A Series on Cultural Identity: An Iron necklace and Superstition

“Wear Silver to blind the demons of you, Iron to keep the fey at bay, and Gold to be watched by Angels above:” My very bad translation of a family superstition. I am superstitious, seems a little too ‘uneducated’ to be part of culture, but it is in my opinion it is an important part of people’s day to day culture. When I lose something that I find it in a place I knew it was not before, I live a small cap of milk outside my house for the fairies whatever they may be called. I wear iron and silver more times than not from my family’s adage. I pray for my food whose death was done for my benefit to find happiness in the next ‘whatever’ (my grandmother swears it from my great-great-great grandmother who was part native American and we never had problems with food in tough times because of it).  I have always held the idea that while it may seem strange, I know for a fact stranger things are out there, and maybe just maybe there is truth, and reason and rhyme to why people taught this through generation, and I am not one to take chances with the powers that be.  I included it because my attitude towards some things, which fall under being superstitious, is maybe the strongest sense of my familial culture background, as it shows my large ‘blood’ background in Irish, and the other Isles of Brittany; and also of my family’s background in Germany, France, and Sicilia.

A series on Cultural Identity: A handkerchief

I identify myself as being one to try to preserve the past, specially the ‘useful’ arts. The handkerchief was chosen to represent that, mainly because it was found while I was looking for another piece of my sewing works. My parents have instilled a sense of need to save the working arts for future generations even if technology has made these ‘arts’ and skills unnecessary. I can sew, using both a sewing machine and by hand; lay bricks, wielding, minor smithy work, I can work a hand loom, clean silver, set a table for a full five course meal, and shear most farm animals for their wool/fur. For my generation having these skills is considered weird. Not sure how this plays into the idea of culture we have been talking about this semester but its culture and those of us who are preserving it view ourselves as subculture of modern culture. It also has to do with my culture identity as a female; therefore I am automatically a teacher of the next generation and must be able to pass on valuable skills and ideas to the future generations. So maybe I am bound by the ideas of feminine duty instilled by society?!? Though every culture I have ever been in seems to instill that idea to a certain extent, so it kind of fails at defining my culture for this project. 

A series on Culture Identity: the Crown of a Flute

This is one of those kinds of silly, identity things, but I cultural identify myself as a music listener/appreciators. Seems weird, I guess, but everyone else in my family all the way to my fifth cousins are musically inclined, they all play at least one instrument and can sing a least a bit. I CAN NOT DO ANYTHING THAT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE SOMETHING DYING.  I am seriously not musical inclined. It took met years to realize that I shouldn’t try to make music because it was not my forte. The Crown of my flute is a remind of Mr. Connor (who was a fed living next door working on busting a drug ring, it was weird), who told me that not being able to make music and appreciate it was an important part of culture and that it was my responsibility to listen to those who did, when he found my flute crown when I lost it because I was crying at the fact I got kicked out of band in middle school. And I listen to music, I don’t particular remember a band or group or even one type of music. I listen to everything and take every song as an individual moment of human expression. My ‘tastes’ run from R&B to Bubble gum, Mozart to techno, rock in all forms, Musicals, classical pieces of European descent to African drum stories to Ballywood film music. I listen to pretty much anything as long as the music is ‘clean’ of hate messages.

A series on Culture Indentity: Artifact One

Curry Powder and a place called Home

It’s a strange thing, Curry. For many of my fellow Americans; Curry is a sign of foreign cuisine, something that is found only in strange Asian inspired Restaurants. For me Curry, is a sign of home, family, friends and togetherness. Both kinds of families; the ones bound by blood and those bound by ties of love. The smell of yellow curry, causing a sharp singe in your nose, reminds me of winter, coming in from the cold, a batch of my father’s  chicken and vegetable curry on the stove while I warm up my fingers by the fire, it happened at least twice a month. The Sweet smell of green curry reminds me of Spring; Suki, who went by the name of James, a Japanese-Chinese American classmate; his mother in the garden planting tulips and digging up spring onions to go in the curry; and my first kiss. The Singeing pain of red curry burning my nose sends me back to being in Al’s during Ramadan, the curry cooking in a crock-pot as everyone waits for sundown, us children playing tag and role playing our favorite video game plots among the leaves.  For me Curry is a good place to start because it reminds me of the place I came from; a small ethnical diverse neighborhood on the edge of a small suburban town between two large cities; in the small run down ‘mill’ style house and the wooden condos with the paint peeling there were a few dozen countries and cultures represented by the families who lived there. A place where religions and race lost a lot of meaning to the people who lived there, especially us children, and we all ran wild through each other’s homes, and cultures; creating a blended mix of ideas about the world and who we were. It is most relevant to my culture identity because signifies my lack of understanding of culture identity, and my struggle with dealing with people with a strong sense of it. 

A Series on Cultural Identity: The Intro

For my Language and Culture Community Leadership class we had to make a Culture Notebook. A notebook containing eight to ten artifacts that represented our Culture identity and a introduction/summary of what the culture notebook had in it and themes of our identity. I am posting them here in the entirety as a series of post over the next few days/maybe all tonight, counts on how frisky I feel. 

Here is my Introduction:

A PLACE TO BEGIN

This Assignment has been one of the hardest assignments I have had all year. Why, Might you ask? It is because I have never felt I had much of a culture identity, when asked I could give you the normal stats, I am a Caucasian (I am still confused as why we are called Caucasian while those of who are actual of the Caucasian Mountains are more often than not consisted Middle Eastern, or Asian); I am a female, I live in the south eastern US (affectingly called the South), and  I have an British Isle, German, Dutch, Italian, French, and Greek descent linage. After all this is what the United States government uses to identify your culture identity on every standardize test you take through all your schooling. If asked that until the last two/three years, I would say that was my culture identity. In the last two or three years, I learned that while that is my ‘culture birthplace, I strayed a far away from that, between my birth and then, and maybe because of my parents background in other cultures, that ‘identifying was like identifying where my ancestor lived centuries ago and saying that was where I was now. Now, my culture identity is identified as my identity, if you want it you are going to have to stick about and see who I am, because it’s the only way to figure out what I am. The theme of my culture identity notebook is confusion, blending, and stories of lives brought together by the American dream. It is very possibly my only culture identity, that of an American, a child born of the blending of the cultures, races, and ideals. My identity both socially, mentally and apparently culturally are created by the blending of cultures created by the people whose lives have interacted with mine and shaped who I have become.

Red Wine is for killing me with apparently. . .

Guess who found out the reason she hates HATES HATES red wine, is that she is allergic to it, and spent two hours keeled over as she was raked in pain. Yep, Happy Day before thanksgiving to Li-Li. Though I must admit I was happy I had the most severe reaction I have ever had to red wine with my parents. I have had some before and I felt horrible afterwards but I assumed A) it was the mix of what I drank, or b) It was cheap nasty wine and it was from a college kid so who knew what else got into that bottle before I got it.  The only cases not subjected to it was the Red wine I had in Taiwan and it wasn't bad, and I assumed the massive headache was from the company not the drinking. 

Since I am on lessoned learned this weekend, I learned it NOT a good idea to ask your sister causal about the school she applied to or her SAT scores, its opening a big can of worms with an ATOMIC BOMB inside that starts ticking the moment you open it with 3 seconds on the clock. *KABOOM* You are dead. And apparently I am smarter than all my siblings, and I didn't ever know it. . . I spent three hours hearing everyone in my house (all four of my siblings, my dad, my mom and a random person on the phone with one of my sisters') tell me so. Otherwise Thanksgiving went off without a hitch, not one problem at all. It was an act of god.

In other news, I got sent an anonymous email with a note written by an unnamed party for this blog, that is apparently about me, not really sure, I get metaphors and I can't make the 'real' connection I am suppose to . I cried at it for an hour after I got it. Thank you random stranger, that is more likely not random, but I don't care;  I appreciate it.Not completely sure what it means but it was one of the most beautiful things I ever read. It was amazing.

Edit: yes it has changed a bit, I got highjacked to plot out the Black friday madness in the middle of it. I hate Black Friday with a passion but ever year I find myself spending hours out in it. Some how I think when I grow up not to be home every holiday I will not go out into this madness.

Clarity found, once again.

Today was a great day, even when it started off so rocky. I slept through my alarm, and was almost late to my first class of the day, and one of my personal favorites for the semester, Econ. Guess I was up to late sorting out all my weird emotions I didn't know I had yesterday, I really hate those days when you are suddenly overwhelmed with emotions you didn't know you had, and suddenly they are going to drown you. EEEK!

But about today, I don't know what happened but today things just clicked, I am trying to be all Sean like and define the calm-ness/empowerment that my mind just suddenly had but I can't find words at all. Today was amazing, its like the world just was freaking amazing. I did really decent on my Finance Test (a 90) which is great because its one of those classes I love but I still struggle with, and just knowing I am getting it is awesome. I talked to two of my professors in Business and I have my Academic recommendations for ISEP all done more likely early next week. So All I have left really is writing my Personal statement and then translating it into Japanese, and making 5 or 6 copies of my Application to send off and BAM! I am done with my ISEP stuff and am ready to go!

AND the Mentor class, today it went really well, I am now on the Service Committee for the LCC and I am exited, though really nervous, while I like Community Service and I think the wide range of know how that the group has and how much we can do for the people around us I am still nervous about failure. And the hostile that was overwhelming yesterday at the potluck was not there today, I am not saying it wasn't tense, but there was no where the level of malice I felt last night at my very existence, which is a great improvement. 

I am rambling on, and its almost 1 am here, and I need to sleep as my boss wants me in to work tomorrow at 9 am, b/c its more convient for her if I do. Which I think is weird as she never ever sees me at work anyways, if it was my staff co-worker who is pretty much the one I see as my day-to-day  supervisor (basically she isn't the one signing my check) is going to be here all day tomorrow so no problems there. So Yes I need to sleep. I am so excited about Thanksgiving this year, maybe because I think this year no one will have a bad time at home and no insane drama will occur.

SLEEP. I MUST DO IT NOW!