I'm a first generation New Zealander, and lemme tell ya, being an immigrant is weird. Your parents are forever berating you for assimilating, general society is pushing you to assimilate or be shunned, and then there are the goddamned cultural groups.
Cultural groups, found at almost every large educational facility up and down this country, where immigrant kids go to uh, rediscover/reaffirm their cultural links through international food fairs and innumerable cultural nights. Hi, welcome to my hell.
In my opinion, cultural groups inevitably become this icky microcosm amplifying the negative aspects of all societies. Gossiping, back-stabbing & neverending popularity contests hide beneath the lipstick'd, be-costumed surface of cultural groups, and it's enough work battling with that, never mind dancing in front of 300 strangers in a flimsy approximation of a ~traditional dancing costume.
Feel free to call me a bitter reject, though. I never fitted in with the culturally friendly crowd at my all girls high school, not in the least because I couldn't dance for shit, my mother wasn't interested in cooking to factory scale or sewing costumes and uh, I was really bad at making friends with other Sri Lankan girls. You rarely saw my family at temple when it wasn't an Open Day, and my parents weren't really keen on most other Lankan families. Of course that made hanging out with Lankans even more appealing as a vehicle for my teenage angst, ignoring one teeny tiny problem. I have no fucking idea how to get on with Sri Lankan girls. I swear to you, they are a strange and obnoxious species, and woe betide you if you aren't party to the Secret Sri Lankan Girl Handbook they keep tucked in between the piles of textbooks and parent-friendly extracurricular reading. And my God, in high school and even out of it, just generally, sometimes it's goddamn good to be around a group of people who get you just by virtue of where you were born and where you live now. Who understand parents that won't let them go out on the weekends, who understand having to fight to go to a school ball, who eat with their hands and you don't need to explain that intrinsic shit to, because it's them, it's their life too. It's such a fucking relief, but then you realize you're trading off the individuality, the freedom that you get other places. The freedom to drink, and to go out, and not be judged, and not have your parents judged for it. The freedom to dress as you please, and swear like a sailor, and eat what you like, and say what you like, and learn what you like, befriend who you like, believe what you like. So you leave, and instantly all these judgements fall on your head, you're suddenly too good to be what you were born, and there is no other feeling that can compare to when you feel like you're not allowed to be who you are and have your heritage at the same time.
So high school was kind of shit in the 'hang with your countrymen' respect, but I figured, hey that's high school. Everyone has that one thing about high school that turned out to be shit. Little did I know that at university, they have the same shit. Plus alcohol, minus parental supervision. So now you have cultural nights where the same obnoxious chicks from high school end up getting wasted (because they have no idea of how to handle their alcohol, they're too busy judging you when you drink), and food fairs where you ask for a delicious cabbage-based dish and get um, hacked strips of uncooked cabbage, and this pervading unfriendliness if you don't fit with the group in general. Aw yay!
Oh, did I forget to mention that if you don't fit in with this shit masquerading as connecting with your culture, you get written off as an Oreo who doesn't care about their culture?
Look. Being Sri-Lankan, to me, has nothing, abso-fucking-lutely NOTHING, to do with being a member of some cultural group. Having pride in my culture and my roots goes so far beyond that, for me, that it's kind of laughable to be defined by such narrow, convoluted definitions. Feel free to celebrate your culture in any way you choose, just don't feel free to judge me on my reaction to your mode of expression. You're wasting your time, because I don't need your approval to validate my choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment