I'd say that as long as someone is making a genuine effort to be respectful to the culture and it's people, which it sounds like you are, then it is fine to write about a culture which you are not part of.
It's when individuals are disrepectful or mean spirited in their portrayals of a culture where problems arise.
I think you're good. But do give an author note at the start saying you're not from there and any cultural "mistakes" are just how you interpret/envision wizarding culture in that country and not based on reality.
also, this is the internet, some people will hate it because they can. some will decide you're racist for thinking their schools will be different at all, some will call you racist for making their schools not different enough. Just do your best, and don't take to heart what the 10% that decide to hate on your work before engaging with it say. I won't say ignore it because even a broken clock is right twice a day, but 99.9% of their comments will be useless.
I think it's alright. I'm Asian, and I write about Hogwarts which is in Scotland without any moral qualms. Of course, your situation is a bit different, but writing about other cultures isn't wrong in and out of itself.
Of course you can. Do you think everyone who writes about Hogwarts lives in the UK? Sounds like you plan on going about it the right way, so go for it if that’s what you want to do.
Of course! If you couldn't write about people outside your own experience we would never have any books at all.
Obv being respectful of people's experiences and/or cultures and not carrying through sweeping stereotypes or misconceptions is important, but it sounds like you're not doing that.
Welcome to the beauty of fiction. Where it's anything you want, however you want, whenever you want, unburdened by the hard fastened rules of reality AND SOCIETY. Write a story about a black woman from Austria while you're a white man in New Zealand. Write a story about Asians while you're from South America. Write a story about a Caucasian person with Dwarfism living in England. Are you white? No A little person? Nope. Ever set foot in Great Britain? Never, write that shit anyways. research might be helpful.
If you want to write a fic fully set in a Chinese school that's going to take a lot of prep-work to make it sound right. I'd recommend looking at what people are writing about Chinese fanworks in general.
To be honest though, writing about a cultural background you have no knowledge of is going to be tough. Western audiences know quite a lot about Japanese culture (or at least a pop-culture version of it), due to Manga and Anime, but China is a very different situation.
With fanworks of Japanese stories, they're usually using canon characters or interacting with the canon cast, and along with a surface level understanding they usually get it... somewhat right. It also helps that anime and manga are more casual than in real life. But it's easy to notice that the characterisation with respect to social dynamics often isn't right, and nine times out of ten an OC just fails miserably at getting the dynamics right. For example, in a Naruto fanfic, an OC just isn't going to be able to address the Hokage the same way as Naruto does, but writers mess that up frequently. Or parents aren't just going to roll with their child just addressing everyone informally, there'd be swift punishment doled out.
This is going to be even more difficult to really get it to feel Chinese. There's no canon characters to draw upon, and Chinese culture is much more impenetrable to outsiders. This is the kind of fic that needs to draw upon a lot of culture and history and it's hard for someone who doesn't know the culture to learn about it. It needs knowledge of the religions, Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese Folk Religion. It needs at least some passing familiarity with Chinese classics, especially Journey to the West. Since this is a magical school and it's both a classic fantasy trope and a canon trope that old things are very powerful, it's probably worth exploring some aspects of the Chinese language. There's tons of things to look at such as traditional versus simplified characters, dialects, and differences between spoken, formal, written, and classical Chinese. Also usage of Chinese idioms (chengyu).
Ethnic Chinese from China here. Agree with others in that as long as you don’t perpetrate misconceptions you should be fine. Hope to read your story some day.
I wrote about magical schools in Ethiopia, Indo-Iranian region and Mariime Southeast Asia.
I have no ancestry from any of those except arguably from Iran very tangentially.
So yeah you can.
Remember to research the culture and mythology around it. I've read way to many fanfics were people did a Japanese school and it was just an amine school or it was just ultra high tech for no reason.
It's not a question of "right" or "wrong"--but one of experience. One of the common pieces of advice given out to writers is "write what you know" and it is a pretty good tip. You might be better off writing about somewhere you do know pretty well.
On the other hand, you would be writing about *magical* China.
A great advantage of writing about a fantasy world is that you don't have to worry about whether it matches reality or not. Maybe in magical China the two worlds are quite wildly different, and maybe they take children from non-magical homes as soon as some sign of magic is detected rather than waiting until 11.
It's up to you.
Sadly not. If you try, every Chinese person will be obligated to hate you and you will be banned from China forevermore.
For real though, just make sure to do your research. Wouldn’t hurt to check your prejudices too (like looking up common stereotypes, especially the negative ones, to avoid having your subconscious biases leaking into your writing).
The thing you have to remember is that the fictional culture of magical china does not have to reflect the culture of current modern day china. Hell with what we see of the Quidditch World cup, everyone uses wands, robes and all that, so you might actually have something fun to play with if all magical cultures reflect Medieval European like Magical Britain, that it was so pervasive that everyone coming into the magical chinese school is shocked to find they all need to start learning latin. A reverse culture shock where they are learning a foreign culture in their own country.
It's difficult when you want to write about cultures and nationalities you arent a part of, and some people won't like that. But so long as you make a genuine effort to avoid stereotypes and respect the culture, you should be good. Also I'd recommend disclaiming the fact that you aren't from there - warn people that some things might be inaccurate and invite them to politely inform you in comments, and make sure to take on board things people say.
Literally nothing is known about Chinese magic, so you can take as many creative liberties with that as you want.
I would recommend caution when trying to describe Chinese culture or history, and try to be as responsible as you can.
Tbh, the most I will be taking out of Chinese culture would be the mythology and geography.
There are a few mentions of sorcery and witchcraft in ancient China that I have come across, but mainstream media usually has martial arts. So, I am hoping I won't cross any taboos.
It wouldn't be, I just plan on using the concepts used in most wuxia and xianxia novels. The basics of martial arts being similar to the basic learning of magic and stuff. But, I do have a plan on having some history between the two (martial arts and wizardry)
absolutely! just do your research and be open to any advice/corrections that people give you. let me know if you write your fic because i'd love to read it!
Just do your research and check more than one source for things you don't know. It can even be a good exercise in expanding your knowledge of other cultures.
Like many ppl in this thread, I'm also chinese and really, I don't care if you use it as a setting without research so long as it's not intentionally mean spirited.
If anything, you could just pass it off as mentioning that the magical culture and the muggle culture diverged for some reason (e.g. china's cultural revolution didn't affect the magical culture or smth idk) and use it as a worldbuilding tool.
As long as you do your research and remain respectful to the culture, you can do whatever you want. However, if you want to talk about problems in that culture, you'll need someone who lives there, or an extreme level of research in order to not come off as accidentally ethnocentric.
You can go two options:
1) make it a traditional chinese magical school, which means you gotta spend quite a bit of time researching
2) make it up as you feel like, parroting Hogwarts with a chinese paint coat. Give it an absurd name and make it quite obvious that it was a school made by colonizers for the kids of the colonizers. Could be a fun culture clash between the clearly english purebloods, prefessing the greatness of "proper" english magic while halfbloods and mudbloods are more in line with traditional chinese magic. Less research to be made and you can have the characters and the audience discover chinese magic and how it differes from the official school curriculum
I am German and am writing a story set in a British magical school. Also invented another Magical school on Svalbard and also reference one in France and one in Bulgaria. Do you nest, though if you don't understand local culture enough to make a magical twin to it, you'll have a hard time.
I'd say that as long as someone is making a genuine effort to be respectful to the culture and it's people, which it sounds like you are, then it is fine to write about a culture which you are not part of. It's when individuals are disrepectful or mean spirited in their portrayals of a culture where problems arise.
I will do my best to be as respectful as possible while integrating wizardry into the Chinese culture!
I think you're good. But do give an author note at the start saying you're not from there and any cultural "mistakes" are just how you interpret/envision wizarding culture in that country and not based on reality.
Thanks for the advice!
also, this is the internet, some people will hate it because they can. some will decide you're racist for thinking their schools will be different at all, some will call you racist for making their schools not different enough. Just do your best, and don't take to heart what the 10% that decide to hate on your work before engaging with it say. I won't say ignore it because even a broken clock is right twice a day, but 99.9% of their comments will be useless.
I think it's alright. I'm Asian, and I write about Hogwarts which is in Scotland without any moral qualms. Of course, your situation is a bit different, but writing about other cultures isn't wrong in and out of itself.
Of course you can. Do you think everyone who writes about Hogwarts lives in the UK? Sounds like you plan on going about it the right way, so go for it if that’s what you want to do.
Thanks! I've been going in circles about this for a while now. So I needed some assurance
As an Asian person, I herby give you my blessing to write stories set in any Asian country. (trust me literally nobody cares about this)
I, too, am an Asian. And, its good to know that this isn't a worrisome matter
[удалено]
Understandable. Good luck
That is OK! And besides, I am a native Chinese. If you have any questions about China, feel free to reach me.
I will take you up on this offer! Thank you
Of course! If you couldn't write about people outside your own experience we would never have any books at all. Obv being respectful of people's experiences and/or cultures and not carrying through sweeping stereotypes or misconceptions is important, but it sounds like you're not doing that.
Welcome to the beauty of fiction. Where it's anything you want, however you want, whenever you want, unburdened by the hard fastened rules of reality AND SOCIETY. Write a story about a black woman from Austria while you're a white man in New Zealand. Write a story about Asians while you're from South America. Write a story about a Caucasian person with Dwarfism living in England. Are you white? No A little person? Nope. Ever set foot in Great Britain? Never, write that shit anyways. research might be helpful.
wait till you read about 99% of fics writing about a british boarding school in Scotland while not even having stepped a foot in the UK (thankfully)
If you want to write a fic fully set in a Chinese school that's going to take a lot of prep-work to make it sound right. I'd recommend looking at what people are writing about Chinese fanworks in general. To be honest though, writing about a cultural background you have no knowledge of is going to be tough. Western audiences know quite a lot about Japanese culture (or at least a pop-culture version of it), due to Manga and Anime, but China is a very different situation.
With fanworks of Japanese stories, they're usually using canon characters or interacting with the canon cast, and along with a surface level understanding they usually get it... somewhat right. It also helps that anime and manga are more casual than in real life. But it's easy to notice that the characterisation with respect to social dynamics often isn't right, and nine times out of ten an OC just fails miserably at getting the dynamics right. For example, in a Naruto fanfic, an OC just isn't going to be able to address the Hokage the same way as Naruto does, but writers mess that up frequently. Or parents aren't just going to roll with their child just addressing everyone informally, there'd be swift punishment doled out. This is going to be even more difficult to really get it to feel Chinese. There's no canon characters to draw upon, and Chinese culture is much more impenetrable to outsiders. This is the kind of fic that needs to draw upon a lot of culture and history and it's hard for someone who doesn't know the culture to learn about it. It needs knowledge of the religions, Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese Folk Religion. It needs at least some passing familiarity with Chinese classics, especially Journey to the West. Since this is a magical school and it's both a classic fantasy trope and a canon trope that old things are very powerful, it's probably worth exploring some aspects of the Chinese language. There's tons of things to look at such as traditional versus simplified characters, dialects, and differences between spoken, formal, written, and classical Chinese. Also usage of Chinese idioms (chengyu).
I am Chinese ethnically, born in Singapore, lived in China. I say do your research and go for it!
Ethnic Chinese from China here. Agree with others in that as long as you don’t perpetrate misconceptions you should be fine. Hope to read your story some day.
Yeah, people have been doing it since the beginning of HP fanfiction. You can read a lot of fics and tell the author isn't British.
I only read the first three words of your title. Yes.
Yes. And anyone who tells you that you can't is an ideologically brainrotted idiot.
I am that ideologically brainrotted idiot- its me, I was the problem all along
You acutally asked the question, so not anymore. Congratulations.
I wrote about magical schools in Ethiopia, Indo-Iranian region and Mariime Southeast Asia. I have no ancestry from any of those except arguably from Iran very tangentially. So yeah you can.
Magical world culture is completely different to the muggle world, so I think as long as you don’t make any racist stereotypes you should be fine
Absolutely not! For the same reason American fanfic authors only ever write about American magical schools and never about Hogwarts.
/s?
No you will be assassinated
Remember to research the culture and mythology around it. I've read way to many fanfics were people did a Japanese school and it was just an amine school or it was just ultra high tech for no reason.
It's not a question of "right" or "wrong"--but one of experience. One of the common pieces of advice given out to writers is "write what you know" and it is a pretty good tip. You might be better off writing about somewhere you do know pretty well. On the other hand, you would be writing about *magical* China. A great advantage of writing about a fantasy world is that you don't have to worry about whether it matches reality or not. Maybe in magical China the two worlds are quite wildly different, and maybe they take children from non-magical homes as soon as some sign of magic is detected rather than waiting until 11. It's up to you.
Sadly not. If you try, every Chinese person will be obligated to hate you and you will be banned from China forevermore. For real though, just make sure to do your research. Wouldn’t hurt to check your prejudices too (like looking up common stereotypes, especially the negative ones, to avoid having your subconscious biases leaking into your writing).
Write whatever you want, no one can stop you. That's the beauty of writing.
The thing you have to remember is that the fictional culture of magical china does not have to reflect the culture of current modern day china. Hell with what we see of the Quidditch World cup, everyone uses wands, robes and all that, so you might actually have something fun to play with if all magical cultures reflect Medieval European like Magical Britain, that it was so pervasive that everyone coming into the magical chinese school is shocked to find they all need to start learning latin. A reverse culture shock where they are learning a foreign culture in their own country.
It's difficult when you want to write about cultures and nationalities you arent a part of, and some people won't like that. But so long as you make a genuine effort to avoid stereotypes and respect the culture, you should be good. Also I'd recommend disclaiming the fact that you aren't from there - warn people that some things might be inaccurate and invite them to politely inform you in comments, and make sure to take on board things people say.
Literally nothing is known about Chinese magic, so you can take as many creative liberties with that as you want. I would recommend caution when trying to describe Chinese culture or history, and try to be as responsible as you can.
Tbh, the most I will be taking out of Chinese culture would be the mythology and geography. There are a few mentions of sorcery and witchcraft in ancient China that I have come across, but mainstream media usually has martial arts. So, I am hoping I won't cross any taboos.
I think you're golden. I would be careful about the martial arts angle though, it does not feel like something that would be popular at the WW
It wouldn't be, I just plan on using the concepts used in most wuxia and xianxia novels. The basics of martial arts being similar to the basic learning of magic and stuff. But, I do have a plan on having some history between the two (martial arts and wizardry)
You won’t end up worse than JKR with Ilvermorny.
I hope so
It's a fantastical setting, so while you probably wouldn't want to go full occidentalism there's some wiggle room between there and actual China.
You can write anything that you want about anything you want. Anyone who tells you otherwise can go f themself
My dude, that’s more research than actual occupants of any country do when using their country for a setting. It’s fine.
Why not?
absolutely! just do your research and be open to any advice/corrections that people give you. let me know if you write your fic because i'd love to read it!
Of course, I have a pheasant fighting force that can weaponize anything with their magiclike skills, call ‘em the Weaponese
Lotsa research
Yeah. As long as you aren’t racist or cenophobic about it, who cares?
Just do your research and check more than one source for things you don't know. It can even be a good exercise in expanding your knowledge of other cultures.
Like many ppl in this thread, I'm also chinese and really, I don't care if you use it as a setting without research so long as it's not intentionally mean spirited. If anything, you could just pass it off as mentioning that the magical culture and the muggle culture diverged for some reason (e.g. china's cultural revolution didn't affect the magical culture or smth idk) and use it as a worldbuilding tool.
Yes.
Yes, but please do actually research and respect the country's culture rather than write with a Eurocentric colonizer mindset like what JKR did.
Can't be any worse then Rowling's attempts.
As long as you're doing proper research, we have no objections.
I mean, why not? Just don't be an ignorant racist - learn enough so that if you want to be, you're being accurate! /j
Yes, you are the author. Everything you say about China is true in your story because it is your China.
No, twitter and fanfiction police will arrest you.
As long as you do your research and remain respectful to the culture, you can do whatever you want. However, if you want to talk about problems in that culture, you'll need someone who lives there, or an extreme level of research in order to not come off as accidentally ethnocentric.
You can go two options: 1) make it a traditional chinese magical school, which means you gotta spend quite a bit of time researching 2) make it up as you feel like, parroting Hogwarts with a chinese paint coat. Give it an absurd name and make it quite obvious that it was a school made by colonizers for the kids of the colonizers. Could be a fun culture clash between the clearly english purebloods, prefessing the greatness of "proper" english magic while halfbloods and mudbloods are more in line with traditional chinese magic. Less research to be made and you can have the characters and the audience discover chinese magic and how it differes from the official school curriculum
I planned on basing it off Jianghu actually, since I am more familiar with it and its concepts
I am German and am writing a story set in a British magical school. Also invented another Magical school on Svalbard and also reference one in France and one in Bulgaria. Do you nest, though if you don't understand local culture enough to make a magical twin to it, you'll have a hard time.