Cracking The Culture Box
Chinese New Year was a few days ago. The lunar new year is a big deal in the Chinese culture. It has all the fan fare of a Gregorian new year only it is normally a 2 week celebration ending with the Lantern Festival which is kind of like Valentine’s Day celebration. It’s really interesting to witness Christmas, New Year and then Chinese New Year in the span of less then 2 calendar months. All that celebrations, hobnobbing with relatives that you may not see very often during the rest of the year and then all of a sudden seeing them over and over and over again. It’s even more interesting in households that do include alcohol in their festivities I imagine but alas I don’t have friends nor family members that drink during our celebration.
I admit up front that I’m a culture knocker. Let me put it in more explicit terms, I disagree with almost everything that I was brought up with in the Chinese culture. Yes, I’m of Chinese decent and therefore I feel totally unapologetic and brazen to say this. I don’t have to be weary of being called a racist. I disagree with the Chinese culture with full awareness that what I disagree with is not really uniquely Chinese, What I disagree with is the role of culture as a ploy to keep us playing small. My vessel may be of Chinese decent but I am not my vessel. When I was a little girl Chinese New Year was fun. I get to taste food that were only available in abundance during CNY. I got new shoes, new clothes, pocket money from all the grown-ups etc… It was fun for a while, but after decades of this I’m tired of the extreme commercialism of “Culture”. I imagine that at one point in distant history people got together and had a great time and decided that hey why don’t we do that every year. What started out as a genuine expression of joy has become so codified and commercialized as to illicit almost the exact opposite emotions.
As for me, I prefer to create joyful memories spontaneously and feel no obligation to try to recreate it annually. I prefer to get together with the people that I enjoy a common interest and not necessarily a common family tree. I prefer to eat food that’s good for my soul and health rather then some of the stomach death traps disguised as “traditional” food. I can go on and on but I think you get my drift. Tradition and culture are some what helpful starting point but make for poor crutch for the journey of enlightenment.
