Monday, August 17, 2009

On Culture

Being here in Europe and traveling with Mel has been an eye-opener in many ways. People always wonder how this girl from India and that girl from China came to be such good friends and converse so fluently in English with one another. I like it when they ask, so that I can clarify that we are both from Singapore, that we were both born there, our families have lived there for generations and that the country is made up of 4 main ethnic groups so we need English as a common language. Because whenever we tell them "Oh I'm from Singapore", they go "oh but you look like you're from India" or "China"...which i guess is technically correct.

Anyway the above paragraph is just a 'by the way' kinda thing. What I really wanted to muse about was my culture and identity. What got me thinking about this was an Indian guy at the Copenhagen train station who stopped to talk to me becuase he thought he had found a kindred Tamil spirit . He had moved there with his parents 20 years ago to escape the civil war in Sri Lanka.

So he was talking about Indian culture and language and how the modern Indian girls in Denmark speak Tamil very well and know traditional Indian dance. And when I admitted that I could barely speak Tamil and and hardly in touch with Indian culture, he began to lecture me about the importance of preserving my culture. I patiently listened and nodded for the entire length of his 'talk'. Then I realised that what he was saying made perfect sense for someone living in a country where his/her ethnic group is still seen as a migrant community and not an official people group. But in Singapore-and please, feel free to disagree with me on this but this is my sincere opinion- I don't need to preserve Indian culture.

I pride myself on being Singaporean first, then Indian. So the culture that I hold dearest to me is the Singaporean culture. Singlish, Chilli Crab with fried mantou, Bengs&Minahs, struggling with your mother tongue at the O levels, national day songs, supper clubs...these are the things of MY culture. And if I ever were to migrate, it would be this Singaporean-ness that I'll take with me. Of course being Indian will colour who I am to a certain degree but it does not get much more than that.

Let the mainland Indians carry on thier cultures where ever they are because it is their culture. If they don't preserve it, who will? Likewise, as a Singaporean I should preserve Singaporean culture. Why should I preserve a culture I don't even fully grasp just because that is my ethnic group? It's not that I'm not proud of my Indian-ness, I don't have any problems with it, it's just that the Indian culture is not something I am acquainted enough with to want to fiercely preserve. I'm more concerned that collective Singaporean culture doesn't die out some day.

But that's just me, the stubborn and opinionated one....Always having to be against the grain.

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