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This guest blog comes from Sudakshina Mukherjee on adopting new interests in other cultures. Source: http://www.virgin.com/lifestyle/news/mixed-masala-adopting-new-cultural-practices
With the advent of the Digital Era and the Global Village, intercultural mish-mashing has never been so rampant, so blatant and so instant. As you’ve become an online social networking user has your own interest towards other cultures grown? Have you dabbled with or adopted cultural practices foreign to your own? Depending on how much time you spend online, your interest towards other cultures is likely to have grown as you are likely to meet people who come under your version of ‘interesting’, because their cultural values and practices are new to yours. What’s new is different and what’s different is change – i.e. change from the mundane. Let’s take myself as an example. I’m your 20-something British-Asian woman, with her high-schooling from Kolkata, India and her high-ed and subsequent career in good old Blighty. My own cultural perspective is definitely a mishmash of the religiously-fervent cultural practice of Kolkata, with the let’s-consider-equality-and-diversity thinking of London. But, as it turns out, it’s not just me or diasporic Indians who are juggling all this. Many native urban Indians and native Western folk have taken on this intercultural juggling too. A new-found respect for all things Indian (run-up to the Commonwealth Games asides, ahem) has bloomed in the past decade and this makes me rather chuffed. What amuses me is how urban Indians in droves have taken to Western cultural practices, irrespective of their financial or educational background, and often not even realising it. “Madam, if you need me out-of-hours, leave me a missed call and I’ll call you back”, says my domestic helper (in Bengali, of course), who had very little schooling. Or, “finding a nice guy is hard, innit?” says a Mumbai-based friend of mine. “How did a quintessentially British word, like ‘innit’ get into your lingo?” I ask. “I picked it up from my UK customers, innit,” comes her reply. Or, shopping malls in India now classify saris and suits as ‘ethnic wear’. I know, it bemuses me too. Or, Indians go to temples in a jeans and top and Westerners visit wearing the traditional Indian clothes. If this isn’t mixed masala, what is?
Sudakshina Mukherjee is a journalist and lecturer. Find more of her writings at www.journalismwithsudakshina.com(http://www.journalismwithsudakshina.com/) . Photo by Intercultural Cake Toppers(http://littlebrownbride.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/intercultural-cake-toppers.jpg ) . This story complies to Virgin.com terms & conditions(http://www.virgin.com/terms/) .
In response to my discussion on LinkedIn about being multicultural, Chris Gelken who is a program host/co-producer of Today at China Radio International commented : “Sounds like a fascinating subject for a panel discussion on our program Today on Beyond Beijing! If you’d like to lend a hand in arranging a couple of panelists in our Beijing studio and another couple on the phone, I’d be delighted to put it into the schedule!”
Two weeks later I was on their radio programme. The broadcast was on 10 a..m Bejing time, which meant that I had to be stand-by at 3.00 a.m! But what an experience it was and I am still grateful for the opportunity! -The broadcast can be heard by clicking on the picture below.-
2009-11-13 Being Multicultural.
p.s. China Radio International (CRI) is the only overseas broadcaster in the People’s Republic of China. CRI was founded on December 3, 1941 and is owned and operated by the state. CRI is one of the “three central media organizations in China” along with China National Radio (CNR) and China Central Television (CCTV).
‘Today’ has just won the first prize for “Outstanding New Show” – and has received a nomination in the China News Awards!
