Here's to you ‘a handful of history’, my sharing of real-life stories from around the world. All the narratives I pick are rooted in history one way or another, yet most of them carry themes and happenings that we can easily reflect upon today.
Enjoy :-) - Majken xx
Photographing Brazil’s Yanomami
In 1971 photographer Claudia Andujar began documenting the lives of a remote indigenous tribe in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. She went on to take thousands of unique images of Yanomami men, women and children, showing her interpretation of their complex culture.
Later she began to use her photos in campaigns to recognise the Yanomami's rights over their own land. This part of her career started in the late 1970s when the construction of a highway in the Amazon opened up the region inhabited by the Yanomami to deforestation and agriculture. Several outsiders began entering the area bringing with them diseases that ended up killing entire Yanomami communities.
As this situation reminded Andujar of the genocide in Europe - and her personal experiences - she felt like doing something actively about it. Andujar was born in Switzerland in 1931 and grew up in Transylvania. During WWII, her father, a Hungarian Jew, was deported to a concentration camp where he was killed along with most of Andujar’s paternal relatives. She fled with her mother to Switzerland and then immigrated to the US in 1946. A decade later, she moved to Brazil, where she started her career as a photojournalist.
Listen to Andujar's story here. Photo above by Claudia Andujar, collection of the artist: Collective house near the Catholic mission on the Catrimani River, Roraima, 1976.
Rakugo
I’d never heard about Rakugo before I came across the book “Talking About Rakugo” by Kristine Ohkubo. Rakugo, it explains, is a traditional Japanese art of storytelling. It was developed in the 16-1800s (the Edo period), and some say the purpose of the entertainment was to keep the lords awake at night - in case they would come under attack. Others believe it was invented by Buddhist monks who wanted to make their teachings more interesting. Others again think it simply had the purpose of entertaining the citizens.
What is unique about Rakugo is that only one storyteller is performing, playing all the characters. And opposite the western ‘stand up’ shows, the storyteller in Rakugo sits down, kneeling on a cushion, and remains in this position during the whole show. Usually, the performer is dressed in a kimono and has only two props: a fan and a small towel. It is the job of the ‘rakugoka’ to portray the world of the story with all its characters. At the very end, the punchline - named the ‘ochi’, which means ‘the drop’ - needs to be delivered with such effect that the audience will laugh and clap and cheer.
Today Rakugo is one of the most attended of Japan's traditional performing arts. Even foreigners have taken up the tradition, which is why you here and there in Japan (and elsewhere?) see Rakugo shows in English. I’d love to watch a show myself.
The video above explains the story of Rakugo. C. 5 minutes in there's a Rakugo performance by Katsura Kaishi, the "king of English Rakugo". It's quite funny :-)
Talking to Strangers
Finally, I got to read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Talking to Strangers”. Actually, I listened to the audio version (Audible), which I’m happy I did since it gives that extra dimension only sound can offer: real-life voices from interviews, court transcripts brought to life with re-enactments and more.
Basically, the message in “Talking to Strangers” is that we don’t know who that other person we are speaking with really is. Even if we think we do.
The thing is, though, that we are wired to believe others. Which is good since our society wouldn’t function if it weren’t so, Gladwell explains. Imagine the world if we had to check up on everything and everybody all the time. We wouldn’t get much done then.
Trust is a good thing, right? Well, most of the time, it is.
An interesting point in “Talking to Strangers” is that we are better at judging people we have only heard about and not yet met. Gladwell gives a historical example of Hitler. Those (surprisingly few) politicians and diplomats who met him in person thought very highly of him. And those who’d only heard about him and listened to his speeches were positive that the man was a maniac.
On the opposite side of the Hitler example are those situations in which you don’t trust those you ought to believe. Gladwell tells about a young woman accused of being part of murder but who was actually innocent. The problem was that the investigators reckoned she didn’t act the way a truly innocent person would act. (She did get a sentence but was later released because of lack of actual evidence.)
So perhaps the problem is not to trust or not trust, but more: to acknowledge that we are not very good at reading each other. We are often misread if we don’t behave the way our surroundings expect us to. In more minor everyday situations, it might not matter so much, but it is a problem when it comes to harming cases. The maniac chancellor should have been exposed and neutralised, and the innocent should not have been jailed.
It is, of course, a challenge to read people the right way. Gladwell has a few suggestions as to how and what we can do. We need to stay more open to interpreting each other instead of only relying on automatic responses. As Gladwell points out: life is not an episode of “Friends”. In “Friends”, the actors express their emotions perfectly; in real life, we often don’t.
The most interesting about “Talking to Strangers” is all the examples and insights Gladwell gives on the subject, I think. I was indeed left a lot wiser - and with a lot to think about.
WHAT IS THIS? This is a blog post from me to you. I send it out once every fortnight - if you want to join my email list please go HERE.
In turn, you will receive ‘a handful of history’, which is me sharing real-life stories from around the world, narratives I’ve picked that are rooted in history one way or another.
Every other time, my latest act, ‘from my corner of the world’, will land in your email. These are texts in which I share with you thoughts and views about writing, researching and creating. All the doubts and wonders I come across, all the surprises and discovery of new roads I am lucky to experience when working with my non-fiction texts.
Thanks for reading. I’m happy and grateful to see you here! Majken xx
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