We, the souless Asians?

Once in a while, I get sick of all this talk about how we are all bastardized Asians. We have lost our roots and we need to find our identity. And Asian values blah blah.. It's enough that the government has been going on and on about it. Even people around me now are giving in to this kind of rhetoric and actually echo the govt's message. It's true that the younger generations grew up in a culture that is heavily influenced by American TV, Hollywood, Mcdonalds. It is true that we don't sprout Confucian philosophies and we don't have a good mastery over Chinese. But quite frankly, that doesn't make us souless Asians. We are not drifting duckweeds while "genuine Chinese culture" can be firm roots. And we should all revert and try to rediscover our roots. That is a superficial view of what it means to be an asian in the 21st century in the globalized world we are in. This talk when even adopted by people my age, becomes rather naive.

Take a look at China, it has talks about turning Beijing into one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. I saw on news yesterday, a model of the 'future Beijing'. It is all high-rised, glass and metal architectures. The great wall of China, the forbidden city are beautiful and historical valuable, but they are to be preserved as artefacts of the past. They are no longer the symbol of modern Chinese identity in China. And we should stop trying to look for the things which prove to us that we are Chinese, and that we have that culture. We don't need to. It is like trying to find evidence that I am indeed a human because I'm unsure that I am one. Part of this stems from an insecurity on our own part. Being a Chinese is more than speaking mandarin, wearing Cheongsam. It is not a package that we have to have to be considered one. It is inside our consciousness, in our personal history and background, in our unspoken view of the world. We can't dress up as a chinese. It is not on our skin, in the colour of our hair. It might surprise many that more traditional Chinese religious elements survived in Singapore than in China.

Someimtes, I think the problem with Singaporean Chinese is that they lack the confidence to acknowledge that they are Chinese. They need to find evidence of it in their "tradition". But maybe there aren't evidence to support our identity. Maybe, all it takes is the confidence to know that we are Chinese. And that we are Chinese enough, in a globalized and multi-ethnic society like Singapore. So that we can finally stop looking for clues. because there really aren't any.