Summary of The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down In ‘The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down’‚ Lia‚ a Hmong baby girl‚ is born to a Hmong family living in California as refugees away from their war torn land in Laos. In Laos the Lee’s where farmers and lived in the country according to their Hmong traditions and beliefs. In California they barely understood the language‚ much less Western culture or medicinal practices. In Hmong tradition‚ illness was seen as a spiritual problem rather than
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In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down‚ Anne Fadiman narrates the story of Lia‚ a Hmong girl suffering from epilepsy who was surrounded by challenges due to conflicting viewpoints of her parents and her health care providers. For the Hmong people‚ epileptic seizures are viewed as a positive trait; those people who suffered from seizures are attributed to be a “twix neeb”‚ or “a person with a healing spirit” (Fadiman‚ 1997‚ pg. 21). Lia’s parents—Foau and Nao Kao (the Lees)—considered her condition
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"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" the book by Anne Fadiman is an interesting book that contains different situations where different cultures and traditions clashes as a result of different barriers. In this brief work I tried to shed light on some of these barriers that could exist in our clinical practice and how these barriers could be understood in different cultures. On the other hand‚ there is no doubt that cultural differences play an important role in problems analysis as well as
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“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” Reader’s Guide Directions: Read the captioned book. Then answer the questions contained in this study guide. Post your completed document to the appropriate assignment box on the course website. 1. What do you think of traditional Hmong birth practices (pp. 3-5)? Compare them to the techniques used when Lia was born (p. 7). How do Hmong and American birth practices differ? I think the Hmong traditional give birth practice is very unsafe and dirty. The
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The two cultures 1. Do you think the author was evenhanded in her presentation of Hmong culture and medical culture? I absolutely believe that the author was evenhanded in her presentation of the two cultures. Throughout the book it was clear that she tried to look at everything from as many perspectives as possible to accurately portray the Hmong culture and medical culture. 3. Over the centuries‚ the Hmong fought against many different peoples who claimed sovereignty over their lands. What
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Cindy Copeland The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Chapter 1 “Foua never thought to ask‚ since she speaks no English‚ and when she delivered Lia‚ no one present spoke Hmong.” (pg 6) I cannot imagine being somewhere where no one spoke the same language – let along receiving medical care and/or delivering a baby without anyone speaking the same language. That must have been not only a scary experience‚ but a lonely one too. To have no one there and no one there that spoke my language
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intriguing‚ spirit-lifting extraordinary exploration of two cultures in uneasy coexistence... A wonderful aspect of Fadiman’s book is her evenhanded‚ detailed presentation of these disparate cultures and divergent views-not with cool‚ dispassionate fairness but rather with a warm‚ involved interest that seems and embraces both sides of the issue...Superb‚ informal cultural anthropology-eye-opening‚ readable‚ utterly engaging” (Horn). 4. “Anne Fadiman’s phenomenal first book‚ The Spirit Catches You and
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Before reading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down I knew nothing about the Hmong culture‚ so reading the book was eye opening. “The more we know about culture in general‚ and our own culture in particular‚ the better able we are to modify our interactions with others to provide effective
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The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down by Ann Fadiman is a very interesting book. It’s amazing how difficult it is for Americans to understand other cultures because the United States is such a diverse country. However‚ as an American‚ I understood the frustrations that Lia Lee’s doctors’ felt when trying to diagnose and treat her properly. In this book both the American doctors and the Hmong peoples faced many hardships and barriers when trying to communicate with each other. After having read
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In many cultures around the world people have the same problems to face as we do. They just refer to them by different words and or different meanings. In “The Spirit Catches You‚” a young girl by the name of Lia has a condition that Western Medicine considers to be epilepsy‚ but in her culture of the Hmong they believe it to be qaug dab peg. Some might consider these two conditions of the body and soul to be the same thing or quite different. Western medicine’s way of dealing with the issue is
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