Jun 13 2009
Great read: The Spirit Catches you and you fall down
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
The Spirit that catches you and you fall down by Anne Fadiman is about a Hmong family dealing with cultural, linguistics and medical struggles in America. The book is tremendously thought provoking because of the themes of power, verbal communication, and time ownership clashes. These themes are small in degree but create devastating chaos in human relationships between Western and Hmong society cultures.
The dilemma in the book starts off with the power struggle between the two cultures about the manner of treating Lia Lee’s diagnosis of a horrible case of epilepsy. This power struggle can be traced historically back to the oppression the United States armed forces imposed upon the Hmong people during the war in Laos. This war created difficulty for Hmong people to immigrate and assimilate in America, and the Lee family is a prime example of this hardship. Edward Hall, the writer of Beyond Culture, best sums up the importance of power to people of all cultures with his statement that “ Many people’s sense of worth is directly related to the number of situations in which they are in control,”( Hall, 6). The problem of treating Lia occurs because both the doctors and the Lee Family have very little control over Lia’s condition. The doctors do not know a cure for the severe epilepsy Lia suffers from throughout the story nor do the Lees understand that more than spiritual faith is needed to help their daughter whom they love dearly, no matter her physical and mental challenges.
There are two prime examples in the book of both cultures blatantly worrying about their power and control of their environment and circumstances. One example is how the nurses at the hospital react to Lia space proxemics with them while she is active and then while Lia is in her coma state. They are annoyed by her hyper activity when she is able to run throughout the hospital and scream her lungs out, but when she becomes in a coma state they adore the silence and inactivity of Lia. This displays them as high territorial in space proxemics, an Edward Hall concept, because they felt more ownership of their world by Lia not being very active.The nurses seem to speak admirably that Lia is one of the best patients they have at the hospital. This part of the story highly disgusted me because I would rather see a hyperactive, pain in the ass child running through the hospital than a brick-like object just reclining in a death bed. However, the clash in space occurred because Lia’s family is from a low territorial environment and finds no reason for boundaries in space or ownership, which explains Lia running all around the hospital. The nurses wanted the peace of having an easy job, instead of worrying about the patient’s well-being. It’s disturbing especially when someone you love is lying in the hospital sick and no one knows what to do to improve the condition. I felt that way when my brother Anthony was sick for months; some nurses seemed like they really hoped the best for him, while others did not really care and treated the situation as just a job and not a task to try to save a life. My brother lost his life in the end so when I see the scenes in this book I feel I associate more with the Hmong family. I believe I relate to them more because I wanted faith to be the answer. I wanted faith to be the path of no error and one of a new life and fresh start.
However, anything revolving around power is not considered just or unjust. Power is simply about control. The Hmong family power struggle can be seen when they try, near the end of the book, to let the spirit doctor save Lia after all the doctors and nurses’ actions fail to save her from becoming brain dead. However the importance is not in the devastating result of this power clash, but in how the people involved all ended up in this circumstance? Could it really have been prevented? Could Lia be healthy and active today?
There is a Hmong phrase that says ‘ Hais cuaj txub kaum txub’ which means to speak of many things. It is used at the beginning of oral narratives to remind listeners that “The world is full of things that may not seem to be connected but actually are; that no event occurs in isolation,” (Fadiman, 13). I believe the result of Lia ending up brain dead could have been prevented if certain actions, understandings and words were formulated during the diagnosis and treatment of Lia.Success and failure are based on verbal communication.
Verbal communication can be a gift and a curse, which happens to cause conflict during the diagnosis and treatment of Lia for the two different cultures. The conflict in the book started on the day Lia was born into the world. Founa,Lia’s mom, could not read nor could she recognize Arabic numerals, which are used in American verbal and written communication. Yet, Founa had signed her name to a document certifying that the hospital had permission to release Lia to her.
Yes, Founa was doing a simple task but she didn’t understand the importance of writing her name on the document. What if she signed her name to a document releasing a child that wasn’t her biological child to herself? What if the name on the certificate read the wrong baby’s name? Founa would not know; all she knew at the time was that the hospital made the task of signing the document mandatory. However, there was no real way the hospital staff would know Founa did not know English. Another example of verbal communication conflict is during the treatment of Lia for epilepsy. The Hmong family took “The instruction on pill bottles were interpreted not as orders but as malleable suggestions,” ( Fadiman, 70) this is a major problem because the Hmong people have been known for seeing things they misunderstand as divine things that have no reason to be questioned. This is a scary belief system because it can prevent many of society’s brutal actions from being stopped, such as slavery, segregation and in the case of this Hmong family, sickness of an innocent child. Dr.Dan, a doctor from the hospital best sums up the worry about believing that everything that confuses us belongs to a divine system - “There would be no end of divine things,” (Fadiman, 30). There is a problem believing all things people do not understand as divine because we accept that it is okay to mistreat one another. It is okay to force power on one another. It is okay to ignore those we have a hard time communicating with in our environment. Making everything divine that we do not understand is an excuse to accept our cultural clashes and difficulties. This should not be accepted because it prevents positive progress from occurring in any situation.
Some intercultural scholarship would say the conflict within this situation happened because the Hmong people rely on spirituality too greatly and take too many things in life as inevitable fates. Western civilization would most likely see this as the fault and reason behind why Lia got so sick to the point no one could really save her. However, a person from Hmong society might think the fault would be that the doctors were so mystified about Lia’s case that they desired to know all and fear that by not knowing they would inevitably lose control of the situation. Therefore, the doctors would most likely delude themselves that they know exactly what is going on with Lia and how to fix the problem.
The problem that arises with deluding situations that can be labeled mystifying comes when low and high context societies begin to inter-mingle in decision making. Someone from a low-context society would see deluding a situation as trying to be optimistic about the outcome. It is the belief that we can mold our futures. However,“ In general, high-context cultures-those which call for considerable programming of individuals to each other- have greater mass and are therefore more predictable,if, and only if, one is familiar with the system.”( Hall,53) explains why the Hmong people, on the contrary, believe not knowing means it’s in the hands of the divine what happens in life. Yet western society believed the event happened on the basis that something along the way, that could have prevented an error, was mistakenly overlooked. So, to avoid labeling a right or wrong, “All cultures…follow general ethological principles and have built-in safeguards to prevent disputes from going too far, though such safeguards may not always work. “ (Hall, 159).
The safeguard used in the case of Lia was the law system, which allowed the juvenile court law of the state of California to label Lia’s parents not willing or even able to take care of the needs of Lia. The law allowed the doctors to take away the parental privilege of being the caretaker of Lia through child protective services. Later the Court ordered the Lee family to sign a document that signed off the hospital’s responsibility for treating Lia. The fact that both parties wanted to ignore acknowledging there was a dispute that needed to be addressed formulated the devastating outcome. This reminds me of the historical event of the two Spanish speaking pilots trying to communicate that their plane was running out of fuel and that they needed to land immediately, but the English speaking tower director was not able to understand the urgency based on communication differences. Small differences in perceptions caused devastating results. It is horrifying how small overlooks can cause so much pain for so many people. Since the law overrides all other views people create stereotypes about one another and this always formulates an increase in tension and mistrust. This mistrust and tension happens because laws have the potential to be just or unjust depending on whom the law works in favor or against.
In the case of the Hmong people, the law was only a tool to oppress and harm their daughter. They did not feel they had a choice. When I was reading the book I had sympathy for the Hmong people because I felt they were humble, family-oriented, hard-working people whose flaw was only not understanding the culture of American society and not being able to communicate their wants or needs due to their fear of feeling like an ignorant outsider. However, a rude stereotype about the Hmong people was seen throughout the book as followed:
“Hmong do not like to take orders; that they do not like to lose; that they would rather flee, fight or die than surrender; that they are not intimidated by being outnumbered; that they are rarely persuaded that the customs of other cultures, even those more powerful than their own, are superior; and that they are capable of getting very angry.” (Fadiman, 17).
This stereotype seemed a bit puzzling when I read it because I think all people should not be intimidated by being outnumbered or be persuaded by others if they truly believe in something. I can understand why people would be angry at being bossed around or oppressed. As for not liking orders, not liking to lose, and not wanting to surrender, I see these elements as negative actions no one eagerly wants to do. So, why were they used to describe a group of people? These negative attributes no person should want to be subjected to, yet when it came to describing the Hmong people it appeared as if they were grotesque and should be avoided at all cost.
I believe 100 percent that if I had inserted Americans, in place of Hmong, at the beginning of that quotation, many Americans would be offended and swear that the description was untrue. It is just human nature to not want to be controlled but we still want to control others. Inter-cultural scholarship would label the next problem with this situation with the fact that we want to control each other but we simply can not control each other. A great example of trying to control but not being able to control is the concept of time.
Time is something no living thing can control or get enough of and during the story, time helped to maintain conflict based on the two cultures’ monochromic and polychromic attributes. In the case of time, the Americans were monochromic because they used time schedules, while the Hmong were polychromic because they value interaction more than time and material task. For example,the Americans had strict times for when Lia should take medicines and created a 7am to 8pm schedule for the Lee family to follow. The conflict came about because the Hmong families base their time on a farmer’s schedule that begins whenever. An early example in the book was the appearance of two different birth years on file for Lia. One birth year was October 6, 1942 and the other was October 6, 1926. The Hmong family described Lia’s birth on the farming seasons of planting or harvesting rice. The Americans were puzzled by this because births go on the basis of exact date and time. Time proves that people can get the same conclusion, but the means of getting to that same conclusion are infinite because we all have infinite ways of remembering, translating, and understanding events, environments, and people we interact with throughout our lives.
Dr. Dan and his staff came up with the same conclusion as the Lee Parents that something was wrong with Lia; the only difference was the means of getting to that conclusion. Dr. Dan explained the reason was misfired aberrant brain cells caused electrochemical storms in Lia’s brain, while the Lees explained the reason was soul loss. Nobody is right or wrong. It’s all about perception. Hall mentioned in his book Beyond Culture that we all can see the same image or see the same event, yet each person would have some different perception of what occurred. There will be less or more to the story. This happened in the case of Lia, where the Hmong family saw the American doctors as bossy, inconsiderate yet educated and leaders; the Doctors saw the Hmong family as oblivious, uneducated yet polite and hospitable.
Yes, differences will always exist between cultures but the divisions could be mitigated if both parties accept that, “The answer lies not in restricting human endeavors, but… embracing unusual talents [that]so manifest in the diversity of the human race,” (Hall, 3). If the doctors, for example, accepted that the wedding rituals of dressing up a bride were useful, it would say to the Lees and many other Hmong families that yes their skills and talents are valued. If the Lees and other Hmong acknowledge that medicines can help, in addition to spiritual faith, there will be a sense of respect and value given to the Americans. Respect and making others feel valued can go a long way into strengthening communication amongst different cultures. So, instead of different cultures being the Quang dab peg, or blood sucking, soul stealing Dab to one another the answer to better relations and communication can be found if we listen to eachothers’ needs, concerns, and wants. We need cultural competence.
If each person truly practices cultural competence the world’s communication would improve. I know it is easier said than done but awareness of one’s own culture, awareness of one’s attitude towards different cultures, knowledge of different cultural practices and perspectives, and skills to communicate one’s culture and understand other cultures may help better outcomes to occur in sad situations such as what occurred with Lia.
What I got from the Spirit that catches and you fall down is that we all should try to aim to be like the description Robert Cooper, British anthropologist, who spent two years researching how Hmong people react to being in an environment of resource scarcity, which says the following: “Polite without fawning, proud but not arrogant. Hospitable without being pushy; discreet respecters of personal liberty who demand only that their liberty be respected in return” (Fadiman,18). The reason we should aim to follow this description is because we live in a continuous world of resource scarcity and a world where we all have different skills and different failures. We must accept our talents and flaws to accept that we all need one another, that we all need to communicate together to live in a world we all can gain opportunity within. No one said we all will have the same opportunities. No one said that we would all understand each other the first or second time around. It is our duty to one another to be open to trying to understand one another.
We are “Like one of those visual perception puzzles: if you looked at it one way you saw a vase, if you looked at it another way you saw two faces, and whichever pattern you saw, it was almost impossible, at least at first glance to see the other,” (Fadiman, 237) but we can not let that truth make or break us. We mold the societies we live within; we formulate the world we live within and on this basis, we have the power to let our spirits raise above all odds or fall. This fact makes this book powerful and I recommend more people to read to broaden their views.
