I was thinking about the obligatory Finn we always seemed to have playing for the Jayhawks at the University of Kansas. And I left out the part about sticking it in the eye of the Russians during the Winter War (no offense meant to anyone of Russian heritage on this site). Sorry to hear about the expanding waistlines. Hope that's not due to an influx of American fast food joints.
There are some odd underlying premises in your post. 'How others see us' doesn't equate to 'racial/cultural stereotypes' to my knowledge. Sometimes it's a refreshingly objective view. I don't see "with no understanding" in the OP, either. Rather, @FrozenLady sounds like a Canadian. Canada, being concerned with having its culture merged and therefore lost to the overwhelming American culture to the south, has an ongoing government and social campaign to promote Canadian. (That may be where the 'morally correct' comment is coming from now that I reread the OP.)
I'd respond with the biggest Jayhawk you ever saw, but I, unlike some people, am a Civilized Person and I decline to crash the site. Nevertheless, BORDER WAR!!!!
I'd have to drive back to the Midwest. I'm from California and that's where I live now, but I went to grad school and law school at Mizzou.
I think A.Wolf's point was that if you want to write about a culture, you have to research it so it feels real. A good writer can take you, without you even getting out of your chair, to a culture you've never been to before and it's all so real. You feel like you're in another country entirely. A good writer doesn't resort to stereotypes (ie, the posh, tea-drinking, tweed jacket-wearing Englishmen of England) to tell the story. In short, A.Wolf was saying, "It's more than perfectly OK, but you've got to do the research." Yeah, the OP just wanted to know if it was OK to write about a culture different than where she came from, not to have a nation dick-measuring contest.
What does "do the research," actually mean? Let's say I want to write a novel that takes place in Tibet. How exactly do I research that? It seems overwhelmingly difficult to me, having never been there. Even if I could get the history and geography down reasonably well, I still have to figure out their modern day culture, the economy, laws, etc. Let's say, somehow, magically, I get it all from lots and lots of reading, maybe even some interviews. I've still never experienced it. Everything I know is packed away into isolated bits of knowledge. I don't have a cohesive whole, because I've never got to see it for myself. It would be like seeing a picture of a pie, and knowing all the ingredients that goes into making the pie, but never having actually eaten the pie. The human essence of Tibet isn't going to be in my writing. Because I've never been there.
That's actually a legit good question. Glad you asked. How do you capture that human essence of a country you've never been to before, and can't afford to go to? That's probably the biggest reason why some people write about their own culture because it's more familiar to them. But you've got the internet, you've got Google Maps. There should be loads of places you can go to 'capture' the human essence of Tibet.
It's definitely a fine line, and it depends on what kind of story you're trying to tell. Stories are not collections of every detail about a person's life; they are a very small hand-picked group of events. You only need to know these events, and if you're planning on having a story be set in another country you should plan your story around the events that you can find information about. Finding the human essence is about finding the universal humanity in it. When you truly learn about different cultures, you will start to see a ton of fundamental similarities between you and them. If you understand the effects of culture, history, geography, laws, etc. that make humans appear different from other humans, you should be able to find the universal humanity.
Writers can't go back in time, yet well written novels taking place in another time are abundant. One can research just about anything including the culture and lives lived in locations one has not been to. Regardless of what he meant, what he said still contained certain negative underlying premises while nothing in the OP suggested anything like it. Why assume culturally naive bigotry is the norm?
I feel like we're kind of dancing around the areas where writing a culture other than your own is generally considered problematic. I don't think anyone is going to object to a Finn writing about a Swede, or a Kiwi writing about a Canadian. Good intentions and basic knowledge are all that are required for these cases. But when a member of a culturally powerful group writes about a culturally disadvantaged group, there can be issues, especially if the perspective of the writer seems flavoured by membership in the powerful group. We have to look out for stereotypes, sure, but also for cultural appropriation and fetishization. If a white American is going to write about a black American, the white American needs to be extra careful to examine her writing for stereotypes or other harmful elements. If a white person is going to include a First Nations character, extra care should be taken. And, in a case closer to my own writing, if a straight writer is going to have gay characters, we need to be sure we're paying attention to ways our writing could hurt a group that's already disadvantaged. I don't think this means we have to write a "whitewashed" or overly conservative version of the character. But I do think we have to be a little more careful. And, yeah, I do think there's a moral element to this. Not that it's morally wrong to write a character from a group to which you don't belong, but more that it's morally wrong to contribute in any way to stereotypes or the unfair treatment of minority groups. So it would be artistically wrong to write a rich white American who's nothing but the sum of his stereotypes; it would be morally wrong (as well as artistically wrong) to do something similar to a poor black American.
I found this quite interesting article about writing other cultures: http://www.rukhsanakhan.com/articles/voiceappropriation.html Khan is an award-winning children's lit author.
Haha, I didn't know it was that popular among Finns. Also true, unfortunately. I'm impressed you know about the Winter War... Fast food + sedate lifestyles = explanding waistlines. Every fifth Finn has a BMI over 30.
Thanks for the link. I think her general advice is sound, but I'm not sure about some of her details. I'd imagine her book on the Afghan War, for example, was supposed to show children how the war affected people. In that case, she does have a responsibility not to undermine its effects. But if an author wanted to write a story set during the Afghan War from the POV of some family that realistically wouldn't be affected as much by it, the author shouldn't feel that they have a responsibility not to. Their responsibility is with accuracy, not with specific content that has to show a specific POV. Also, the other example of the pubic hair seemed minor (unless this is a significant part of the culture's identity?). An author should strive to understand their characters from a realistic POV, but I'd actually be impressed if an author only got a minor detail or two wrong. Getting some minor things wrong is likely going to happen if you haven't lived the culture for months, and I wouldn't want that to stop authors from attempting to write other cultures.
If one is a member of a disadvantaged culture and is writing about that culture, I agree. If one is a member of a dominant culture and is writing about a disadvantaged culture, I disagree, for the reasons I've already stated.
This isn't a fair comparison. In a historical fiction, usually no one lived during that time period to tell you you got it wrong. Second, and more importantly, past ages have solidified into something else. That is, medieval France exists only as a construct in our modern day mind. Sure, if you live in France, it might be something a little more significant, but the point isn't that you have to worry about someone happening to live in the place and saying you got it wrong, it's about being able to use an environment to the fullest extent. If I live in Kentucky, Kentucky is my weapon. France is not my weapon. I will give you a better Kentucky than I will give you a France. If I want to write about medieval France, the playing field has been leveled, and now its largely a matter of research. Furthermore, like I already said, Medieval France only exists in history books, and that is the Medieval France I am going to write about it. If I absolutely NEED to write about modern day France, instead of Kentucky (I don't actually live there), where I live, I really owe it to the story to just go there.
I think you can do enough research online to suffice. In fact, I did it for a did it for a story I sold set on the Isle of Man. It was narrated in audio form by a native of that island who was surprised to learn I had never been near there. He thought from the story I had, which made me feel good.
