Looked at the cover on Smashwords. Quietly closed the tab.
I did the same thing! Except replace quietly closing the tab with sending my hubby a link to the page with AW HELL NO in the subject line.
Looked at the cover on Smashwords. Quietly closed the tab.
LOL. That looks pretty bad. But honestly, don't waste your time. Even the "review" is transparently by the author.She's not a friend, she's a member of another writing board where I mostly lurk but sometimes post. She is white, and she self-published this book.
LOL. That looks pretty bad. But honestly, don't waste your time. Even the "review" is transparently by the author.
The jealous rejected suitor causes his victorious rival to be abducted, dipped in a staining solution and sold South into slavery.
Filled with beautifully drawn characters and well-researched, plausible situations...
. But a Hindu deity manifesting as a white person? That by itself is not problematic. Hindu deities have already done that, because (according to monotheistic Hinduism,) all deities are just different manifestations of Vishnu. I have a Hindu friend who is a Christian because he believes in Jesus: Jesus is a manifestation of Vishnu (this is his own statement of belief). Likewise, all gods of all religions.
Not necessarily--definitely we are all African. But the point of dissemination can be argued to be around the South West Asia point as well. Which means the Aryan push doesn't necessarily come from Europe. (As I understand it.)Not to mention that Hindus are Caucasian, so they might not have a problem with this at all.
I'd be against this too, though I'm giving slack for how it's handled in either case. Especially since Tibet comes into question with fighting over Buddhism... plus there is less history of Chinese trying to systematically take over and "discover" Indian history and overwrite it with such things as wars and slanted histories/long movies about their own superiority through demeaning all of India as a homogeneous culture.Would it have been a problem if the deity had shown up in a Chinese body? There's a long history there, too, and probably violent future.
Eh. One of my pet peeves is white people getting offended and lecturing other white people on behalf of POCs, over stuff the POCs in question don't even care about.
So, to the OP, if you have a problem with something, or you think a subject needs to be handled with delicacy and tact, by all means, mention it to your friend. But a Hindu deity manifesting as a white person? That by itself is not problematic. Hindu deities have already done that, because (according to monotheistic Hinduism,) all deities are just different manifestations of Vishnu. I have a Hindu friend who is a Christian because he believes in Jesus: Jesus is a manifestation of Vishnu (this is his own statement of belief). Likewise, all gods of all religions.
Not to mention that Hindus are Caucasian, so they might not have a problem with this at all. I'd worry more about the colonial history of England having conquered large parts of India than about an Indo-European deity appearing as another sort of Indo-European.
It would be very silly to cast a blonde-haired person as an Indian in a movie. But that's not what we're discussing. We're discussing an Indian deity--which are depicted as having all sorts of skin tones, from actual white to blue to red to green to actual black. Not to mention Ganesha with his elephant head and Hanuman, who looks rather like a monkey.That's the same logic that's used to justify a lot of whitewashing. People from this area might possibly be lighter, so they might look like a darker Southern European. As Southern Europeans are European, any European will do. Therefore, we'll use a Northern European with pale skin, blue eyes and blond hair.
It's a way of trying to make it sound logical that the world is turned blond. All the while, it ignores that if you place the Northern European next to the person from the original area, they don't look anything alike, and no one's going to mistake them as being from the same community. This isn't something that white people decided to complain about and no one non-white cares about. It's frequently discussed, and even if you don't personally believe it's a problem, it doesn't mean others don't see it as a problem (or that they must be white if they don't like it).
To be fair, there are a lot of different beliefs which fall under 'Hinduism'. So it is very easy to oversimplify, and I do not make any claim to be an expert. But inasmuch as Brahman is (in some traditions) the entire universe, all gods, or at least all stories about gods, are part of Brahman.Just a heads up note... From what I understand from my Hinduism class, there is a sect (or sub sect depending on how you class Hinduism, since there are two major branches) that believes that *certain* gods are the incarnation of Vishnu. (Incarnation is not reincarnation).
Vishnu, in turn is part of the Trimurti. (In general Hinduism mythos). Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. ...
That given, still making the person born white is dicey business mostly because of the overall history of how it was done and used by white people. (See the fail in Katana, though that was just plain funny as a huge fail.)
Or white people who are like, "I don't believe in race, so I'm not going to teach my kids words like 'black' or 'Asian'. We're all just people."
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Oh, this is definitely A Thing.Whoa I've never heard that one lol. I have heard other white people say things like "We don't see color." Even though I'm white I think that's ridiculous, because to me it's implying that other colors are bad or wrong, so we just need to pretend they don't exist!
Which is the point-- the whole problem with racism is the reductive quality of it. The failure to see the diversity within the diversity and acknowledge it. Acknowledging it in simple words such as, "In this particular sect that my friend believes, they believe X" is better than saying, "Well all of Hinduism is like this." I picked on the factual inaccuracies because I dislike reductive statements, especially when it comes to things we don't know... Even a simple, "I don't know it all," or a "I'm not sure." would help.To be fair, there are a lot of different beliefs which fall under 'Hinduism'. So it is very easy to oversimplify, and I do not make any claim to be an expert. But inasmuch as Brahman is (in some traditions) the entire universe, all gods, or at least all stories about gods, are part of Brahman.
(And yes, I know that the historical Jesus was a Semite, [assuming he was real], though there are religious traditions which claim otherwise.)
On Absolute Write in this section there is a thread on a book called "Katana" which goes over some really bad blunders with a Japanese girl being reincarnated into a white girl. (With a really horrible cover since it makes me nervous) and the contents of the book have a "Japanese" guy named "Kim" (Which if you know any Japanese, you will know the huge issues with that.)
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But I can't find anything about Kim and the Japanese meaning, I only know the Korean and English meanings.
Oh, that makes sense! (I must have read that wrong, because I didn't think Kim was a Japanese name, so thought perhaps she meant a translation thing.)
I think Rachel means that Kim, while common in China and Korea, is not a native Japanese name, rather than referring to translation issues. It's a symptom of the idea that every thing "Asian" is interchangeable, be it names, culture, clothes, or the (very odd to me) belief that all of Asian = Buddhist.
And as for preferring your nickname to Kim due to pronunciation, it's because the sounds to make "Kim" exactly as it's pronounced don't exist in Japanese. The closest you can come sounds like "Kii-mu."
Assuming Kim = 金, then the Chinese (Mandarin) pronunciation would be Jin. I don't think "Kim" is a word in Mandarin pinyin. Other dialects...
Roughly speaking, Japanese "syllables" always end in vowels, with two exceptions--the nasal "n" and the... however you describe the first half of what's romanized as a double consonant. Of those, only the "n" can appear at the end of a word. The phonetic scripts reflect this, with glyphs corresponding to full morae rather than individual sounds.
In other words, not only is kuwisdelu correct about the phonetics here, the same applies to the written language. There is literally no way to even write "Kim" in Japanese that is exact and unambiguous (though in practice it's pretty obvious what キイム is trying to be). This fact is painfully obvious to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Japanese language.
I thought Kim was Cantonese, but the bounds of my knowledge on that one are a girl I knew in high school over ten years ago, so not exactly proficient. I defer to those who actually speak the language.
As for "Kim".... if I squint really hard it might sound like "sword" in Cantonese. Though I've never met anyone with that as a surname... Given name, maybe, though it would be a bit dated.
But my problem with Cantonese to English pronunciations is I don't know if there's an "official" translation guide, like pinyin for Mandarin, so whenever I try to explain it over the internet, it always comes out as "This is what is sounds like to me..." though I could completely wrong.
I think Rachel means that Kim, while common in China and Korea, is not a native Japanese name, rather than referring to translation issues. It's a symptom of the idea that every thing "Asian" is interchangeable, be it names, culture, clothes, or the (very odd to me) belief that all of Asian = Buddhist.
김 (Pronounced keem, short ee, which is not k-short i-m of Kim as in Kimberly) is a Korean surname. It means, as mentioned, gold. 金
In Japanese the word "Kim" is impossible because it becomes Kimu, キム (キイム) In Japanese the character for gold is pronounced "Kin" and is in no shape or form a native Japanese name. (There are Koreans who are living in Japan from the occupation, but that doesn't really count.)
Technically neither language has a short i sound like in English. (Lee, of Korean is really ee 이, so Koreans are trying to make you feel better when you mispronounce it. ^.~)
The problem with the book mentioned is that the guy is *assumed* to be 100% Japanese with a given name of "Kim" (as in not a surname). Not only is it impossible in Japanese because of the syllabary system, but that's no given name.
Linguistic nerdiness aside, mixing cultures when you don't know your stuff is usually bad. East Asia is a subsection of defined territory, not a country. Even if it were, it would still have sub populations. And with several languages and countries vastly divided by climate, geography, history and language, it's really worth it to get at least a basic overview before mixing it up and pulling from the culture before making a new one (though I, personally, prefer deeper digging.)-->loosely referring to the other disaster of a book discussed last year, also set in an "asian" setting. Which was basically Meiji Japan with characters saying "Aiyo" occasionally. --;;
I'd also say to not *default* to the only thing that you know about the culture for the main plot.
Durrrhhhh Samurai, Meiji, Geisha, sushi, Red district for Japan.
How about tsukemono (which has a rich history), Poets, contemporary times and times before Meiji... and the shop owners. (Shop owner culture in Japan, I really like.)
I get what you're saying, but I think the real problem with racism is that it harms human beings.Which is the point-- the whole problem with racism is the reductive quality of it.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't exactly see how this is relevant to anything I've said or the book described in the OP, since I did in fact do these things, and we have no idea if it's even relevant to the book or how much research the OP's friend did or didn't do.The failure to see the diversity within the diversity and acknowledge it. Acknowledging it in simple words such as, "In this particular sect that my friend believes, they believe X" is better than saying, "Well all of Hinduism is like this." I picked on the factual inaccuracies because I dislike reductive statements, especially when it comes to things we don't know... Even a simple, "I don't know it all," or a "I'm not sure." would help.
Jesus was divinely conceived (according to mainstream Christian tradition.) The Bible genealogies are only for Joseph, who is not his biological father, and there are many different traditions about Mary, whom I don't think Christians consider a biological parent, either. If Jesus received no DNA from his earthly parents, why should he look like them? Maybe he did, just because it would have been inconvenient not to. Or maybe he looked completely different. (Even if he was just a normal guy, having one ancestor generations back from place FOO does not determine what you look like. Inheritance doesn't work like that.)I'd be familiar with the Bible which says Jesus was from the Levi side of the line, which you can trace back to Moses. So, he'd definitely be darker....
Moral of the story: better to write the culture you know than to attempt one you don't and fail. If the OP's friend knows British culture, then she might as well write a book set in England.On Absolute Write in this section there is a thread on a book called "Katana" ...
I hate to say the same thing two posts in a row, but I don't know what the "it" you're referring to is. (I don't know which book, either--the OP's friend's book or the one in the other thread.)Apparently, in the WEST, it is common. The book, if being published, say in England and in the US will have those issues. ...
Frankly, this is "noble savages" thinking in which Europe is demonized as the great big evil while everyone else is good and moral and above doing terrible things like conquering other countries. Europe is not special in this regard, and all groups, throughout history, have attempted to conquer their neighbors and adopt the useful or interesting bits of their cultures. It's an enormous jump to go from 'Europeans did (and still do) a lot of cultural appropriating' to 'therefore, a Hindu deity manifesting as an English person is racist'. It might be. It might not be. It depends on the way it's handled in the story. Maybe the deity wanted to convert the English to Hinduism, and saw this as the best way.The history of Europeans in general trying to erase or take claim to culture is pretty universal through history... (And that's not an all statement, that's a tends to statement).