S
sodoMee
Guest
Feb 21, 2010
YOUR LETTERS
Be open-minded about culture
I refer to Dr Lee Wei Ling's article last Sunday, 'Culture: Marching to our own drumbeat'.
When Lianhe Zaobao senior executive editor Lee Huay Leng bemoaned Singapore's cultural poverty in her article, 'Why I miss Beijing and London', she was looking at the culture of the elite.
Culture means the way of life of the people. The elite is only a small group.
With globalisation, the people's way of life is changing in
every country, so culture is also changing. The change is slow in a big country, but is very fast in a small city state like Singapore.
We are experiencing what may be called a 'shifting identity' with our shifting culture.
My neighbours are a couple - a German husband and a Chinese wife. The identity of their children is neither German nor Chinese. It is beyond our perception. We need to be more open-minded to understand the ever increasing diversity of nature.
The wild flowers in the fields and forests are as beautiful as the flowers cultivated by highly skilled horticulturists in the cities.
If Ms Lee can liberate herself from her cultural elitism, her sense of loneliness will disappear.
She will see beauty and experience joy everywhere, like English poet William Blake, who was able 'to see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower'.
Lok Kek Seng
YOUR LETTERS
Be open-minded about culture
I refer to Dr Lee Wei Ling's article last Sunday, 'Culture: Marching to our own drumbeat'.
When Lianhe Zaobao senior executive editor Lee Huay Leng bemoaned Singapore's cultural poverty in her article, 'Why I miss Beijing and London', she was looking at the culture of the elite.
Culture means the way of life of the people. The elite is only a small group.
With globalisation, the people's way of life is changing in
every country, so culture is also changing. The change is slow in a big country, but is very fast in a small city state like Singapore.
We are experiencing what may be called a 'shifting identity' with our shifting culture.
My neighbours are a couple - a German husband and a Chinese wife. The identity of their children is neither German nor Chinese. It is beyond our perception. We need to be more open-minded to understand the ever increasing diversity of nature.
The wild flowers in the fields and forests are as beautiful as the flowers cultivated by highly skilled horticulturists in the cities.
If Ms Lee can liberate herself from her cultural elitism, her sense of loneliness will disappear.
She will see beauty and experience joy everywhere, like English poet William Blake, who was able 'to see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower'.
Lok Kek Seng