Culture 101

“As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate lovingly, our own”

-Margaret Mead-

Culture is one of those many things that facinates me. Never had I realised that my culture has bring so much more meaning to me, until I left home, away from where I belong. Not just that I'm starting to appreciate my own culture, but having the opportunity to learn cultures from people all around the world, from diverse groups and ethinicity, has made life so much more colourful.

As much as I love this place and its laid-back lifestyle, I'm still trying to seek the Australian culture, which appears to be rather blunt to me . There are the typical "Good day mate", kangaroos and koalas ; sports- surfing, australian footy (rugby), cricket; local specialty- vegemite (similar to marmite/bovril) and their all time favourite "barbie" (barbeque). I supposed there are more to this, but right now, I haven't found the richness of their culture as much as the Asian culture, or even the European culture or maybe the American culture.


Being a Chinese myself, or more precisely, a Malaysian Chinese, I feel sorry for only able to speak and understand my own language rudimentary ; for being so oblivous about my own culture, its practice and history that has been passed down by many generations. I find it important to trace our roots. It is when we know our roots, we know our identity. Knowing our roots and identity do not mean retaining a close-minded lifestyle-the unwillingness to open to new experiences and challenge new ideas. But these knowledge I supposed, help us to identify ourselves better and help us understand the reasons behind certain things that people do. I for one, do not choose to practice some of what my culture has taught me. I appreciate its richness nevertheless.

I recently went for a festival that celebrates the Buddha's birthday (or the Wesak Day, a term which I'm more familiar with). Growing up with the Theravada traditions of Buddhism , I was amazed by how much Mahayanese traditions has influenced Buddhism in this region. For a moment, I thought I was attending some Chinese festival. Interesting.


So anyways, there was this exhibition, which promotes a lot of the Chinese cultural stuff and we came across this calligraphy section. One word to describe-beautiful! Chinese calligraphy is a form of abstract art dated back so many centuries ago, yet still remain popular till today.

"Although it uses Chinese words as its vehicle of expression, one does not have to know Chinese to appreciate its beauty...While viewing a Western abstract painting, one does not ask, 'What is it?' When viewing Chinese calligraphy, one need not ask, 'What is the Chinese word?' " (Ming, 2005).

I mean seriously. This man was writing the word "lung" -dragon in Chinese. It was not the usual word that people learn in school these days. It was sorta the ancient pictorial kind. So yea, just by viewing his piece of abstract art, it pretty much explains the word he expressed. It was self-explanatory.

Since I was curious about this whole dragon thing, I googled on it. Apparently in the chinese culture, dragon symbolises the Chinese people. Chinese people considered themselves, with a certain amount of pride, 'descendants from the dragon'. Dragon is viewed as a supernatural creature that can accept any type of form. It had a pair of antlers like the one of a deer, a camel head, the eyes of a hare, the neck of a serpent, belly that looks ike the one of a shen (a mythical water dragon that resembles a crocodile), claws like the ones of an eagle, pays like the ones of a tiger, ears like the ones of a buffalo and was able to morph from one form. How interesting.

Looks like, I'm just begining to learn about my own culture. So my friends, I'm apparently the 'descendants from the dragon"! Make my blood boil and I shall blow fire to you:p heheh