what you hear is what you get
Not only do the Yao speak a different language, they think one too. Moving a question from the interview list to the interviewee’s mind takes two translations: one from English to Yao, and one from the abstract to the concrete. “Why is storytelling important to culture?” becomes “Why do you tell your children Yao stories?” and “Do you feel globalization’s import of image-saturation is eroding the Yao’s orality?” becomes “Can we go now?”
Our fourth day of film school took the form of a field trip to the feet of a respected story-teller and local imam, Proverbio Abu Bakar. Stories were told; lesson plans were shredded; categories were dissolved. Batri, one of our filmmakers, more or less turned the pages of Proverbio’s story by firing off “What happened nexts?” We’re now positive we’re learning as much as our students.
Oral cultures like the Yao’s haven’t peeled themselves off the page of reality yet. Literate cultures paved the way for abstraction by externalized detail to the written page. Hence, oral cultures have an incredible mind for detail but don’t know it, and literate culture have split-level brains but need sticky notes to remind themselves to use it.
Thus far, Yao stories have been heard but not seen, and that jump from the campfire to the screen requires just enough abstraction to keep us humble. Until we master the magic of hiding hypotheticals up our sleeves, interviews will continue like bad sleight of hand.
“Is this your answer?”
“Okay, is this your answer?”
