Naïve Realism At the age of sixteen, my parents planned a trip to Germany. I have been looking forward to this trip for about a year, seeing as I have had a love for traveling ever since I was young. After a long planned trip to Europe to a strong diagnosis of cabin fever, I was ever so glad to step off that plane into a country I have yet to see. Although, being an airport, the sight was marvelous; unlike the many sounds I heard. Like many small children, I saw two young German boys misbehaving around their mother. Nothing serious to infuriate the parent, but she had a look of annoyance on her face. Her carefree voice calmly spoke to the boys, “they’re going to call our flight soon, quit acting like a couple of cunts and take a seat.” I could
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It is problem among most ethnographers, they cannot escape their own views when entering a new culture and sometimes this can lead to culture shock. Lee’s experiences with the !Kung Bushmen is a great example of naïve realism. In “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari” Lee spends time with the !Kung Bushmen, observing their culture and daily routines, where he is studying the hunting and gathering subsistence economy. While doing his observations he saw that Christmas is a part of the !Kung’s culture. Their traditions to Christmas are to hunt and kill the biggest ox they can find and then have a celebration. Lee had the idea that he would participate in the festivities and find the biggest and fattest ox that he can find, to give his thanks to the !Kung for their cooperation in the study. Ten days before the Christmas celebration Lee had found what was the perfect ox he could get, it was big and fat which entailed a lot of …show more content…
The !Kung went around to Lee saying that he had bought a bag of bones. They kept talking about how Lee had ruined Christmas because they would not be able to get extremely full, dance and sing because of the size of the ox. He became disappointed because he had thought that the ox was the best ox anyone could ever get. Lee wanted to fix everything. He went to search for an ox that was bigger to try and save the celebration, but he could not find one. He went on to say to the !Kung that he messed up and that they should still eat the ox and still have a good
It is problem among most ethnographers, they cannot escape their own views when entering a new culture and sometimes this can lead to culture shock. Lee’s experiences with the !Kung Bushmen is a great example of naïve realism. In “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari” Lee spends time with the !Kung Bushmen, observing their culture and daily routines, where he is studying the hunting and gathering subsistence economy. While doing his observations he saw that Christmas is a part of the !Kung’s culture. Their traditions to Christmas are to hunt and kill the biggest ox they can find and then have a celebration. Lee had the idea that he would participate in the festivities and find the biggest and fattest ox that he can find, to give his thanks to the !Kung for their cooperation in the study. Ten days before the Christmas celebration Lee had found what was the perfect ox he could get, it was big and fat which entailed a lot of …show more content…
The !Kung went around to Lee saying that he had bought a bag of bones. They kept talking about how Lee had ruined Christmas because they would not be able to get extremely full, dance and sing because of the size of the ox. He became disappointed because he had thought that the ox was the best ox anyone could ever get. Lee wanted to fix everything. He went to search for an ox that was bigger to try and save the celebration, but he could not find one. He went on to say to the !Kung that he messed up and that they should still eat the ox and still have a good