A recollection of my culture
(By: Valred
Olsim)
When
I was in high school, we were often grouped according to the language we spoke
in preparation for cultural presentations. Those events left me a lasting
impression that language, culture, and ethnicity are parts of the same concept.
Perhaps, I was not matured enough to bother myself in knowing their difference,
even though I can proudly identify
myself as a “full blooded Igorot” and speak Kankana-ey and Baguio-Benguet
Ilokano fluently aside from English and Filipino. It is, however, in my college
years that I contemplated about culture and discovered that culture is not
merely language, or those ethnic dances and tribal art, but a very “complex
whole encompassing almost all human activities and ideas that is shared by
members of a society”. Thus, the way of life of a society in a period of time
is a defining factor in studying individual cultures, including my own.
In
hindsight, I belong to the human society. Throughout its history, humans have fashioned
universal ways and concepts which are closely linked to their existence. For
instance, the concept of working to eat, regardless of how it is done, received
great regard from different societies. Trade and industries sprung from this need,
and knowledge became a pre-requisite to working in such production-based
societies. As a child, I was conditioned
to stay in a learning environment in preparation for a degree and ultimately to
work in the professional society. Although I was not influenced by the ‘fad’ of
taking-up nursing after high school, it is my belief that the whole educational
system was a culture in itself which is very important to the life of humans. Clearly,
that alone is an indication that society promotes a culture that is basic
towards human sustenance – work.
As
a member of the human society, it was also a natural tendency for me to
“communicate”. I was lucky to know a few dialects together with the national
language, and although there were complicated debates on whether ‘culture created
language’ or the other way around, which is; ‘language created culture’, I am
inclined to believe both, at least to some extent. In my opinion, the main
human culture is to communicate, and language is only a tool, thus, culture may
have created language. However, I also believe that language may create culture
in a way that language can create a subculture. For instance, the ‘Jejemon
culture’ in today’s generation sprouted from the radical creativity of today’s
youth in ‘text messaging’. Perhaps, the message is the medium, thus, language may
have been redefined by the wave of technical gadgets and the abundance and younger
generation’s celebration or reaction to everything that is “new”. Back in my
years for instance, as a teenager, we played heavy metal rock as a way to
express ourselves and consequently as a way to communicate. Our music
preference which contains rebellious language guided us to wearing dark clothes
and tattered pants, having ear-piercings and long hair. We also engaged
ourselves into excessive drinking, and other compromising activities
– a subculture which must be enjoyed by the so called “rockers”. Hence, language
may create culture, although language remains to be the basic vehicle of
cultural life including various belief systems.
I
was born and raised in La Trinidad, Benguet. The town is originally an
agricultural town but was dramatically urbanized due to the inviting
development of Baguio City, its neighboring town which is a center for various
trades in the Cordillera region. The development encouraged migration from its
neighboring municipalities and provinces – from the Kankana-eys and Bontoks
from Mt. Province to Ilocanos and Tagalogs from the lowlands. This predicament
turned La Trinidad into a multi-cultural society – each migrating groups bringing,
to some extent, their ideas, belief systems and other ‘ways of life’. As a
child, I am exposed to these different cultures, in fact my parents are not
originally from here; my father came from Bauko, Mt. Province and Irisan,
Baguio City, and my mother, from Bontoc and Sabangan, Mt. Province, that is why
I recognize the familiar celebration requiring butchering of pigs and inviting
the community to partake in it, or those ethnic dances from those different
cultural origins. However, even these old traditions were modernized and
influenced by different cultures. Celebrations in a typical family in La
Trinidad serve western foods, and adopt the cooking of different provinces,
aside from the traditional “a-nger”. Another manifestation for example is when the
traditional dances were modernized or made into a ‘modern-traditional’ hybrid.
There is much influence and inter-marriage of cultures that I can’t seem to
bother if what I witness is a main culture or not. The good thing about a
multicultural society, however, is that diversity and variety which, for me,
prevents boredom and monotony. We simply have the taste of all worlds. Aside
from these apparent cultural influences, another influencing factor to my tendencies,
or rather, to my belief system is religion.
Christianity
was ultimately embraced by the Philippines in its centuries of struggle against
the Spanish colonizers, albeit, it took time penetrating the strapping mountains
of the Cordillera region. Nevertheless, I was raised by my parents in a
Christian family home – going to mass every Sundays, attending Sunday schools,
and the adherence to a Christian-guided concept of morality. However, there was
a nagging self in me that asks ‘why?’ and ‘what?’ and ‘how come?’ - I am,
fortunately, a natural skeptic. Thus, aside from religion, I embraced philosophy as a way of how I study and evaluate my life,
my existence and almost everything that I can grasp in this world. I was first
fascinated with existentialism before I took metaphysics seriously. Is it
possible that one can deviate from a commonly accepted faith and embrace a
self-acquired belief system? I am not sure. If the premise of culture is something that is
“acquired by humans as members of a society”, it is also quite noting that the
history of humans had echoed tales of conflict, rebellion and opposition as an
essential pre-requisite to the rise of another culture, thus, deviation to
another belief system can grow to another culture or sub-culture.
My
exposure towards a multi-cultural and unstable society often makes me doubt who I am in this world. If a repetitive pattern of action or tendency presents itself into
a society, shall I be compelled to abide by it? Should it necessarily arouse
general acceptance? I have a strong leaning to believe that my generation did
not only openly accept cultures or sub-cultures that were presented to us by
our parents, neighborhood or the community, but by simple tools, like say: the television.
Television which found special places in the house of every modern family, in a
way, became an escape from reality – the immersion to this ‘great moving images
formed by little dots of insignificant light’. In its own self, television has
become a new religion, albeit, the same traditional need for entertainment by
societies. People watch it to be happy, to get through by the day, to relieve
them from things that they don’t want to see. However, it also bombarded us
with numerous information; of commercials and Ads which have turned us into
willing consumers, controlled by the psychology that reality exists on that
box-like frame. It controls us and forces us to oblige on a standard; that
being beautiful is to look like models, and that we have to try their product
to become one, that we have to eat “this” or to do “that” in order to be “in” –
it fed us with a rotten culture of vanity which ultimately became a sub-culture
that is blindly accepted by a society. I saw this happened in my younger years,
unfortunately, it had increased considerably in this time because of the internet
and other social-media.
When
I was in college, I stumbled upon the concept of “culture industry” while doing
a literary research for my prose. This concept introduced me to the idea that
while culture is acquired from spontaneous experiences of groups and changes to
adapt to their needs, there is also a powerful system that is maintained to
manufacture culture for profit, hence the term ‘culture industry’. In my teenage
years, I willingly succumbed to these manipulating strategies; I bought
bracelets which I do not need because the television said that it is a fashion
trend, I listened to pop music because the radio taught the general public that
pop music is “in”, I remember buying baggy six-pocket-pants, because almost
everyone was wearing it in my time and because, for some reason, a powerful
market head decided to introduce and create a “cool fad” which is, ‘wearing
baggy pants’. To have thought of using culture to dictate tendencies of people
only shows that culture, in its complexity, is very important in the human
society
Although
sociologists may still maintain that culture should be spontaneous, there are,
albeit, few attempts of groups to create a culture that may be suitable for themselves.
Parisian art students, for example, vandalized their wall with a quote that
reads, ‘Culture is dead, now let us start creating’. Perhaps one reason that
prompted them to do such move is the existence of cultures that are not just
favorable to the modern generation but also promotes a culture of backwardness.
As a law student, we often encounter laws that are oppressive which are based
on a bias society. There are laws that lean to a chauvinistic male society, like
concubinage in comparison with adultery, or the difference of penalties between
sexes. Come to think of it, law students and lawyers also have a sub-culture of
their own that only they understand.
Indeed,
culture encompasses a complicated entirety that is related to the human way of
life. There are uncertainties on the basis of how people regard things as
culture or not because its complexity is as intricate as the human tendency
itself. Lord Raqlan once defined it as “..rougly anything we do, and monkeys
don’t”. Personally, I have given a few glimpse of what I regard as culture and
sub-culture according to how I’ve experienced life in my 24 years of living. I
have given my doubts on how I can weigh that which is a culture and sub-culture
because I also doubt my own perception on how to distinguish them from each
other. I have doubts because I believe that my generation was the most affected
recipient and victim of the technological explosion which distorted the
traditional definition of culture. Mahatma Gandhi theorized that, “..no culture
can live if it remains to be exclusive”. He may be right. The society today is
different; a neighbor can be a cowboy from Texas, USA or a factory worker in
China. Through the internet, television, and mobile gadgets, our societies have
closely knitted itself into the human fabric. This predicament displaced the
traditional cultures or sub-cultures that were introduced to us by the older
generation. As the tools and the mediums change according to the need of
humans, cultures have also been transformed, and needless to say, mine was not
spared. As a resident of the world, looking at the TV as a window, and talking
to foreigners through the internet as neighbors; I am a member of many
societies where I can adopt many cultures.
I
may be wrong on some of my ideas about culture, but then, I can only deduct
that everything which I have embraced according to my own perception of a ‘way
of life’ is my culture. I’m not pessimistic about the existence of culture; in
fact I highly regard its importance in our society and civilization of humanity.
As my existentialist hero, Albert Camus, said, “Without culture, and the relative freedom it
implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic
creation is a gift to the future.”
A
disorderly and chaotic area represents mismanagement and inefficiency, and on
the part of the people, disobedience and lawlessness. That is why Mayor Isko of
Manila made it a point to clean the streets first before any other business of
the day, or why many politicians pride themselves of their clean and orderly
places, or why Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew made no apologies in penalizing
litterers, or why Japan is the progressive Japan that it is, or why
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. Obviously, the way our place looks reflects
the people that we are. Simple disorder creates more disorder, simple trash invites
more trash.
