Cultural Research
If you are creating a story from another place, then you will want to be sure of your facts and images. Writing about another culture takes sensitivity and careful research; working with someone from that culture is a great idea, if possible. When you identify certain ages or places you wish to write about, then start a file with relevant cultural or historical details to use, about...
- SETTING: smells, foods and utensils, animals, housing, clothing, shops;
- LANGUAGE: greetings, insults, sound words;
- SOUNDS: music, environmental;
- GESTURES: daily typical ones, forms of greeting, insults;
- SEASONS: festivals, the calendar, rituals, plants, weather;
- STEREOTYPES: offensive gestures, images, and descriptions to avoid.
In my work as a storyteller and writer over the years, I’ve learned several times how important this research is, how difficult it can be, and how help comes in unexpected ways. Let me share just two examples...
The Kr’an Fish
As I turned the proof sheets of one of my first books, Judge Rabbit Helps the Fish, I felt quite pleased until I came to the page where the kr’an fish bumps his way out of the water and begs Judge Rabbit to help. I squinted, then stared some more at the illustration. No, it was not a kr’an fish I saw; it was a crayfish. I called the publisher, she checked with the illustrator who said, “well, they sounded alike so I thought Cathy just made a mistake.” The publisher wondered if we could just let it be. I didn’t think so, but agreed to check with Cambodian friends.
They were insistent. It had to be a kr’an fish. The kr’an fish is a wonderful, well-known fish in Cambodia, one that can actually walk on land. Back to the publisher I went, who then asked me for a picture of a kr’an fish, to correct the drawing.
This proved very difficult. I ran from friend to friend in the Cambodian community and got a number of simple sketches of generic fishes, but not enough for the illustrator to work from. Pressure mounted as the illustrator demanded details that I didn't have. Then my new editor went home to relax one evening and reached for a mystery high on her shelves. Next to it was a garage-sale find she had long forgotten, Tropical Fish of Southeast Asia, complete with a double-page spread on the kr’an fish. So, the ending was a happy one, with the right fish drawn and a lesson well learned: gather as many images and details as possible to help share a culture correctly.
Kasa, Kasa
Once in Japan, I told a favorite Japanese folk tale about the kind old man who gives his hats to stone statues. When I showed the man trying to sell his hats first in the market, I shouted a bit and pushed imaginary hats to the right and left. A group of kind Japanese librarians listened to me. Then, two years later, I stayed in the home of one of these librarians and we became good friends. At the end of my stay, she said softly, “May I suggest one change in that Kasa Jizo story?” Eagerly, I agreed.
“When you had him sell hats, you went like this,” she said, doing a great imitation of my shouts. “That’s wrong. That’s Osaka style. This story comes from North Japan, where it is snowy and the feeling is different. There, the old man would sell more quietly, like this...” And she walked, hands held out, quietly saying, “kasa, kasa.”
“So if you could change that, it would be very nice,” she finished with a smile. And of course, I did.
