Cultural perspective

The Chinese New Year is approaching, and the discussion about the inheritance of Chinese culture is also lively.On December 27, 2022, the faults of the local Chinese of Mr. Ji Ji and the continuing of the Social Chinese on December 6 cherished the unique culture of the local Chinese, and discussed the inheritance of Singapore Chinese culture from different perspectives.I have been the organizer of the Chinese Cultural Society of local universities a few years ago. In the process of two years, I personally experienced some difficulties related to Chinese culture related activities in Singapore. Some experiences and experiences are willing to share it simply.

The perception of culture needs to be emotional first. I think this process can be divided into four steps.

First, the most intuitive understanding of a culture may come from its food. This kind of understanding can be experienced in a restaurant and anytime, anywhere.

Second, one step deeper is the movie popular music and other cultural industries.Generally speaking, the more developed the cultural industry, such as the United States and South Korea, the higher the recognition and interest of foreign young people.However, the Chinese circle has come in recent times, it seems that there are not many works of young people around the world; in the form of media, China's "Ai Youteng" (iQiyi, Youku, Tencent), or the production of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, or the production of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.It seems that the "Hollywood+Silicon Valley" production model represented by Net flight has not formed its own international content.Elements that are popular among young people come from music, costumes, and fairy heroes. For example, Mayday, Lin Junjie and Jay Chou who have just came to the concert, the popularity of Zhen Huanzhuan and Hanfu (Huifu) of Evergreen film and television drama.

Third, from the experience of folklore, architecture, geography during travel.

Singapore lacks a lot of elements of Chinese culture in geographical location.For example, there are naturally no cold winter on the hot equatorial equatorial year, nor can it experience the winter and spring.Because of this, even the Spring Festival experience is just an ordinary public holiday.The image of "spring" in the ancient poems, whether it is "spring breeze and the south bank of the green river" or "the spring river tide, the sea is flat", for young Chinese young people, it often becomes an unsatisfactory sentence.

Therefore, exploring the Chinese culture must always return to the land that has passed through the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, but the discussion of this layer has returned to political and social governance.For Singaporeans, how attractive China is a travel destination?The statistical result of a commercial website is that Japan has ranked first in 49%of votes and 39%in Taiwan.Assuming that you go abroad once or twice a year, the frequency of travel is estimated at the willingness of travel, and Singapore people will only consider going to China once in three to five years.

It can be said that experiencing Chinese culture in Singapore is indeed not the most attractive choice.

The fourth step is to understand culture from classics and history.If San and Four are upside down, it may be very difficult.For another example, if you want to introduce the most important, most typical, cute, and most lively historical figures in Chinese culture, I believe that many people will choose Su Dongpo.

Su Dongpo said: "Ask Ru's life, Huangzhou Huizhou Lizhou."This sentence almost outlines his footprints throughout China, and young people in Singapore may be difficult to experience it.Huangzhou is Huanggang, Hubei. Huizhou is in Guangdong, Puzhou in Hainan, and Su Dongpo was born in Meishan, Sichuan. At that time, the capital was in Kaifeng, Henan, and he had previously stayed in Hangzhou, Zhejiang.For the native Chinese, it is not difficult to connect these locations. At least I can intuitively think of Henan in the north, Guangdong in the south, and it is far away.

If you are people living in Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangdong, Hainan, Sichuan or Henan, the connection of Su Dongpo may be deeper.Su Di in Hangzhou West Lake, East Po Chibi in Huangzhou, and even the eastpo meat that is "slow, less water, and when the fire is beautiful" and the "three hundred Japanese litchi" in Huizhou can make the local area make the local area.Ordinary modern people have a connection to Su Dongpo, this history and Chinese culture.

But in Singapore, let the young people read Su Dongpo for no reason, and carry the "when the moon is available". How can this make them build a cultural connection?

From identity to an intuitive experience, my feelings are to let local Chinese young people understand and recognize Chinese culture. It is not easy to put it in the current cultural environment.

What should I do?I don't think it is necessary to be too anxious.On the one hand, economic politics determines the direction of cultural development. China does not take advantage of international public opinion. It is more difficult for Chinese culture to be favored by most young people. This is not what we can control.On the other hand, the cultural identity of the Singapore people is diversified. For example, the use of the enlightenment of southern Fujian in Singapore -style English may even surpass Chinese young people who are mainly speaking in Mandarin in the southern Fujian region. At this point, I think the local areaSociety can still have a little cultural confidence.

Mr. Ji Yan's article said: "How to continue the context of Singapore, let us have a very severe challenge that we can not have a big gap with the historical tradition of Singapore in Singapore." Cheng Shi said.

I think, to be a deeper level of understanding Chinese culture in Singapore, while starting from common sense when you need identity.For example, if you want to understand the calligraphy of Singapore, you must first know Wang Xizhi and Ouyang Xun; if you want to understand Chinese painting in Singapore, you must first look at the Qingming Shanghe Tu or Qianli Rivers and Mountains; if you want to enjoy the performance of the Singapore Civil Band, you must hear the fishing boat singing.Late or Spring Festival prelude.

Further, you need to explore a new generation of bilingual education.

In mainland China, from the order of Tengwang Pavilion to Yueyang Tower, the famous and famous sentences as cultural heritage can be rooted in the common memory of young people.Every year, tens of millions of students, regardless of literature and science, recite these classics together in six years of middle school time, which forms the cultural consensus of the younger generation of China.

These contents, in Singapore, are currently only a small number of Chinese language students' elective content in the two -year course, and do not require recitation.Compared with the two aspects, Chinese education in the middle and new countries of China and New countries is not in the same level of strength, density, and popularity, and naturally shows some faults in the social and cultural field.

Of course, I don't advocate adding more content to students, but it may only be a cultural foundation when we are in a cultural environment and recognizing that inheritance and promoting these cultures.In the past two years, many Chinese parents have chosen to let their children come to Singapore to study for better mathematics, English, and general education. Will there be one day, and Singapore parents will choose to send their children to China for one year to learn Chinese?

A few days ago, former Taipei Mayor Ke Wenzhe visited Singapore. One of the itineraries was to learn bilingual teaching.Taipei and Singapore are actually mirror relationships. Taipei ’s English teaching is a foreign language, and Singapore's Chinese is almost regarded as a foreign language.As two cities in the Chinese world, the two places also hope to explore a bilingual education method to adapt to the majority of ordinary students in the future.

Finally, the input of international students, professionals and new immigrants can also help Singapore to maintain the inheritance of Chinese culture.As far as I know, for a long time, most members of the Chinese community at the National University and NTU have come from Malaysia and China, and local students only occupy a small part.From Singapore's national calligraphy competitions, Chinese essay competitions to global Chinese debate competitions, most of the organizers and participants behind them are foreign students from foreign countries.This is very different from the scenes of the "Tongue War Lion City" decades ago.

Many foreign students choose to stay in Singapore after graduation, and some of them have joined the club, writer associations and calligraphy associations.Of course, their educational background is mainly from abroad, but as they stay in the local area, these fresh blood will also take over the burden of the local Chinese community and start writing Chinese culture that belongs to Singapore.Therefore, at this point, we still have reason to be optimistic.

The author is an analyst at the local financial industry