Idle Reflection

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a f1uttering butterfly. What fun he had, doing as he pleased! He did not know he was Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and found himself to be Zhou. He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly had dreamed he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction. This is what is meant by the transformation of things. Zhuang Zi

This is from the Chinese, Taoist philosopher Zhuang Zi who was born after Confucius but he is still an important (I would say most interesting) Chinese philosopher from that time. I like this quote because like most of the Taoist aphorisms and stories, it is paradoxical while being simple at the same time. It is definitely interesting to think about alternate realities and to try and understand what he means by the “transformation of things”, but I also have a personal connection to this text.

I was thinking about the significance of culture in the world and its role in a persons understanding of themselves and the world around them. There are a lot of sociologists, philosophers, etc. that have tried to tackle this problem and codify an essence to human culture; a system of values, common behaviors, distinctive sense of morality or higher purpose, etc. I have not read or been exposed to anyone who has offered an remotely adequate answer. I have a phobia to generalizations and cultural “scholars” have a academic diseases which causes them to think that vast overtures about parts of the world are OK as long as they are vague enough to be hard to disprove. It is as if because they read the entire Ramayana they have the answers to why Hindi nationalists burned down a mosque in northern India. I was a student of Asian Studies and so trust me I was exposed to a lot of these people and their work. I was told that if you read this book or that I could understand Japanese or Chinese culture just like that. That's obviously complete bullshit but it doesn't stop Westerns from reading a book about samurai and thinking that they understand what makes the Japanese tick. It's not just the Westerners that are at fault in this category. I have met plenty of Japanese who romanticize their own culture and are part of this misinformation campaign to convince people of the world that people from the “West” and people from the “East” are fundamentally different. This a complicated and loaded topic and I imagine that there have been many Ph.D theses written about this so I will abstain and write about an aspect of this problem that is more subjective and personal.

Throughout my life and education I have had no strong cultural pride. I grew up in America but maybe having European parents left me vaguely detached from the land of my childhood. Don't get me wrong, my closest friends are American and if there was a draft in the American military I would go with out a second thought. I have loyalty to America because it is the place where I grew up but I do not feel a cultural connection to the nation. The passion some people have for a national patriotism does not exist in me to a large extent. When I am in a different country and somebody asks me where I'm from I answer “Pittsburgh”, not America, because first I am from Pittsburgh, but if unfortunately (for them) they have not heard of it then I will grudgingly say “America”. My connection is to the city of my youth, not the country that it happens to be in.

The idea of an “American culture” is foreign to me. At first meeting, I feel like I have just as much in common with a Filipino here as I do with someone from California. The “imagined community” that constitutes a nation and a national identity is exactly what it names implies; “imagined”. Also, even though my family comes from Europe, particularly England, France, and Switzerland, I don't feel any longing to the land of my ancestors. Some people have strong passions for their nation or culture and in a way, I am jealous of them. But perhaps my sense of individualism is a by-product of American culture and although I may not feel like I adhere to American culture, I can't deny that my personality and view of world was molded in America.

So you are probably wondering why I included that quote from Zhunag Zi which seems to have nothing to do with I've talked about. Zhuang Zhou was dreaming that he was a butterfly but when he awoke he did not know if maybe he actually is a butterfly just dreaming of Zhuang Zhou. Zhuang Zi insists that there must be some distinction between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly and for some reason this short story demonstrates the “transformation of things”. It may just sound like those vague paradoxes that you see a lot of in Chinese philosophy that really just look like a play on words but I can relate metaphorically to Zhuang Zhou inability to distinguish what is dream from reality. I believe dreams serve an important function in our daily lives. Reality is a hard concept to define but our experiences with the non-reality of dreams or the effect of some mind-altering drugs every once in awhile help us fully understand what we believe is reality. In my study of Asian cultures I was confronted with the dilemma that I could not really relate to Japanese or Indian culture while simultaneously maintaining my original identity. It is very hard to restrain your personal judgment when studying another culture. I frequently found myself upset about the rigidity of the Japanese social hierarchy or their eagerness to listen to “authority” figures such as the government or their teachers. But I persisted and found aspects of Japanese and Asian culture in general that not only resonated with me but also were similar to aspects of Western cultures I am familiar with. To be honest it was not my desire to “understand” the Japanese that motivated me to study their language and literature but I just followed my interest. My desire to understand different cultures gave me the motivation to travel and live across the world and try to assimilate to Filipino culture. The Philippines is a great place with a moving history and present reality but it will take more time for me to really appreciate the reality here. This life I chose of moving around different parts of the world can be hard; especially having to say goodbye to too many friends but I like to think of this part of my life as a time of growth. Just as Zhuang Zhou does not know if he is either himself or a butterfly, I have been frequently confronted with identity crises about who I am or what I really want out of life but just as Zhuang Zi recognized the need for a distinction, I too have recognized the distinct phases of my life. As time goes on this constant ballet of recognizing the real, or at least recognizing the existence of different realities even without being able to distinguish which is the “actual” reality is what constitutes change and the transformation of individuals. But just as we usually fall gradually in and out of sleep there are times of transition in the course of a lifetime where nothing is certain. These are by far the most interesting.