> to put him on a cross.

and so on. Part of the problem may be that the machine translators are looking for Spanish Spanish, while the song is certainly in Cuban Spanish, and part of it may well be that the Spanish lyrics were first transcribed by someone who may or may not have gotten them right and all the sources for them use that original transcription, perpetuating any errors.

But it also sounds like the Babalu of the song is not intended to be the actual the Yoruba Babalu Aye. Which is another problem that can occur when you are trying to understand a culture by immersing yourself in its popular culture. Babalu Aye in the Cuban mythos may well be very different from the Yoruban one.

edited 18th Aug '12 6:54:11 AM by Madrugada

just a quick correction from a spanish speaker :)

Esta empezando el velorio = <something> beginning the vigil

¿Que le hacemos a Babalu? = That him(her, you) hacemo (make, give, ask) to Babalu

La Damda de las siete velas = the Lady of seventeen candles

Para ponerle una cruz. = <something> to put him on a cross.

edited 18th Aug '12 9:57:58 AM by FallenLegend

Like I said, "Babalu" was written in Cuban Spanish. And Cuban Spanish is, I suspect, about as different from Mexican Spanish as Mexican Spanish is from the Castillian form.

That may make a difference in some of the words; for instance, "hacemo" is not recognized at all as any form of "hace" by any of the online translators I tried. It could be a misspelling based on a mishearing, or it could be a Cuban dialect idiosyncracy. But "ta" as the first word of the first line being a shortening of "esta" makes a lot of sense. So does "para" being shortened to "pa". "Mayenye" is another word that none of the translation software recognizes. There I'm betting on a misspelling/mishearing, but I can't begin to guess what it should be.

edited 18th Aug '12 9:29:31 AM by Madrugada

my bad yeah it must be a regionalism.

Hacemos is similar to english's "We are doing"

And the "s" at the end would be easy to not hear, to someone trying to transcribe the lyrics without being fluent in those dialects that use "hacemos". Thanks for the information. Even with the difference in dialects at work, I'd tend to say that the translation Legend and I combined to produce is more accurate than the official English lyrics, which bear very little similarity, even allowing for the need fiddle with them to make the scansion and rhyme match the music.

Not sure if you were able catch this from the songs, but Cubans do what my Spanish teacher calls "eating the ends of their words." This made watching Cuban movies kind of a nightmare for us if she turned off the subtitles.

For example, when they say "pescado," it sounds more like "pescao," whereas when my mom's Mexican coworkers speak Spanish, I can hear pretty much every syllable quite distinctly.

@Snowy Foxes: The Desi Arnaz version does sound like he's "eating his words". That might explain why I find it so freaking hard to sing (I try to learn songs I like, and I like this one) According to another poster on another forum, "Dame diez y siete velas" means "Give me 17 candles."

edited 18th Aug '12 9:03:46 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

"Mayenye" is another god/goddess in Santeria.

edited 19th Aug '12 4:15:25 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

^^ That translation seems right to me.

Have you studied Spanish before?

@Morwel

Almost!

It actually means "give me ten and seven candles"

Diecisiete = 17

Diez y siete = 10+7

Great job however!

@ Madrugada

You'r welcome

edited 18th Aug '12 8:02:11 PM by FallenLegend

@Snowy Foxes: I can't speak the language, but I can "read" it a bit, and I can sing in it.

edited 18th Aug '12 8:42:08 PM by MorwenEdhelwen