And not only that, but you raise a really valid point. I'm sort of really beginning to get into the nitty-gritty of who I believe I am, so a lot of this rings home. I mean, as a white australian, no one much questions my 'right' to consider myself australian. But I've a friend who is as many generations Australian (eight) as me, but of Chinese descent and people always act so much more surprised, as if somehow they thought all of the chinese settlers just disappeared again after the gold rush. Or something. I mean, even typing that I feel embarrassed.
The other thing is, yeah? No one has the right to tell anyone else who or what they are. To tell someone that they can't claim a cultural heritage just because they've been fortunate in their socio-economic situation is... stupid. People keep making the mistake of assuming that what they see on World vision ads, or read in books is somehow the 'true' african/vietnamese/chinese/korean/etc. culture, and any variance within that is false. And what's more is that they think this assumption is somehow worldly of them, that they're defending that culture or something. Instead what they're doing is shoving it into a box and painting it 2D.
So well done for writing that and thank you for posting it. (the stuff about individuation was especially beautiful) xx
!!!
And not only that, but you raise a really valid point. I'm sort of really beginning to get into the nitty-gritty of who I believe I am, so a lot of this rings home. I mean, as a white australian, no one much questions my 'right' to consider myself australian. But I've a friend who is as many generations Australian (eight) as me, but of Chinese descent and people always act so much more surprised, as if somehow they thought all of the chinese settlers just disappeared again after the gold rush. Or something. I mean, even typing that I feel embarrassed.
The other thing is, yeah? No one has the right to tell anyone else who or what they are. To tell someone that they can't claim a cultural heritage just because they've been fortunate in their socio-economic situation is... stupid. People keep making the mistake of assuming that what they see on World vision ads, or read in books is somehow the 'true' african/vietnamese/chinese/korean/etc. culture, and any variance within that is false. And what's more is that they think this assumption is somehow worldly of them, that they're defending that culture or something. Instead what they're doing is shoving it into a box and painting it 2D.
So well done for writing that and thank you for posting it. (the stuff about individuation was especially beautiful)
xx