Hallo,
Hope you’ve had a great week!
With all my other activities and obligations I neglected to do multiple blog posts this week, so hunker down; this one’ll be lengthy!
First off, research: Thus far I’ve found a myriad of contemporary sources, with historical context, but very few historical accounts themselves. I’ve sifted through accounts of Muslim food customs in the Uyghur region, accounts of Kashgar’s famous Sunday Bazaar, and an article on the significance of travelers on the Silk Road in Kashgar, to name a few. They’ve been helpful in deepening my understanding of contemporary culture, but I’m striving to find more dealing with the roots of the customs and meals.
Some interesting facts I gleaned are:
-If invited to wash your hands (which you will be), wash thrice and don’t shake off the water
-You must drink all the tea in your bowl before you leave the table
-When given a gift of food, always return the container with more food in it
-When serving naan guests must see that it is whole before you split it to serve
I also discovered a little wooden tool with spikes that the Uyghur people use to pierce the naan in cyclic, almost flower-like patterns. Although I’m focusing more on the cultural aspects of the meal, since it is a utensil used in preparation and Billie was enthralled with it, I’m letting her research it. I’m very excited to learn what they’re called, if they’re standardized, if they’re used for foods other than naan, etc.
Researching all of these customs sparked an idea: if the Tongue Team ends up culminating in an oral presentation revolving around food, we should strive to be as true to the customs as possible. We’ll serve all the food with two hands, display the naan from our tandyr before breaking it, and make sure to provide the meal in stages. I’m trying to look deeper into the traditional garb worn to eat or serve, if it even exists. It would be a very interactive way to present to the class (and possibly the Heges), and demonstrate that we understood that customs are more than something to be studied off a sheet of paper. Now the challenge is to portray these customs faithfully.. And the whole appreciation vs appropriation debacle. But we’ll cross that bridge when/if we come to it.
In our Tech Lab today, the culminating instructional one according to Tierney, the main focus was on the framework we’re going to use to erect a final product. The two websites, which can be used exclusively or in conjunction, are StoryMap JS and Timeline JS. StoryMap JS is more of an interactive, not necessarily chronological journey, while Timeline JS can still incorporate media but is restricted to a linear proceeding. While playing around on the StoryMap site, we discovered that the format or focus of the map can be altered according to the delineations of the project. For very specific locations you can switch to Open Street Maps, which you can even drop coordinates into. To highlight topography or physical markers, you can switch to Stamen Maps: Terrain.
More closely related to our project, Tierney mentioned a version that makes the StoryMap less map-based and more image-based, which would work really well with our idea of a “table narrative”, zooming in and out on certain dishes or ingredients, However I’ve played around with the site and have yet to discover how to do it. The Tongue Team will definitely need to inquire about that.
Although we didn’t have ample time to discuss, one of our team’s new ideas after this tech session is to create one large narrative about the food in Kashgar, but embed sub-timelines for each individual “character”. Therefore the Timeline JS application would be useful in formulating those sub-stories. Hopefully we’ll narrow this down in our meeting tomorrow!
Even after all the instruction, my personal confusion, which I believe coincides with the group, relates to how much evidence and research do we actually need. As visual tools we don’t want to weigh StoryMaps and Timelines with too much information or readers will get lost/disinterested. I understand the need for a narrow narrative, but I’m not quite sure how wide we should be casting our nets. Should I go deeper with my current research findings, or continue finding tangent topics?
Eric also brought up the issue of citing sources, finding locations, and identifying purposes in different languages. He suggested that if it’s Chinese we ask Zhihong to help translate, but otherwise we’ll just work through it. I’m not adept at any languages other than English besides Latin, German, and a little Spanish, which are good to know but haven’t popped up often (a.k.a once) in the Kashgar region. I’m just afraid of missing sources or links because I can’t understand what they lead or refer to.
Overall, I’m pleased with the direction our group is heading! Hopefully I’ll have an update on Apple China tomorrow night!
Thanks for sticking through this extensive post!
Regards,
-Delaney