Though I receive much opposition, I believe Egypt, in all aspects, is the greatest country on earth.  It is my homeland, a place where relief and peace reach me effortlessly. It is where I most identify, where I belong.  We (my ancient Egyptian ancestors and I :P) are most famous for building some of the longest lasting artifacts, the pyramids and the art and culture that came along with them.

    
Whenever someone says Egypt, this is the image they get in their heads.  I know because I’ve been asked plenty of ridiculous questions about whether I live in the pyramids, whether I ride camels to school, even if I get chased by mummies (I was not surrounded by the smartest of children -_-). And I am proud of it, I am proud of this image.  To know that I belong to one of the first and the longest lasting civilizations means a lot and to see the evidence of that in every museum I’ve been feels awesome!

Sadly, this feeling of awesomeness is not shared by all my fellow natives.  My relatives in Egypt hate living there, among the chaos and persecution, and constantly tell me how lucky I am for living in the land of opportunity.  My cousin is dying to go forth with the torturous immigration process just to be out of there, like many of the other youth in the country. I understand Egypt doesn’t not hold the ideal of conditions; trust me, they’re far from it.  But there’s underlying beauty in it all.  In all of the dust, in all of the chaos, even in all the heat! The people are truly genuine, something so rare in America. If they love you, they offer all they have, no matter what it is and no matter their financial condition.  If they hate you, they’ll make that very clear.  But you can deal with the hatred because at least it’s not stabbing you in the back.

Driving down the roads I can smell farmland, which never ceases to amaze me.  They live from the ground and not everything is about making money.  They make just enough to survive, making people value what they have all the more.  Their cars are drab and their fashion, well let’s just say it’s not runway material. But it fits in with it’s environment, I’m completely in love with it.

Which makes me feel terrible when people get too distracted by the politics of it. My parents, who have supposedly seen more of Egypt, are glad to have left it.  They trash the corrupt government and the thieves that own the country, and they have every right. But look at the simplicity, look for the beauty beyond all that.  My friends who have immigrant parents but only know Egypt from our community in America condemn the culture with all that they have.  Being the new generation, they have rejected anything “old-fashioned” and having to do with lives in Egypt.  I understand some things don’t work for a lifestyle here, but not everything is complete garbage.  There are some traditions and idiosyncrasies that are unique to the culture, especially for the holidays, that make it all the more special. How can you condemn it so?

Some people just can’t see it the way that I do. That’s why the song that I attribute so well to my feelings is “Mashribtish Min Nilha” by Sherine (YouTube it!).  In this song she speaks of her love for her country (Egypt) by questioning the Egyptians.  She asks, have you drank from her (her being Egypt, a feminine term) Nile? Have you walked around her streets and told her your troubles? Have you sung your heart out to her? She concludes that those who have not left Egypt cannot miss her; they have not tasted anything else, so they cannot realize her glory, though it towers over all, that glory.

I have been deprived of being able to read and write my language and to grow up with this culture imbedded within me in the name of privilege and opportunity. I am considered a foreigner there, one with different principles and belonging to the “sinful” country that is America.  I dress in a different way and definitely think differently. I misspoke earlier when I said I belonged there: I don’t, it is where I want to belong. I don’t belong here either; it is the immigrant’s plight, to no longer have a land for which to belong.  However, as unwanted as I probably am, I want nothing more than to return and visit. It is still the place of my birth, the place from which my ancestors derived. An Egyptian folk song once said, “Masr heya omi, Nilha howa dammi” directly translated to be ‘Egypt is my mother, her Nile is my blood.’ Every time I hear it I’m just like yeah, exactly, that’s exactly right.

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”.