How strict would a young Romani dude from England be about marimé issues?
First of all, thanks everyone for all the help I got in my last post here! This is way long so have a cut:
Ok, so one of the characters in a story I'm planning to write is Romani. I've done a buttload of research on this, but there a few things I'm having trouble finding, details and how they would apply here. These doubts make me feel pretty dumb, but I'd rather be sure so as to not put something in the story that makes no sense or feels odd, and come off as ignorant.
Okay, so this character is a young British man, about 22, but the story is set in another country. He and the other characters are there as tourists, and they end up getting stuck in a remote-ish place with an injured person. (this is one of those 'a bunch of different people get stuck trying to work together' stories)
It'll take at least several days for them to get the person to the place they need to take them, but they do have the person's trailer, which has food and all. So my first question is mostly about food. To put it simply: how strict are the rules of cleanliness/uncleanliness for a Romani person who is settled, lives in the city etc at this day? Most of the research I've done, including a couple of books, have been about communities that live in Eastern Europe, and most of them nomadic. There's always mention of how "many Romani people are more integrated today" etc but they don't go into detail. For instance here (http://www.reocities.com/Paris/5121/important.htm) they say "most of the customs and traditions expressed in this section refer to those observed by the older European Roma groups" but they don't say if they're completely disregarded by others or what.
The problem is I don't want to ignore the character's background but I also don't want to make a stereotype out of him, as if any information you find out there could apply generically to him. You know? I'm thinking about practical stuff like the fact that everyone is gonna be eating the same stuff, together etc. I read a book many years ago where the writer spent some time with a Romani family in Albany (I think?), and because she was a Gadje, she didn't eat at the same time as them, and she didn't help in the making of the food.
So I figured if this is an issue, he could offer to cook for everyone and just eat first or after them or not sitting in the same table. But then I don't know if this is something this guy would be concerned about. Would this not be a problem at all, what with the world today, McDonald's and everything else? Or would it be kind of a problem, in the sense that he would think about it, but light enough that he could decide to leave it due to the circumstances?
I'm thinking about food, but really this applies to any issue that could come up with him having to share the space and everything with 4 other awake people + an unconscious one. For this issue I made a whole bunch of searches on all kinds of combinations of "England", "Britain", "Romani", "Romanichal", "Gypsies", etc as well as just trying to deduce from all the stuff I'd read in sites on Romani culture etc. For clarification, I've read two books, "Bury Me Standing" by Isabel Fonseca and a book about a community of French Gypsies with a title I don't remember.. but both were based on research done quite a few years ago. I can't say if they were very good or not, I'm sure there are better books out there but I don't have much access to them. Fact is although they taught me a lot, they make me insecure about applying this information to a guy who's not in the same situation as the people who participated in the research.
Okay, this is gonna be pretty long. Moving on:
This guy is supposed to be gay and out. Specifically, he's the younger of two brothers and he's the "good son", who's laid back, works for his dad, helps his family etc. He doesn't make any secret of the fact that he likes men but he doesn't get a lot of action because he works a lot and doesn't come across many opportunities to meet dudes out there.
I didn't find a whole lot in my research so I'm going with basic logic and figuring some people in the world are homophobic and some not and he could be lucky and have parents who are chill about it. i just wanted to confirm if there isn't some bigger reason why they would have a problem with it.
Not just "would it be considered unclean?", could be something more like.. would he have less respect for not being married? If not marrying is really the problem, would his parents be fine with it under the assumption that he will marry a dude? I realize the most probable answer to all this is "depends on his parents" but I just wanted to make sure this could be a plausible scenario.
This is all background stuff mostly, his parents don't actually show up in person, but his being super responsible and his family counting on him etc, is important as part of his personality, and I don't want it to clash with his taste in partners, which is also important to who he is. Yeah?
Oh, I googled many variations of "gay Romani". I was hoping to find anything like a chat group or anything, but all I found was an article about a guy who was discriminated in Romania both for being a Gypsy and for being gay. Not only does it not mention the attitude of his family to it (other than "his mom kept him inside") but also I don't think I should apply what happens in Romania to the UK.
This all sounds like I'm babbling and asking you to confirm my thoughts, so here's a doubt I could find nothing on: tattoos. Is this something that would be considered unclean, given that some ink is injected under your skin and all?
I wasn't sure, and Google gave me tons of people talking about tattoos with pictures of Gypsies and one instance of someone on Yahoo!Answers saying their family was Romani and " it's our culture. We get tattoos very young until we're very old." However, since I haven't been able to verify this information anywhere, and this was on Yahoo!Answers, I get a little uneasy taking it at face value.
I began with the obvious, variations of "Romani" and "tattoo", and after reading that quotation I added words like "tradition", but still nothing came up. I just want to know if he can get a tattoo later on, it's part of the story, but I'm sure I can go around it if I must.
And lastly, this has been mentioned but he's supposed to be a good son and his parents are proud of him and grateful for his help. Initially he was supposed to work for his father and still live with his parents, so he's always there to help etc. Now this is more of a "UK culture" question I guess, but where I come from it's normal and expected for someone who's 22 to still live with his parents. It occured to me that it may not be like that there. Would he actually be considered a good son if he moved out as soon as possible? Would he be a slob otherwise?
Thanks in advance!
Ok, so one of the characters in a story I'm planning to write is Romani. I've done a buttload of research on this, but there a few things I'm having trouble finding, details and how they would apply here. These doubts make me feel pretty dumb, but I'd rather be sure so as to not put something in the story that makes no sense or feels odd, and come off as ignorant.
Okay, so this character is a young British man, about 22, but the story is set in another country. He and the other characters are there as tourists, and they end up getting stuck in a remote-ish place with an injured person. (this is one of those 'a bunch of different people get stuck trying to work together' stories)
It'll take at least several days for them to get the person to the place they need to take them, but they do have the person's trailer, which has food and all. So my first question is mostly about food. To put it simply: how strict are the rules of cleanliness/uncleanliness for a Romani person who is settled, lives in the city etc at this day? Most of the research I've done, including a couple of books, have been about communities that live in Eastern Europe, and most of them nomadic. There's always mention of how "many Romani people are more integrated today" etc but they don't go into detail. For instance here (http://www.reocities.com/Paris/5121/important.htm) they say "most of the customs and traditions expressed in this section refer to those observed by the older European Roma groups" but they don't say if they're completely disregarded by others or what.
The problem is I don't want to ignore the character's background but I also don't want to make a stereotype out of him, as if any information you find out there could apply generically to him. You know? I'm thinking about practical stuff like the fact that everyone is gonna be eating the same stuff, together etc. I read a book many years ago where the writer spent some time with a Romani family in Albany (I think?), and because she was a Gadje, she didn't eat at the same time as them, and she didn't help in the making of the food.
So I figured if this is an issue, he could offer to cook for everyone and just eat first or after them or not sitting in the same table. But then I don't know if this is something this guy would be concerned about. Would this not be a problem at all, what with the world today, McDonald's and everything else? Or would it be kind of a problem, in the sense that he would think about it, but light enough that he could decide to leave it due to the circumstances?
I'm thinking about food, but really this applies to any issue that could come up with him having to share the space and everything with 4 other awake people + an unconscious one. For this issue I made a whole bunch of searches on all kinds of combinations of "England", "Britain", "Romani", "Romanichal", "Gypsies", etc as well as just trying to deduce from all the stuff I'd read in sites on Romani culture etc. For clarification, I've read two books, "Bury Me Standing" by Isabel Fonseca and a book about a community of French Gypsies with a title I don't remember.. but both were based on research done quite a few years ago. I can't say if they were very good or not, I'm sure there are better books out there but I don't have much access to them. Fact is although they taught me a lot, they make me insecure about applying this information to a guy who's not in the same situation as the people who participated in the research.
Okay, this is gonna be pretty long. Moving on:
This guy is supposed to be gay and out. Specifically, he's the younger of two brothers and he's the "good son", who's laid back, works for his dad, helps his family etc. He doesn't make any secret of the fact that he likes men but he doesn't get a lot of action because he works a lot and doesn't come across many opportunities to meet dudes out there.
I didn't find a whole lot in my research so I'm going with basic logic and figuring some people in the world are homophobic and some not and he could be lucky and have parents who are chill about it. i just wanted to confirm if there isn't some bigger reason why they would have a problem with it.
Not just "would it be considered unclean?", could be something more like.. would he have less respect for not being married? If not marrying is really the problem, would his parents be fine with it under the assumption that he will marry a dude? I realize the most probable answer to all this is "depends on his parents" but I just wanted to make sure this could be a plausible scenario.
This is all background stuff mostly, his parents don't actually show up in person, but his being super responsible and his family counting on him etc, is important as part of his personality, and I don't want it to clash with his taste in partners, which is also important to who he is. Yeah?
Oh, I googled many variations of "gay Romani". I was hoping to find anything like a chat group or anything, but all I found was an article about a guy who was discriminated in Romania both for being a Gypsy and for being gay. Not only does it not mention the attitude of his family to it (other than "his mom kept him inside") but also I don't think I should apply what happens in Romania to the UK.
This all sounds like I'm babbling and asking you to confirm my thoughts, so here's a doubt I could find nothing on: tattoos. Is this something that would be considered unclean, given that some ink is injected under your skin and all?
I wasn't sure, and Google gave me tons of people talking about tattoos with pictures of Gypsies and one instance of someone on Yahoo!Answers saying their family was Romani and " it's our culture. We get tattoos very young until we're very old." However, since I haven't been able to verify this information anywhere, and this was on Yahoo!Answers, I get a little uneasy taking it at face value.
I began with the obvious, variations of "Romani" and "tattoo", and after reading that quotation I added words like "tradition", but still nothing came up. I just want to know if he can get a tattoo later on, it's part of the story, but I'm sure I can go around it if I must.
And lastly, this has been mentioned but he's supposed to be a good son and his parents are proud of him and grateful for his help. Initially he was supposed to work for his father and still live with his parents, so he's always there to help etc. Now this is more of a "UK culture" question I guess, but where I come from it's normal and expected for someone who's 22 to still live with his parents. It occured to me that it may not be like that there. Would he actually be considered a good son if he moved out as soon as possible? Would he be a slob otherwise?
Thanks in advance!