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"We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they have all learned to live together in the same box!"

Sunday 7 April 2013

Culture?!

I know as white English South Africans we are sometimes ashamed of our culture or lack thereof? we aren't always sure what our culture looks like. We don't have a definite list of WHITE ENGLISH foods or a WHITE ENGLISH dress code and so we feel like we dont have a culture!?

In thinking about how i want to raise Luc i have been thinking about my culture or tradition and what i want to pass on to him. I realised that it isnt important if it is my white english culture or Philippe's coloured culture what i want to pass on to him is our families culture and traditions...
And language has me a bit stumped here... Traditions? Culture? The best term seems to be "things we do"

So these are some things that i want to pass on to him. Some are Philippe's families things, some are from my family but most are from our family. And some we do, some we do sometimes and some are only good intentions but will hopefully become traditions.
  1. Loving and valuing family. And prioritising family
  2. Celebrating birthdays with singing (Philippe's family are much better at the singing!), presents (my family) and in particular quirky pressies (Us!)
  3. Eating together as a family
  4. Love for the outdoors
  5. Respecting and being interested in other people (even different, weird ones)
  6. Being silly and funny and laughing at your own jokes and having in- family jokes that only we find funny
  7. Giving to people in need
  8. Being generous with our time, money and stuff (Philippe is better at this than me...Work in progress!)
  9. Attending church as a family
  10. Love for reading
  11. Being life- long learners
  12. Not being apathetic
  13. Valuing and celebrating our friends
  14. Exercising regularly (Again something Philippe does better than me)
  15. Saving 1 christmas present to open with just our immediate family on christmas morning regardless of who we are sharing christmas with
  16. Cuddling together in bed (once in a while!)
  17. Chatting through out the day on bbm, sms, fb, whats app...
i will keep adding to this list as i think of things...
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4 comments:

  1. rkidao8 April 2013 at 05:44

    I think culture is important and it is the constantly evolving know how that is passed on from generation to generation about how to live within a particular society in a particular environment - sort of the 'rules' of engagement both with the human and the natural environment so that we may experience a sense of belonging and all round well being.

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  2. Kathy10 April 2013 at 20:38

    I like that- "the rules of engagement" and what gives us a sense of belonging...
    I think our sense of belonging needs to be within a family and bigger to include a community. I guess i am still getting my head around that sense of belonging to a community.

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    Replies
    1. rkidao17 April 2013 at 05:26

      I am an Indian with a British passport living in Seychelles. Sense of belonging can be at different levels, but yes family is top of the list - even if they are dispersed all over the world.

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  3. Kathy21 April 2013 at 12:01

    Agreed, that family is top of the list...
    I went to an interesting talk on race at Wits and there was a coloured lady there who commented on belonging. She had a white father and black mother so although she was "classified" as coloured she didnt identify with that culture but rather with her parents cultures.
    Just thinking about this for Luc- what culture will he identify with? to an extent i think it will be the one we expose him to!

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