a glimpse of sharon world...

the westernization of asians

all the yamaha concerts i was talking about in my previous post happened at the japanese canadian cultural centre. while i was there, i had a chance to walk around the building a little bit, take a look at the beautiful artwork and pictures on the walls, and read stories about the lives of many past japanese canadians. the interior of the building itself looked really nice; it had a strong japanese flavour with bamboo/paper screens, really clean lines, and a sense of elegant simplicity in the space. it was nice to see how proud these individuals were of their japanese heritage and how they balanced this loyalty to their 'motherland' (japan) with their canadian nationalism as well.

being at the JCCC for the couple of days i was there made me realize to an even bigger extent how disconnected i've become with my own chinese heritage. i think the longer asians reside in canada, the easier it becomes for us to lose touch with our roots because we become more westernized. (well, i know this is true with me...i'm as jook-sing as a jook-sing can be.) believe you me i'm proud to be a jook-sing, but at the same time i'm conscious of the fact that i don't know many of the chinese legends, chinese history is completely foreign to me (i learned canadian and european history in school), and while i draw the line at chinese opera (my poor ears), i think it's pretty sad that i don't even know the chinese language very well.

now when i say chinese heritage/roots, i'm not talking about the 'new-wave' of chinese culture (i.e. the hong kong scene with bubble tea, pacific mall, and flashing cell phone lights), but the traditional chinese culture which slowly seems to be fading as even china is gradually becoming more westernized. don't get me wrong, i'm not saying this is a bad or good thing, i'm just saying it's a little sad to think of all the traditional aspects of chinese culture that might potentially become lost one day...

anyway, i did some research and found that there's actually a chinese cultural centre of greater toronto (which i totally had no idea existed). they have this cool summer camp thing you get trained by a shaolin monk master (how very kung-fu the legend continues-ish of them. bah hah.)...

too bad the camp is only for children aged 4-12. :P