thing in Hmong culture as Epilepsy is in western medicine. In the Hmong culture‚ QDP is believed to be caused by a bad spirit called a dab. It is believed that dabs are responsible for stealing souls and making its victims sick. Epilepsy is recognized by western medicine as a serious neurological condition. Although Epilepsy and Quag dab peg may have the same physical symptoms‚ the symptoms are interpreted differently by each culture‚ making the condition two different illnesses requiring two different
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The Collision of Two Cultures - Implications of Cultural Values and Beliefs on Caring Concepts Abstract This paper is a personal response to Anne Fadiman’s book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. The paper includes a summary of the book‚ an overall impression of the reader‚ a discussion of three major themes evident in the book‚ and a description of a situation from the book and how the situation could be handled differently using references and material learned in 3020 Transcultural
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Chapter 1 of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down‚ Fadiman demonstrates cultural relativism towards the Hmong culture by including very detailed history‚ facts and procedures found in Hmong culture. When explaining the long process of pregnancy and birth in Hmong culture‚ she does not make and claims for or against these rituals. She does not compare the cultures rituals to another culture. Fadiman simply states facts and explains the steps it takes for a woman to give birth to a child. She even includes
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“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down‚” tells a story about a Hmong child Lia Lee‚ who suffers her first epileptic seizure at three months of age. Her treatment becomes difficult to go through because of her parents‚ Nao Kao and Foua‚ inability to speak English. They cannot speak to the doctors and many problems follow because of it. It started when Lia was three months old when her sister had slammed the front door. Quickly after‚ “Lia’s eyes rolled up‚ her arms jerked over her head‚ and she
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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down tells the story of Lia Lee‚ a Hmong child with epilepsy‚ whose tragic downfall reveals the dangers of a lack of cross-cultural communication in the medical profession. At the age of three months‚ Lia had her first seizure caused by the sound of a door being slammed shut‚ by her older sister Yer. Their parents‚ Foua and Nao Kao believed that the sound of the door had caused Lia’s soul to flee‚ they called her illness “qaug dab peg”‚ which means “the spirit catches
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previous lectures‚ immigrants tend to mistrust the American health care system due to difference in medical remedies and the language spoken. I know first-hand that my mother would prefer to have a Ghanaian physician‚ as opposed to the general white American doctor. Anne Fadiman wrote a successful award-winning book called‚ The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down‚ which highlights how the cultural differences between the Hmong culture and American medicine jeopardized the health of a little girl named
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second reflection paper I chose to write about the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. When I started reading this book‚ I had no idea what I was going to read about. I learned many new concepts on the culture of Hmong and their views. A brief section of the book also was about how they came to America and the experiences they had while doing so. I learned that there was a secret war in Laos that caused a tragedy among the Hmong people leaving them to abandon their homes in the mountains
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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down In the book‚ The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down‚ Anne Fadiman tells us the story of a little girl named Lia Lee‚ caught between the differences of two cultures. The differences in Lia’s parents’ knowledge‚ abilities‚ and understanding of the culture they were surrounded by and the rationalized facts that Western medicine and its culture provide bring us to the borderland of the two. When these two cultures meet Lia’s life is put in danger‚ not
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I will review the question of how the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down exemplifies the techniques of ethnographic research that we have studied in class. Also I will consider the question if there are ways in which Fadiman could have improved her methods to be a better anthropologist. In the essay I will look at the specific methods and techniques that Fadiman utilized. I will discuss where she conducted her research and also cover how she conducted her fieldwork. I suggest Anthropological studies
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various cultures and ethnicities. This newfound experience taught me that people see and interpret things differently and that cultural beliefs are not the only factors that influence differences in opinion. The community‚ environment‚ and even one’s friends can also contribute to the way a person interprets things. One example is‚ “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down‚” a book about the struggles faced by the Lee family after emigrating from Laos to America. Foua delivered her 14th child‚ only
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