| The International Playground |
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| Culture | |
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Stuart Wood
The image of a middle class white woman with a sensitivity to her surroundings and an inability to differentiate her cultural references is often the first image to come to mind when we think of Feng Shui. Many of us see ourselves in parts of Suzie's life and secretly despise her for it. We lampoon her for playing around with important cultural elements seemingly at random, and hope that we could never be so superficial. We see the cynical marketing of the Chinese heritage and sigh inwardly at how gullible some folk are. We, our mantra goes, would never play around like that. But think back for a moment to the school playground when you were making your first relationships. Remember how many times you borrowed your best friend's felt pens? The process of becoming friends with someone involved playing around - sharing their imagination, adopting their habits for a while, using their language or nicking their make-up. Becoming part of a gang at school involved negotiation through shared objects like money, sweets, cigarettes or whatever; then through shared language, private jokes, routines and activities. This is an essential part of forming deeper relationships, and of finding out exactly who we are. In the seventies, psychotherapist D. W. Winnicott* showed how through playing we discover who we are and what the world is. Playing, begun in childhood, extends into adult life through cultural experience. This may amount to going to a concert, eating a meal - any of those parts of the inherited tradition of a group which involve both an inner, and a shared, experience. But how does this relate to Suzie Litewate and her Chinese phase? She is part of a vast group in British culture which is fascinated by the practices and artefacts of another group. Imagine the playground scene again, but this time on a larger scale. This time, the children are cultural groups, in what Jack Tan would call the "International Playground". Then consider how children make friends, starting with the initial stages of silence, perhaps a mild suspicion. They soon move on to borrowing each other's stuff, each learning how the other relates to the world. Sometimes this scenario goes wrong, and leads to bullying, mistrust and power struggles. But maybe the process can move from the superficial stage of borrowing toys to a deeper understanding and the emergence of a real shared culture? Winnicott's concept of playing is useful to those of us who are actively involved in negotiating the seam between two cultures. Maybe we should welcome the fascination some people have for Chinese things, because it gives us all the opportunity to 'play' together, or in grown-up terms, to lead to a deeper level of cultural experience. We can laugh at Suzie's clueless version of Chinese life, and wonder if she actually has any Chinese friends at all, but that would miss the point. By embracing the physical elements of the culture - however haphazardly - we can then move on to the deeper aspects of Chinese life, through really making friends. This conviction brings certain responsibilities. For the white Brit, there is a duty to take what we can know of Chinese life seriously, to integrate both the individuality of Chinese friends we have and also the wider culture of British Chineseness into our lives as equal partners. Playing in this sense is not about dabbling or joking, but more about being open to change, and entering completely into another's life to the point that our own is enriched. *Winnicot, D.W. (1971) Playing and Reality. Middlesex: Penguin |
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Suzie
Litewate sits by her fishtank in her Wolverhampton home reading 'Feng
Shui for Modern Living' as she fiddles with her jade beads. Sipping her
Twinings Jasmine tea, she plays her relaxation CD of the 'Bells of Yunan',
closes her eyes and considers energising her living room with another
three-legged frog. In two years she will realise that the Mayans had it
right all along and she should shift her prosperity corner onto the roof.
Suzie is not alone, she has friends in her Haiku circle and enjoys her
Thursdays when she goes for a Chinese after Tai Chi. They talk in hushed
tones of the flight of the Black Hat Panchen Lama into India and plan
their own impending retreat to Aberystwyth.
