Culture? What say you?

Culture; the word runs from the Latin root word colere which means to cultivate. Heavily used throughout the global community to signify the way human beings perform various activities in their social circles and the symbolic structures or patterns to explain or describe the activities' intents. How is one to define culture?

I was reading through Wikipedia's post on culture. It's a long list of the definition of 'culture'. You read it cause i dont want to explain. Here's the gist tho...

• 1 Defining culture
  • 1.1 Culture as values, norms, and artifacts
  • 1.2 Culture as civilization
  • 1.3 Culture as worldview
  • 1.4 Culture as patterns of products and activities
  • 1.5 Culture as symbols
  • 1.6 Culture as stabilizing mechanism
• 2 Cultural change
• 3 Propagating culture
• 4 Cultural studies
• 5 Sample list of cultures
  • 5.1 Cultures of contemporary countries and regions
  • 5.2 Contemporary local cultures
  • 5.3 Other contemporary cultures
  • 5.4 Historic cultures

But Ija, why all of a sudden, you bring up culture? Haha..

No significant reason... it's just Nusantara is upon MASA@RPI pretty soon and to come up with a theme and idea that will satisfy each living being in the Malaysian Student ASSociation is a tough job. Poor project managers... so all the talk about "Malaysian culture is not about dancing".. yup, very true. Malaysian culture is everywhere.. mind you it's MALAYSIAN culture.. meaning it encompasses the Malays, Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Nyonyas etc etc etc. And with that it slithers through all of the different beliefs; Islam, Christian, Hindu, Pagan, etc etc etc.

Culture is shown through our everyday routine. When you shake somebody's hand, you either kiss it or bring your hand back to your chest. When you walk in front of an elder or somebody sitting down, you bend down with one hand at the back and the other strecthed down in front of you. When you go into someone's house, you take off your shoes. You offer to do the dishes eventhough you know you don't have to. You eat with your hands. You wash your feet before you go to sleep. When you talk you put the suffix 'lah' at the end of your word. Of course you have the Malaysian Time .: janji Melayu for some people:.; the plus minus but always minus. We have our mamak stall hobby. Balik kampung for any Hari Raya, Raya Haji, Raya Cina, Raya India, Raya Orang Putih as well as Open Houses for all these Rayas. We have additional suffixes picked out from the Malays (the 'lah', 'kan'), Chinese (the 'haiiyo, 'amoi aa'), Indian (the 'deeeyyy','aiyoyo'). We respect the Muslims no-pork rule and the Hindus no-beef customs. You wear your national costumes like baju kurung, cheongsam, sari, baju melayu and many others.

We have weddings, angpaus, neighborly food exhange, pasar malam, pasar tani, traffic jam and an endless list. These are among the few cultural activities we do. It's a way of life as i see it. The notion "Malaysian culture is not about dancing" is of course, so true. I am not disowning the only culture i've grown up living, but if we are trying to demonstrate to foreigners the way we live, we then should invite them to live with us. Seriously, let's have "Adopt a Malaysian for a Day" program and then we can show the real deal with us Malaysians.

But that's highly unlikely lah kan...? Since we are a very SHY community. Chet!

So then cant we resort to a second option? In order to show and educate the gaijin(s) out there, we can use our stage culture. Don't understand? It's putting the way we conduct our daily transcations on the stage? Don't understand? Perform! Why should we punish the Malaysian culture by hiding all of our artsy and creative side? How can our kompang and sape live? Where can our zapin, lion dance, indian dance go? How can we narrate Mahsuri, Puteri Santubong, Hang Tuah, Puteri Gunung Ledang and Hang Li Po if we choose to shut up? How can our nasi lemak, kuih lapis, kuih bulan, pulut and thousand other delicacies be exposed in the international cuisine list? How about the lovely voices of dikir barat, syair, gamelan, ghazal?

That's the interesting and intriguing part about having a culture anyway. Being able to channel what we do everyday into a more amusing sometime mysterious performance. So people who see them will actually be captivated by the many talents us Malaysians have. Let's take Tarian Endang for an example.. do you know that the dance is actually a show about a group of young women going to the river to wash their clothes? Huh, bet you didnt know that. Zapin was introduced in Johor by Muslim missionaries as a way to spread Islam. Ever noticed that Zapin is performed by males dominantly? Wayang kulit and makyong are very popular in Kelantan, the place where Islam is said practiced everywhere.

Isk.. banyak nak cakap but then one thing about being a Malaysian that sucks a bit is there is actually no freedom of speech although katanya ada. Chet!! So all these ramblings and rungut came from gaya2 nak buat Nusantara or not.... Dulu2, i was thinking to myself. We could have a show about Mahsuri or Hang Tuah.. like a folklore to share with the Americans. In that show, there will be main sepak raga, pasar malam with all the Indians and Chinese who came to Melaka. Show the istana, the sampan, the this the that. But then, that was only bla bla bla from my part. And from what i'm seeing, Nusantara is just a blablabla cause sooo manyyyy people noot willing to compromise (inlcuding me). Kalau nak senang let's have a pasar malam instead!