Being an Asian immigrant is hard in a European country. Some things need to be consciously thought out. Like culture for example. Do you retain your old culture or you blend with the new culture? Which culture is better? Do you evaluate totally or partially? If your original culture is lower in your evaluation, it makes you feel second class to yourself as a consequence. If higher, I question myself why am I not better than most of them, economically and physically. Whichever is higher, I tend to look down on the lower one. Blending with the new culture is psychologically hard too, since I have to lose my own culture and acquire a foreign culture. These thoughts taxes my self-image and my mind.
There are just things that I can’t do away with and transform myself into a European in a blink of an eye (and vice versa for any European). My past experiences/story, my language, my physical features, the people that I value (relatives and friends) all these I can’t really just chuck away. I value them just as I value the new friends that I am making and encountering.
So how am I coping right now, after 3 years? I settled on the thought that my culture and their culture are different and not to be compared. It’s like when I do not ask myself which is better, a hammer or a saw, or a stove or a washing machine. They exist for different purposes. There is no need then for wholesale rejection of my or their own culture. As a matter of fact, it made me appreciate my own culture better than before. There are also a lot of good things about my culture which I just need to supplement with the good points of European culture. I can use my familiarity with European culture to improve my own culture. Now I realized that no one culture is totally superior to the other, each can learn from the other. But what we can learn would depend on the person’s values and circumstances.
How one treats other culture depends on one’s exposure to it. At the minimum, what is needed is tolerance of other cultures. Tolerance is partial respect. Acceptance is more than partial respect. Adoption is total respect. All are acceptable reaction to a foreign culture as each is conditioned by the values and philosophies I have. Some aspects of European culture may be tolerated, accepted or adopted, the same way for Asian culture. Intolerance is not an acceptable reaction to any culture. In the first place, it’s not mine but theirs to live with. Although a compromise, this is the best course of action that I can think of, as I was able to retain my self-worth without lowering their self-worth in my eyes, which will drive how I will treat them.
Tahoŋ kadlagan чakoh (I am a man of the forest).
