Quiet is the New Loud

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Monday, August 29, 2005

why west?

we watched lagaan, which is an indian film based upon colonial times. under the british rule, indian villagers had to pay tribute to their so-called masters by giving 'lagaan' every year. 'lagaan' is like taxes, in the form of crops, which to the villagers means their livelihood. they face starvation after they had to pay double 'lagaan'. a deal was struck where they had to beat their masters in a game of cricket. quite a good show; it got me sitting on the edge. and expect the usual indian singing and dancing scenes, though minimal in this film.

in the show, the western actors actually spoke sentences of hindi! but wait a moment, i thought to myself why do we find this fascinating when indians speak english too besides hindi or tamil. same applies to chinese, french, russians, anyone who speaks their native tongue and english. and wait, i left out the many different dialects, sub-languages, slangs..
if that's the case, shouldn't we be proud and be amazed by ourselves for speaking multiple languages? yet, we look in admiration at westerners who can speak japanese or malay. why is this so? besides the fact that the western world are sort of the supreme rich and powerful because of their early development, i see that we are equally capable if not more.

i remember having this phone conversation with my mum, and she was ticking me off for my self-consciousness in canada. she mentioned that we know more of them then they know of our tradition, heritage, culture, sports, food, language; what's there to be afraid? and so boosted my confidence.

the world is just being overly westernised. so much that we overrate them when they venture into something different, when we actually have already done that.