中国文化

Yeah..Title in Chinese. But I am not that confident to express what I'm about to say in Chinese, so English it is.

Chinese has never been my strong point. I've only managed to scrape a B through secondary school but it was enough for me. I mean, I wasn't going to be studying Chinese or whatever in university right?

But thanks to my Chinese teacher in Form 5, I started to appreciate the beauty of the Chinese language. The beauty of the way the characters are written, the way the poets injected the feeling into the poems, often so melancholic, so abstract.

I started to listen more to Chinese music. Not just Jay Chou. There's a channel 304 on Astro. On weekdays 6.18 to 6.48 pm, there's always this singing programme where they'll introduce Chinese and ethnic singers.

I've learned about many wonderful singers, like 宋祖英，腾格尔，凤凰传奇，李玉刚 and many more. 宋祖英 is a wonderful soprano singer, 腾格尔 is a Tibetian (I think) ethnic singer, same with 韩虹 and 凤凰传奇. 李玉刚 is an opera singer who is a guy, but impersonates a woman. If you've heard Chinese opera before, you'll know that the female parts are extremely high pitched. He. Is. Awesome.

I guess I've started to connect with China through her arts and music. I've never really seen China as my so-called motherland. Malaysia has always been my home, and always will be. But I think there's this connection that people feel since long, long ago with the place they originated from, maybe from they're ancestors. I don't know. But that's how I feel. And I'v always thought the Chinese language was extremely important in that Chinese people HAD to learn Chinese.

I suppose that's why I sort of looked down or despised those Chinese who either a) don't learn Chinese cause it's too 'hard' or b) learned Chinese but think English is 'cooler' and act like they don't know Chinese. It's your heritage. Treasure it and feel proud that you know how to speak or write Chinese. Feel proud when you're able to write out that complicated characters that you learnt as children. Feel proud when you're able to speak and sing in that beautiful language.

Be PROUD, because you are a Chinese.