We had a great snow day today seeing as all classes were cancelled! 😉 So we decided to take a trip to the Met. Though I was kinda tired (still a lil jet lagged), I really enjoyed the tour. Heck, every single time I get a tour at any museum I enjoy the trip so much more. I mean yeah all the paintings and artifacts look interesting and stuff, but it makes it a thousand times more interesting when you understand the history, culture, symbolism behind the details and structure. Art history.. I am taking one class in that field this semester, and I must say the professor is really passionate about his subject. I dare say this will be my most interesting class this sem (apart from Italian, which is a whole different challenge anyways).

I have recently come to realize that I am starting to get annoyed at certain people and certain things. Certain things pertaining ethnocentric thinking and behavior. Certain people that hold those beliefs and act as if they are ignorant of the importance of other cultures. Perhaps it is a subconscious attempt to boost one’s own ego; perhaps it is because they were brought up to believe their culture really is greater than others; perhaps they are just lazy to learn about a culture so different from their own. Whatever it is.. I’m bored of it and I’m bored of them.

For me, I come from some rojak culture that gives me the flexibility to understand where different cultures are coming from at times, yet also kinda disconnects me from other people of other nationalities because I don’t know how to feel proud of my culture. I mean, I’m ethnically Chinese: I share some cultural traits as well as traditions etc with the Chinese from China, but we are not the same kind of people. We are not the same at all. I cannot feel fully proud of my Chinese heritage because I am not a Chinese citizen. I did not grow up in a city in China and live they way they did all their lives. Imo to really understand and absorb a culture, you have to live it. To not only know the language they speak, the food they eat, the style of clothes they wear, but to also walk on the paths the commoners walk on every day. To frequent a place only a local would go to. To pick up their colloquial slang and mannerisms (even more interesting than learning the language itself). To be able to put yourself in their shoes and think as they do, feel as they do, make decisions as they do.

But that is the extent of what I am willing to do–to be able to but not do so myself.