By Eloise Preston
When we travel, no matter how far or how long I
can guarantee, we take a part of our culture with us. Even if its just for a
simple relaxing holiday we find ourselves still practicing our everyday traditional
religious beliefs, gravitating towards similar cuisine dishes and speaking in
our slang language. In this week’s lecture, it was discussed that “Diasporic identities and histories are made and maintained through
narrative, myth, mapping of sojourns from one place to another” (Kuttianen,
2015). Just as we do when we travel, these diasporic communities carry certain
elements of their known culture and traditions.
A foreign space can become a familiar
place when their own narratives are expressed, these narrative are expressed
through language, as our lecturer stated this week “Diasporic identities are
maintained through narrative (Kuttainen, 2015). Nowadays, social media
platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram allow diasporic
communities to connect with each other. Not only do they share
their culture with each other, but also with the people and the land they moved
to. For example, there are countless public boutiques and restaurants that
reflect a different country and give us an insight into their traditional
customs. This not only gives us a worldly experience and educates us but it
allows us to connect with that specific diasporic group.
“Each
diaspora is unique and considerably develops with time”, (Ma Mung, 2005) this statement made by
Ma Mung in this reading is very true. Over time, we can see the advancements in
the acceptance of diaspora communities and how they have almost blended
seamlessly into our own community. One could even suggest that social
networking contributed to the widely accepted idea of our country by allowing a
fast and easy communication to almost anyone in the world.
Ma Mung, E. (2005). Diaspora, spatiality, identities. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au
google plus. (2014). Diaspora. Retrieved from:
I agree that a foreign space can become a familiar place if a person’s narratives are expressed. I think it is important to remember though that not just language expresses narrative but also a person’s appearance, their mannerisms and their lifestyle. I would also be interested to see some interactions on social networks like Facebook between people from different diasporic communities because while I have never seen it I think it would be interesting. As for restaurants in Australia there is certainly a lot of variety between the cultures offered but I wonder how many you are actually exposed to if you live in a smaller town rather than a big city. A lot of restaurants serve highly westernised versions of the traditional recipes, we all love Chinese food but the Chinese food most of us eat is very different to the usual food served in China (Rotelli, 2013).
ReplyDeleteRotelli, W. (2013). Differences Between Authentic Vs. Westernized Chinese Food Retrieved from https://www.restaurants.com/blog/differences-between-authentic-vs-westernized-chinese-food/#.VfVsbBGqqko