What do these stories mean?

UREP Team,

I've generated some open questions in response to a close reading of the stories. I hope that responding to these questions will create interesting discussion, surprising discoveries and productive research.

Everyone should involve themselves in these discussions, especially the layout team. This is a valuable opportunity for the layout team to make an important contribution to the project.

I realize that the illustrators are busy illustrating, which is good: I do not expect you to respond in depth. However, I think the illustrators could really benefit from following these discussions and participating in them when they can. How one interprets the stories intellectually will influence how one renders them visually.

Because our team is so culturally diverse, we'll each interpret these stories slightly differently for we are each reading them through the lens of our own cultural values and beliefs: this is a good thing! Part of our hope in this project is that these stories will spark discussion between Qatari and non-Qatari in order to learn more about each others cultural frameworks and hopefully lead to more well-informed and empathic relations between these two very diverse groups.

Let me give you a quick example. In the Legend of Mai and Ghaillan, Ghaillan wins the dhow race against Mai through technological innovation. While a locust (a locust? Where I come from, a locust is a grasshopper and they do not buzz around our heads--only flies do. Is there something lost in translation here? These are the sorts of questions we should be posing and seeking answers to in our discussion--this question, obviously, influences the illustration, does it not?) is buzzing around his head, Ghaillan pays particular attention to the shape of its wing and is inspired to create a "wing" for his dhow, which helps him win the race (examining nature to solve human problems is called "biomimicry"). In my culture, many (but not all) would interpret this move as cheating. Although the terms of the race are never explicitly discussed, my assumption would be that both merchants are only be allowed to use a dhow, men, and paddles, nothing more. This is a fair contest. Introducing the sail gives Ghaillan an unfair advantage. Therefore, interpreting his character and the race through my own cultural values leads me to conclude that I do not see him in a positive light: he is clever, yes, but he is fundamentally a cheater. I don't think that the text encourages us to view Ghaillan in this way, which leads me to believe that a set of cultural values different from my own are at work in this tale. This should prompt me to conduct research of some form to help explain this discrepancy.

I will create a separate post for each set of questions for each story so that we can keep things organized. Feel free to respond to my questions or, even better, pose and seek answers to your own. The questions I've generated are simply a place to begin.

You can read the text of the stories on the blog. They are located in various places. You'll have to search through older posts to find them.

I'm excited to get the discussions going. I think they will be very enlightening. Good luck!