My Apathy towards other Cultures

Sometimes, I feel as if a giant bell inside my head has just awoken me when I finally take notice of something that has always been so apparent, yet hidden. This feeling of sudden enlightenment (and epic failure) is exactly how I feel right now.

If I were not assigned to blog about the extent of my knowledge about India, I would have never realized how oblivious I am to other cultures (including that of my own ethnicity). Despite living in one of first countries in the world to officially recognize themselves as a multicultural nation, and residing in one of the largest Indian communities in the heart of Mill Woods my entire life, I have truly never bothered to learn more about the culture of my fellow neighbours.

Up until now, the things I do know about India are limited to the basics that I had came across through mainstream media and the Internet. These include: a population that is over 1.2 billion; an emerging economy that dominates in information technology and communications; a food palate that emphasizes spiciness; and a nation with an undeniable love for cricket. Even though I have many close childhood friends who are all Indian ethnicity, I find it incredibly odd that my knowledge towards their cultural background could be simply summarized in just a single sentence. After knowing them for so many years, I can never recall the topic of India coming up in our casual day-to-day conversations. Maybe such conversations have occurred, but even so, it was probably not of particular importance to me to remember.

Perhaps my apathy towards India is due to the fact that I just do not care about other cultures. Whether this is true or not, it raises an interesting topic for discussion, which is: “Why are some people like myself apathetic towards multiculturalism?”. Some believe there should be absolutely no excuse for us to be apathetic, as we live in such a multicultural society that has people immigrating from all corners of the globe. Through some of the technologies available to us today, including mountains of books, thousands of television channels, and zettabytes of data, we should be more globally aware than any other human-beings that have preceded us. But I believe this is not the case.

I feel that people are indeed coming together in ever more diverse cultural backgrounds through multiculturalism. However, what I think is really happening is that even though people are bringing cultural diversity into Canada when they immigrate here, they are not actively promoting and sharing their cultures. Yes, we may have local events such as the Heritage Festival, that enable other Canadians to take pride in their heritage and to freely practice their faiths. But at the end of the day, I believe new Canadians are pressured to integrate and assimilate with the “mainstream” society, where the vast majority of us communicate primarily in a common language and dress in a similar fashion.

I do not frequently display or talk about my Chinese heritage because I feel compelled to fit in with the rest of the crowd around me. I may be embracing my culture by speaking Chinese and openly talk about topics regarding Hong Kong while at home or with close relatives in my private life. On the contrary, while I am out, I tend to switch to the more commonly spoken language (which is English), and I would much rather talk about something that is more relatable with everyone else than my own cultural identity—that be it sports, television, or even gossip.

Having said that, I think the reason I do not know much about other cultures such as India is because I believe multiculturalism just means to be able to tolerate and build a society that is only able to embrace each other’s differences on specific occasions. However, after penning this blog, perhaps it means something more. Instead of blending into a common identity and only embracing our unique identities on certain occasions or hidden behind doors at home, we should be taking an active role in learning about each other's similarities and differences. This can be accomplished by simply being more open in conversing about our cultural differences rather than trying to blend into a single monotonous identity. There is a saying that if we do not use it, we lose it, right? With China and India rising to be the world’s economic superpowers, it would be largely advantageous if we could relate through our cultural diversities and connect that way. Can you imagine how boring a world it would be if we lost the vibrancies of all our cultural differences and share a similar identity? What defines us as humans is that we are all unique. Thus, we should be taking whatever opportunities we have to learn about other cultures, and also, share our own philosophies. This is how we move humanity forward.