seed 2:thinking outside the box
As I entered high school, I was still struggling with my cultural identity and what it meant to me. I thought that Chinese culture was mostly emphases on working hard, staying out of trouble, and respecting your elders. However, “Kids” by Rich Brian, an Indonesian rapper, provided another viewpoint, or seed to be planted in my garden, on Asian culture.
I first listened to “Kids” as entertainment off Rich Brian’s new album in 2019, but one line caught my eye (or ear, if you want to be precise): “Tell these Asian kids they could do what they want/Might steal the mic at the GRAMMYs just to say we won/That everyone can make it, don’t matter where you from.” In this quote, Rich Brian is encouraging Asian Americans and everyone else to pursue their dreams like he did, coming over to America from Jakarta with just his rapping. Although I don’t want to become a rapper, it showed me that Asian, and thus Chinese culture, wasn’t just about staying quiet and keeping your head down. It expanded my definition of Chinese culture, and inspired me to take more risks to pursue my dreams.
Chinese culture, just like anything else, isn’t black and white: it’s multifaceted, with many contradicting aspects. I learned that I shouldn’t try to put Chinese culture in a box and wrap it with a pretty ribbon; you can’t define a whole culture with a couple of adjectives. The same can apply to other concepts: we don’t need to try to define concepts in a neat little box because it discourages further exploration of those concepts, and makes you less willing to redefining the “box” with other viewpoints. This value of acknowledgement of coexisting, contradicting aspects of concepts is an important one on my intellectual journey, because it made me realize that not everything is black or white, correct or incorrect. Sometimes it’s gray.
