Being born and raised in China, I have no doubt about where I belong. The minute I stepped into America, I knew exactly which community I should stay with. As time passes, the fact that I am so depended on the Chinese community often annoys me. By saying this, I do not mean my community is bad. I am afraid that I don’t have the courage to step out of this community like many others, and thus, get stuck in there for the rest of my life. I simply cannot imagine myself working in Chinatown after twenty years as I do now.
Of course, there are some aspects that I don’t like within this so-called Chinese-American community. As a native Chinese, I can say with confidence that I know Chinese cultures and traditions better than many people within this community. What I feel really sad about my community is that people abandon their traditions intentionally in order to appear to be “Americanized”. I often feel silly for people who talk in what I call “American Chinese” to show how qualify they are as Americans. Recently, some community leaders become more aware about the loss of Chinese cultures, so they create many “cultural advocacy programs” in the community. I do not think these programs will have any significant results. After all, cultures and traditions are pass on generations by generations. It cannot be “taught back” with the same quality and meaning once it is abandoned.
Spending half of this entry talking about my silly opinions, it is time to talk about arts. When you ask me which arts can represent the Chinese culture the most, I can name thousands of them. All of them are equally significant and important to me as part of the Chinese culture. However, there is a little handicraft that gradually becomes the symbol of Chinese culture in many foreigners’ eyes. You can see it on almost every Chinese style decoration. It might be the first thing you think of when talking about Chinese handicraft, but you don’t know exactly what it is. This handicraft has at least a thousand years of history and was preserved in any kind of Chinese cultures. It is Chinese knot.
Why are Chinese knots so significant? Just because it is so common and beautiful? Maybe not. Chinese knots symbolize what every Chinese treasures the most—union, auspiciousness and wellness. These “norms” are deeply founded in Chinese people’s hearts that no matter where they go, these “norms” will follow them, and remind them of their traditions. There are many kinds of Chinese knots and each has a different purpose. Yet, they all contain the same meaning—the best benediction to the people who receive them.
To me, no matter how traditional I am and how “Americanized” the people in my community are, Chinese knots can always tie us together. We once share the same cultures and traditions, just like most Chinese knots start with a single string. We then go in different directions to seek our life, just like the string is braided into different patterns. At last we are all tie together again, just like the Chinese knots. We are all bonded at the beginning by the same string of culture and origin. No matter what we abandon, the knots still tie us together with those Chinese “norms”.
