Taj India (Food Culture Blog)

I ate Indian food from Taj India on Saturday (4/24); I had planned to go to the restaurant to eat with friends but everyone canceled because the weather was so bad, so I ended up ordering food from there and going to pick it up and eating it at home. I got a vegetarian dish called Sag Paneer that was made of spinach and cottage cheese, and I think it had onions in it also, and Nann bread. Everything was really good! The dish was not too spicy but had tons of flavor and did not taste like I expected it to at all; the bread was the perfect thing to eat after a bite of the Sag Paneer to cool down your mouth and was also delicious eaten along with the Sag Paneer. I was dissappoined that I was not able to experience having a meal in the restaurant but this being my first time to have Indian food, the different tastes were an adventure in themselves. The food was completely different from American cuisine; the entree was simple in terms of the main ingredients but complex in the many spices it had, as where with many American dishes there may be many different ingredients but the primary spices are salt and pepper. This could come out of traditional Indian culture needing to make a few main ingredients go far and taste good instead of making a dish and needing to have butter, cheese, milk, meat, ect. as it is with many American dishes. I learned that Indian food is spicy and that bread is a major factor in Indian meals. The only preconceived notion I had before having this food was that it was going to be really spicy, which it was; but it was delicious, as expected. I am using an etic view to describe this event.

Lebanese Food Festival (Rituals culture blog)

I went to the Lebanese Food Festival at Saint Elias Maronite Catholic Church today (4/10). It was really cool, even though I ended up going by myself which normally makes me a little nervous. I actually saw a girl that I work with there; she goes to the church and was involved in the festival, she had danced on stage earlier in the day but that was before I got there. It was really neat seeing her there because before today I really knew nothing about her, and now I know that she is half Lebanese and knows how to belly dance!
I also walked through the Heritage Room which had a lot of historical facts about the church and had old things from the church to look at; like the hands from the original church tower clock.

I also walked through the silent auction and was a little disappointed that there was not more for sale that was traditional Lebanese art. After I finished learning about the church and looking around at the items in the auction, I went into the food room. There were so many people and so many things to eat. I ended up just getting a dessert called walnut mamoul, which was amazing; it was made from cream of wheat, sugar, flour, walnuts, and butter.

I did not find this experience that different from my own experience with church gatherings, except for the types of things that were going on. Growing up, my church would have things similar to this festival but we had homemade "comfort food" and there was no dancing, just socializing. So the main difference from my own culture seemed to be the type of food and entertainment. I did learn that the type of dancing they do is belly dancing, but not the provocative dance you think of when you hear that term (their bodies are covered). I also noticed that a lot of the food they served was similar to the food served at the Greek Food Festival.
I did not really have any preconceived notions or stereotypes to be dispelled. I was a participant observer at this event.

Anatomy of Hate (Diversity and Cultural Event)

I attended Anatomy of Hate last Thursday (3/25/10) at the HUC. This was a viewing of the documentary "The Anatomy of Hate" by Mike Ramsdell. In the documentary, people from extremists groups were interviewed about their beliefs. The main groups interviewed in the film were Neo-Nazis, a church group with strong hate toward homosexuals, Palinstian and Isreali people who showed hatred for each other, and US troops in Iraq. The main message I got from the film was that putting a face on the enemy will decrease dehumanization and hate.
There was a dialoque after the showing of the documentary with four panelists; two from Life 180 which is a Christian organization at UAB, and two from Birmingham Freethought Society which is an organization for athiests and agnostics. This discussion was extremely interesting because only one person in the audience was not able to have a civilized conversation with people that had different beliefs than he did; so besides that one incident, everyone was really accepting to different opinions and I think it was a good discussion.
This was different from my own everyday culture because I normally avoid touchy topics like religion with people because I assume the conversation will just get ugly if we disagree. So, I learned that most people are way more accepting to different opinions and beliefs than I had initially thought. This preconceived notion of close-mindedness probably comes from me being from a small town where most people are closed-minded; if you were anything except Southern Baptist, you were just wrong. I was a participant-observer at this event, because I did not engage in the discussion, I just listened and enjoyed. Also, I think the idea of a holistic approach is applicable for describing this event because it was emphasized to view people as who they are as an individual and not just label them because of their religion, sexual orientation, ect.; we were encouraged to learn about the whole person rather than judging them based on one aspect of their life.

Safe Zone

Last week on Tuesday (March 23) and Thursday (March 25) I attended a group discussion for Safe Zone. Safe Zone is an organization at UAB that provides a safe place to talk about issues involving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered community (LGBT). On Tuesday, we introduced ourselves and met our two panelists, Shibli and Amy. Shibli and Amy told us their stories about their experience of coming out to their friends and family, and being part of the LGBT community. Amy is bisexual, has been with her partner for 9 years, and has had a generally pleasant experience with how people treat her. Shibli is gay, is a student at UAB, and has also been fortunate in his experience. After we heard their stories, we were encouraged to ask them any questions we had about their individual experiences. On Thursday, we talked about general LGBT questions we came up with on Tuesday.
I thought this experience was awesome! I loved how open the discussion was and how you really did feel safe stated your opinion, even if it was not the same as the majority of the group. This experience was different from the culture we live in everyday because I feel like a lot of times people will not state how they really feel about something for fear of being criticized. I think a lot of the people in the discussion realized that just because may not be completely comfortable with LGBT individuals, those LGBT individuals appreciated their courage to say that. One thing I was surprised to learn was how prevalent violence against LBGT individuals is, I had no idea that things like that still went on. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant surprise to learn this but I am glad that I am aware of the occurance of crimes against LGBT people.
Oddly enough, the preconceived notions/stereotypes that were dispelled for me did not have to do with LGBT individuals themselves, but rather the type of person I thought would be uncomfortable with them. I expected a lot of the people in our discussion group to be uncomfortable in discussing LGBT issues, but only three people stated that they were torn about how they felt. I was also surprised at how those three people handled their discomfort; they were extremely open-minded, as where I thought we would have some people who would not even want to discuss the issues. So, this was definitely a pleasant surprise and I think it will help me to not automatically assume how an individual feels about an issue based on how they seem.
A lot of the issues we discussed in these two sessions reminded me of cultural relativism. Mainly because we talked about how LGBT people are not any different from us, they just have a different sexual preferance. We also discussed how certain stereotypes people have for LGBT individuals can really be true to any person of any sexual orientation; i.e. A gay man trying to "convert" you (by being too forward/pushy when coming onto another man who is not gay--not taking no for an answer), but I know many straight men and women who do that to members of the opposite sex.
This discussion group was really good. I feel like it was mind-opening for a lot of people and helped people to see that LGBT is just a sexual preference/orientation that does not define the person. I really think the safe feeling of the discussion made people open up a lot more than they normally would and this method should be used more often to discuss other contraversial issues.

Noi (Noi Albinoi)

For this culture blog entry I watched a movie called Noi (Noi Albinoi).



A brief description of the movie: "Noi is a girfted 17-year-old boy from Northern Iceland who dreams of fleeing his dreary small-town surroundings -- even after the arrival of Iris, who's new in town and has brightened up Noi's lackluster existence. Soon, Noi plans a getaway for him and his new friend, as the townsfolk continue to view Noi's lack of conformity ro rural life as simply his being a lazy, dim-witted failure" (Netflix).

How the movie was similar and different from my own culture:

It seemed as though Icelandic culture (in the movie at least) is a lot more simple than American culture. For instance, the main character who was a teenage boy got a view-master for his birthday and it was one of his most favorite things ever. In my culture, I remember having a view-master when I was a little kid, but if I were to get one now it would not be a very big deal. A lot of things from the movie were very different from my own culture; at one point, Noi’s mother wakes him up by shooting a gun out his bedroom window—if you were to do that in my culture, there would definitely be consequences (social and possibly legal) unless you lived in the middle of nowhere.

There were also some similarities in my culture and Icelandic culture from the movie. Noi wanted to run away with his girlfriend to have a better life; he had these big dreams of what the future held for him. This “anything is possible” mindset is the basis of the American Dream, so it is very prevalent in my culture. American teenagers have all of these outrageous expectations for their future and a lot of them also want to get out of the environment they grew up in, in order to experience something different and better.

From watching the movie, I learned that Icelandic culture is similar to that of small town life. Everything was slow-paced and simple; there were a lot of issues similar to those that Americans deal with, just on different levels. An example would be the issue of competitive education: in America, we worry about taking honors classes and doing extracurricular activities to get into the best schools possible, whether it be undergraduate or graduate; in Iceland, there were no honors classes and I never heard Noi or his family mention anything about college but he did get kicked out of his school because of his attendance. It was like going to high school was a privilege and if you did not take it seriously they would not have you.

I didn’t really have any preconceived notions or stereotypes about Icelandic culture. My only other experience with Icelandic culture is listening to music by an Icelandic band called Sigur Ros but I wouldn’t say that I had any preconceived notions based on that.

My anthropological observation for this culture blog entry is based on ethnology because I am comparing the Icelandic culture to my own, but I did not immerse myself in Icelandic culture. I am also comparing the two cultures from an etic perspective.

Cultural Prescription

My name is Ashley Gentry, I am a 21 year old Caucasian female residing in Birmingham, AL. I am a junior at UAB majoring in Psychology and minoring in Sociology. I am currently enrolled in Anthropology 101 in which one of the assignments is to have a culture blog. In this culture blog I will write about places I visit, events I attend, and things I experience that expose me to cultures that are different from my own and that may make me a little uneasy since I will not be in my "comfort zone".
So, before I start describing my cultural experiences for the semester I will talk a little about my personal culture. As I said before I am a Caucasian female, I come from Scottish and English descent but that is not a big part of my life at all. My parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and probably long before that were born in North America; Alabama to be more specific. I have lived in Alabama all of my life, although I have traveled throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada, and the Carribean Islands. I speak English fluently and very limited Spanish. I come from a middle class family. I was raised Protestant, specifically Southern Baptist; however, I am not a very religious person now. I do read a lot about different religious practices and study Buddhism more so than other religions. My sexual orientation in heterosexual. I work in a mental health facility called Hillcrest Behavioral Health and in childcare at the YMCA. My future plans are to attend graduate school to become a therapist.