Why You Should Engage with Non-English Media
It's the cheapest travel you'll ever be able to do.
Current Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Reading: ‘The Three-Body Problem’ - Cixin Liu
Listening To: ‘Sweetest Human Being Alive’ - George Ezra
I’m currently reading a wonderful Science Fiction book by a Chinese author named Cixin Liu (刘慈欣) and it’s been such a breath of fresh air for me. As with most of us, the vast majority of media that we read, watch, and listen to, comes from the USA or the UK due to their stranglehold on global entertainment. But, as you might expect, limiting your inputs to these two markets limits you in terms of the type of art you can engage with.
I would even go so far as to say that when we only interact with English-language media we put ourselves into a cozy bubble that gets in the way of us becoming truly global citizens. Now, not all of us are fortunate enough to be able to travel widely to gain this global perspective - but we can do it through the movies/shows that we watch, the books that we read, and the music that we listen to.
Netflix has done a really good job of this in recent times, bringing world-class shows in other languages to mainstream English audiences such as Squid Game (Korean) and Money Heist (Spanish). And if we look back just a couple of years, Parasite (Korean) stood out as a genre-altering film that took the world by storm.
There are always going to be heated debates about the quality of the translations and whether the essence of this art gets lost along the way, but I think that media like this does a lot to expand our horizons and show us different means of storytelling that we don’t see in our traditional Western landscape.
As I sit in Africa, this is even more true. I thoroughly enjoyed my first exposure to Nigerian literature in ‘An Orchestra of Minorities’ by Chigozie Obioma and it has encouraged me to look for more Pan-African stories that can bring something entirely different to the table. I can’t help thinking that I learned more about the Nigerian way of life, values, history, and personality from that novel than I ever have by reading about the country in the news. There’s something about immersing yourself in a fictional narrative and embodying the minds of those characters that give you a travel experience without you even having to leave your armchair.
I feel the same with ‘The Three-Body Problem’, a Chinese science fiction story. With so much of the outer space genre dominated by NASA, it’s such a joy to see a story from an entirely new perspective. It also provides a fascinating peek into Chinese life, something that you could never get from reading a news article or a textbook.
Art, and novels specifically, have a way of delving deep into society’s best-kept secrets and allowing the reader to experience an entirely different way of life in all its vivid detail. And when we only engage with entertainment coming out of the US, we miss out on so much of what the world has to offer. And we get stuck on the same trope that Hollywood has shoved down our throats for years and years on end.
I’d like to encourage you to take a risk and try a book, movie, or TV show that is outside of your comfort zone. Go for something set somewhere else in the world, ideally in that local language, and immerse yourself in a new world of which you have no knowledge or understanding. It’s much cheaper than jumping on a plane and, in some cases, can be just as effective for expanding our view of what this world has to offer.
Links:
One of the most significant personal journeys of mine over the last couple of years has been to change my money psychology from a mindset of scarcity to one of abundance. Ramit Sethi’s podcast has been really helpful here, but so has this article on the art and science of spending.
Tyler Cowen’s view on how ChatGPT will impact his own career as a writer, thinker, and public intellectual.
So often, you don’t actually need a meeting to get things done. Asynchronous communication, when done well, can be much more efficient and allow everyone to be more in control of their day.
I love Maria Popova’s writings at The Marginalian (formerly BrainPickings) and this is a wonderful round-up of some of her most prized life advice.
That’s all for this week. I hope that your Monday goes swimmingly and that you make the most of the days to come. Be kind to yourself!
Barry