[Sca-cooks] Japanese (was: What did they..)

[Barbara Nostrand]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig!

>(Actually, and I really do wonder this, why are more and more people
>choosing to be anything but a European - and yet still want to play in the
>SCA?

People become interested in things for lots of different reason. Interest
can even be sparked by chance encounters. The important thing to understand
is that people are footing the cost of their own research and recreation,
that it really is up to them to decide what they are interested in. As for
the Society. The Society is attractive to many people simly because it does
have a broad focus where you can follow a lot of different interests and
learn from a lot of different people. The Society is not a narrow focus
organization, and will probably never succeed in turning itself into one.

>I could understand Middle Easterners from areas that had heavy European
>influxes and cultural exchanges - but India, China, even [sorry Kiri] Japan,
>while feudal in some definitions, are not within our mandate,

Who handed down this mandate? The reality is that Japanese recreation has
been a part of the Society since AS III. A fellow interested in Japanese
recreation was at the very first East Kingdom event and was later king of
the East. Trying to expunge non-European recreation from the Society is
akin to spitting into the wind or trying to hold back the tide. At various
times, Eurocentrists manage to get themselves onto rules committees and
write "Western" or "European" into the rules, but this sort of rule making
often has very little effect. At most, it increases acrimony in the Soceity.

>  yet they're
>becoming more and more popular as persona choices. Are we so used to being
>"not normal" in our daily lives that being "one of the crowd" on the
>weekends is no longer acceptable? Do we know so much about European cultures
>that we've got a bunch of bored folk wanting more intellectual excitement?

Actually, there are pocket cultures in Europe which get very little attention.
Even centre stage Germanic culture plays second stage in the Society to such
backwaters as the British Isles.

>And what does that spell for the future? At Pennsic, it's become especially
>noticeable that the Europeans are becoming outnumbered by the
>non-Europeans - and well, that's what I joined the SCA for - to recreate
>"European cultures from the fall of the Roman Empire through the 16th
>century".)

So go forth and do what you do conspicously well. Inspire others and gain
followers in your own vision of what people ought to be doing. If you are
into persona, you should realize that someone from another century can be
far stranger than an Asian from your own century. For that matter, we do
know of individuals who went all over the place. Probably the best traveled
was Ibn Batuta who started out in Moroco and went just about every place
immaginable including West Africa, East Africa, North of Turkey, India, and
Beijing. Going the other direction, Raban Sauma started out in Beijing and
traveled first to Baghdad where his travel companion was proclaimed the
patriarch of a Monophysite Christian sect. After leaving his friend, he
traveled to Italy and France where he lectured on Christian theology.

Is the Society Europe? No it can not be. At no time or place in Europe did
you have nineth century Scandinavians consorting with Elizabethans. However,
you did have Indian Buddhists and Scandinavians consorting with each other
in the Imperial court in Constantinople. The Polo's specifically complain
about the Buddhists as I recall.

Basically, twentieth century and now twentyfirst century fantasies of
medieval European homogeneity are just that, fantasies.

I think it is much better to look at the Society as a version of the
Island in the Tempest where rather an odd lot of people from distant
lands happen by chance to live together. (I hope I have recalled the
name of the play correctly.) That said, I think that we should all
strive to increase our knowledge of the past and the fidelity of our
recreation.

Why do you notice these non-Asians? I think that there still lots and
lots of Eureans. The Society is crawling with "Celts" just to name one
popular European group. There are also lots of Vikings. What happens
is the following. Someone shows up for their first event and they
get stuffed into loaner clothing and told to make a T-tunic for themself.
As they develop interests in premodern history, they pick out some
specific area or other. Some fraction of these people decide to be
interested in the Turks, the Armenians, the Mongols, the North Africans,
the Japanese, even Meso-American Indians. However, a lot of them settle
down to being Russians, French, Scots or whatever. But, what you may
perceive is all these people who were once wearing generic T-tunics
taking up wearing Japanese, North African, or some other clothing while
you more or less ignore the other people who joined at the same time
who have taken up Burgundian costume. What each of these people is
really doing is finding things which personally interest them and where
they can contribute to the Society.

There are also groups which simply exploit our large events who show
up only for Pennsic or only for Gulf Wars, &c. These people are not
functionally part of the Society. If you wish to address these people,
then you need to find ways to limit attendance at large events without
alienating peole in the Society. One extreme example was the time that
I was camped next to a pair of Grateful Dead fans at Pennsic who were
brought by a friend of theirs who was a squire. He mostly ignored them
and they sat around their camp site listing to music on a boom box. They
were very nice people, but they were at the wrong event.

Another factor at hand is fads in the Society. A lot of folks want to
be "different," but not that different. So if the An Tir royalty opress
Asians for a while, a few years later you may see a surge in Asians as
people come out of the closet and suddenly being Asian becomes "kewel."
Also. Face it. An Tir is on the Pacific Ocean and has rather a lot of
Asians in the general population. West Coast culture shows definite
influences from East Asia. This will find its way into the Society.
The Society is often strongly influenced by local culture. How many
thinly disguised church social potluck suppers have been disguised
as SCA events in recent years?

					Your Humble Servant
					Solveig Throndardottir
					Amateur Scholar




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| Barbara Nostrand, Ph.D.         | Solveig Throndardottir, CoM, CoS  |
| deMoivre Institute              | Carolingia Statis Mentis Est      |
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