WHAT DOES A CULTURE ENTAIL? | By Tsang Ching Nam
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What Exactly Is a Culture?
For a term that embodies great fluidity, it encompasses numerous factors ranging from coveted values or ideals to festivities containing traditional practices. To acknowledge the known diversity that we’ve accumulated on a global scale, ‘The World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development’ was brought into being. On this special occasion, it represents an opportunity for us to celebrate the customs that’ve been laid down for centuries and immerse ourselves into other cultures that exist outside of our bubbles.
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| In Mah Meri culture, if a man has crossed his wife in any way, he will be forced to walk around the whole village with coconuts around his neck and villagers will hit the coconut with sticks. Photo by Theodore Lee Soon Hur. |
Alternative Adaptations
There is a high chance that we might find ourselves distant from our loved ones under certain predicaments. Whether it be COVID-oriented causes or residing away from your homeland, cultural practices may be played out differently due to these changes.
Firzana Syazania, an Indonesian-born student who grew up in Malaysia, is currently studying for her undergraduate degree in Michigan. Back in Indonesia, she was used to seeing Muslims taking trips to the mosque to attend mandatory prayers. However, since moving to a country where Islam isn’t the primary religion, she feels more comfortable in conducting her prayers in the safety of her own dorm rather than going to a public space to do so.
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| Photo on Reuters. |
This was because she was aware of the slanted views towards the Muslim community marked by the general public.
“Personally, there is that element of fear which hinders me from practicing my religious beliefs traditionally. Like, what if someone might not tolerate me for my racial background here and I run into a bad encounter?” she said.
She also mentioned that there is a high likelihood that in America, Muslims won’t easily be given the green light to conduct their prayers if the time to do so coincides with something work or school related.
Joanna Chung, a university student based in New York who grew up in Hong Kong, noticed how the change in her surroundings played a huge factor in shaping the way she celebrated her cultural festivities. Since the Upstate region predominantly featured majorities, it was rare to see people celebrating holidays like Chinese New Year or Mid Autumn Festival. Therefore, if she wanted to, she would typically take it upon herself to host reunions by meeting up with friends or family members.
“I guess it wasn’t necessarily up to par as I’m used to when I would celebrate it in Hong Kong. Rochester is in the middle of nowhere and although there is a small Asian community, it’s kind of a do-what-we-can-with-what-we-have situation,” she said.
Connecting with Your Roots
Fortunately, though Firzana and Joanna were both located far from their homes, they still found ways to maintain close ties with their roots. Firzana tends to gravitate more towards Malaysian culture. Therefore, exploring her cultural heritage has always been an interest she is willing to commit to.
After moving to America, she then realised there were so many questions regarding her Indonesian roots that she didn’t have the answers to. To resolve this, she took advantage of summer breaks by heading back to Indonesia to visit her family. She would ask her relatives to try to gain a clearer understanding of her origins and practiced speaking in her mother tongue to secure a basic fluency.
Joanna, on the other hand, also pointed out that one of her biggest challenges is trying to learn Cantonese. Although she is in New York, she practices speaking it with her parents whenever she can so she can hopefully be conversationally fluent.
She also acknowledged the feeling of being perceived as a foreigner on both sides of the coin.
“Back in Hong Kong, I feel too American to be an Asian in America, and sometimes, I feel too Asian to be American in New York,” she mentioned.
“I didn’t adapt to the language of Hong Kong when I grew up for a handful of reasons: going to an international school, seeing myself as an American, friends and family taking that as my identity and translating stuff for me,” she added.
As a way to reconnect to the culture she treasures, Joanna joined an Asian community club in college to forge bonds with others who share similar backgrounds and values. She also enjoys sharing parts of her culture with others who aren't familiar with it or who have not experienced it before.
Circulated Mix-ups
Sadly, there have been many cultural misconceptions that have regrettably become normalized in today’s day and age. Firzana pointed out that a common remark she gets from Americans is that she can speak English well. This so-called compliment implies that one is perceived to be poor at a language that they don’t ‘look’ like they can be proficient in. These entrenched beliefs make it harder for foreigners to communicate in a confident manner.
“Not only did I get that from university students but also from Uber and Lyft drivers, so it’s really infuriating to hear this over and over again.” she said.
Joanna took a different route and explained that especially in Asian culture, there has been a great deal of pressure to work hard that sometimes overtakes self-care. Therefore, it can become painfully toxic when people choose to jeopardize their mental health in order to excel well in an academic field or career.
“I wish self-care was more normalized. This is why suicide is such a big issue among students in Asian countries because they can’t cope with the weight they are dealing with,” she said.
Cultural Appropriation vs Cultural Appreciation
Since all of us come from various backgrounds, we subconsciously use our standpoint as a baseline to compare our differences. It is very likely that some people may refuse to adopt a basic understanding about other cultures and make assumptions about them.
Chances are, the meaningful aspects of a culture are overlooked and negative stereotypes follow as a result. Therefore, the prominence of World Day for Cultural Diversity encourages us to understand and respect each other’s differences.
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| One of the Iban community's famous culture -- their colourful beads art. Photo by Liau Kah Man. |
Recently, this debate has become a hot-button topic and understandably so, since the boundary between appropriation and appreciation is often blurred in pop culture and social media. It’s common for artists to use elements from other cultures as an inspiration for their works. However, outrages have sparked from these minority cultures feeling like their traditions have been usurped by dominant cultures to a rather exploitative degree.
An example of cultural appropriation that was both brought up by Firzana and Joanna was the The Mahjong Line incident. A Dallas-based company had faced immense backlash for adding ‘special’ touches to construct their own rendition of Mahjong sets. Understandably, people are vexed over its historical features being painted over to pass off as a stylish luxury for future generation use. The company’s About Us page states that one of its founders, Kate Lagere, thought that these “traditional tiles did not reflect the fun that was had when playing with friends”. The other founders, Annie O’ Grady and Bianca Waston, claimed that the decision was a “respective refresh of Mahjong''. Their sets come with a range of colours including pink, teal and blue rather than the standard white. Instead of Chinese numbers, the tiles featured aestheticized images of bar soap, cherries and bags of flour.
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| Photo on Pinterest. |
To this day, these Mahjong sets are still being sold on their website.
“They just think that it's just pretty; they don’t want to dig deeper in gaining a better understanding of how much a particular item means to a community,” said Firzana.
“You don't change it to make it accessible to everyone. You educate people based on the original knowledge it brings to make it accessible to everyone,” she added.
Instead, we should try to express why we have a taste for a particular product beyond its ‘coolness factor’ or ‘artistic features’ as a culture’s purpose is not merely for entertainment factors. These creations hold symbolic worth that depict integral aspects of one’s culture, therefore branching out further should be encouraged so that such traditions can be kept alive through more people acknowledging its presence.
So, the next time you are planning to draw inspiration from another culture, do consider trying to understand its significance first. It’s not acceptable to ‘cherry-pick’ off ideas of a culture’s heritage and pass it off as your own, as creativity deserves credit.
At times, we may not adopt a detailed understanding on the top of our heads and that’s totally normal. To free society from the beliefs that are preventing the bloom of cultural diversity, everyone should stretch their efforts to notice the contributions others have made that have shaped our diverse world. Despite our differences, appreciating each other’s values and beliefs creates a stronger field of solidarity. If you are proud to be a part of your own culture, there is definitely no harm in embracing it!
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