post 8

Focus on how a text option for MP2 reflects and / or shapes the culture/s depicted. Consider how your own cultural background shapes your reading of that text and your approach to and understanding of the culture/s in the text.
For my text, I am going to speak about the novel Boxers and Saints. I am mostly going to hit on the rebellion and the religion in these books. I think my own culture affected this reading in a few different ways. I was raised in a religious household. We went to church every sunday. I went to summer bible school. I did bible groups. My religion is a part of me. Now, I am not saying going to church is what makes me Christian, but it has impacted my faith. My mom has been a huge impact in what made my faith grow strong. So, my family has supported my beliefs. In Saints, her family did not do the same. This affected my reading because family should support you in faith and understanding of religion. So, it was sad for me that something she felt strong about, made her feel unwanted or “wrong”. (Her family wasn’t really a huge fan of her anyways but). I did connect with Saint in the sense that we both try to grow stronger in faith as it is almost our destiny or path. Saint was given a ton of negative feedback throughout the book because of her choices and understandings, which is very sad. In this time period, it was not very common from her culture. Although, in our culture discrimination is seen often, I have never really been judged on by my faith or beliefs. This showed me how Saints culture was completely different. Back in the day, we heard and learned about burning of churches and people dying due to their religion or even going against a churches wishes. But in our century; Atheists, Catholics, Christians, etc are all very normalized. We all sort of keep our opinions to ourselves to avoid confrontation (not always). The rebellion in these books was very odd to me and sort of extreme, but again, it seems to also be based on time period and the “normal” for them. I want to keep my post mostly on religion, because honestly, I don’t have a huge view politically. The Boxer rebellion was seen differently but the same in these books. Boxer was with the rebellion because it was his culture that made him feel like he had to do, but Saint seemed the opposite. Which I believe had a lot to do with her religious views.