{"id":190,"date":"2016-02-13T10:45:35","date_gmt":"2016-02-13T06:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/?p=190"},"modified":"2016-01-20T13:50:37","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T09:20:37","slug":"culture-learning-without-the-language-barrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/2016\/02\/13\/culture-learning-without-the-language-barrier\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture learning without the language barrier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of\u00a0my constant frustrations is that I have grand aspirations to learn more about Afghan culture, but\u00a0I lack the language to make much progress. It&#8217;s like trying to download a huge file with a poor internet connection\u2014it might get done eventually, but it&#8217;s nonetheless frustrating.<\/p>\n<p>One of the ways that we can get in some culture learning without the language barrier is by reading translated stories. (Properly, the language barrier is still there, it&#8217;s just being dealt with by the translator.) If you&#8217;re a reader, this might be a fun way to pick up on some broader cultural themes. Here are some ideas to get you started.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Op Mercy has\u00a0published stories in English, such as <em>Grandpa&#8217;s Stories<\/em>, <em>Historical Legends of Afghanistan<\/em>, <em>Memoirs of an Afghan Village<\/em>, and <em>Treasures of the East<\/em>. (Of course, you can get these books in Dari as well.)<\/li>\n<li>Amazon has many <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/s\/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_browse-b_2?fst=as%3Aoff&amp;rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3APersian+short+stories%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A618073011&amp;keywords=Persian+short+stories&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1450763842&amp;rnid=618072011\">Persian short story collections in Kindle form<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Encyclopaedea Iranica has an article about moden <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iranicaonline.org\/articles\/english-4-translation-modern\">Persian literature in English translation<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Project Gutenberg has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/search\/?query=Persian\">free translations of classical Persian literature<\/a>\u00a0(see especially <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/10315\">The Persian Literature<\/a><\/em>)<\/li>\n<li>Orhan Pamuk is a Nobel Prize winning Turkish author<\/li>\n<li>Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-American author of popular books about Afghanistan (though this is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/media\/2009\/05\/mojo-interview-khaled-hosseini-kabuls-splendid-son-extended-interview\">not without controversy<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;ve included a variety of suggestions in the list above, including suggestions of Iranian and Turkish authors. None\u00a0should be accepted uncritically as authorities\u00a0on\u00a0Afghan culture. Some non-Afghan pieces\u00a0might give you insights into ideas in the broader Islamic world that are applicable to the situation in Afghanistan.\u00a0(I thought that\u00a0Orhan Pamuk&#8217;s novel <em>Snow<\/em>\u00a0gave me greater insight into Afghan culture than anything that Khaled Hosseini has written, for instance.)<\/p>\n<p>It might be\u00a0profitable to consider questions like these, perhaps in a group discussion.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Which of the characters&#8217; actions would\u00a0seem reasonable or unreasonable, from an Afghan perspective?<\/li>\n<li>What values or ideas does the author take for granted about the culture?<\/li>\n<li>What in the book reminds you of\u00a0Afghan culture?<\/li>\n<li>Who is the intended audience? Are the stories produced for fellow\u00a0countrymen (as would certainly be the case for Iranian literature), or for\u00a0another audience? (as with Khaled Hosseini&#8217;s books, which are transparently written for an American audience)<\/li>\n<li>Does the author have an ax to grind? Does that reflect on a broader issue?<\/li>\n<li>Does the literature reflect\u00a0concerns internal to the culture, or does it deal with people who engage more broadly with world culture?<\/li>\n<li>What segment of Afghan society might reflect the ideas presented in the literature? (urban\/rural, educated\/uneducated,\u00a0Western-\/Islamic-\/Communist-outlook)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Happy reading. Be sure to recommend any good books to a friend!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of\u00a0my constant frustrations is that I have grand aspirations to learn more about Afghan culture, but\u00a0I lack the language to make much progress. It&#8217;s like trying to download a huge file with a poor internet connection\u2014it might get done eventually, but it&#8217;s nonetheless frustrating. One of the ways that we can get in some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}