As I get older, I increasingly value who I am and where I come from.
I love being Irish. Although St. Patrick's Day is a little silly, somehow it makes me really happy. I don't even mind that it focuses so heavily on drinking, which I am against, because that's Irish culture.
Today, at work, I went to a couple of Jewish preschools. Shockingly, only three or four kids out of the 35 or so I saw were wearing green. None of the teachers were. Quite a few kids were wearing orange shirts, which made me feel oddly resentful. For a second it felt like a deliberate slight, but I realized that their parents were just ignorant of Irish culture (Green = Irish/Catholic. Orange = British/Anglican, therefore of the devil). That was the first time in my life I realized that I was a member of the Irish culture, despite never having set foot on Irish soil.
It's fun to drink green milk and have Irish Rover lyrics on the tip of my tongue. It makes me want to do genealogy.
Culture is a funny thing. Last Tuesday was Purim, the Jewish holiday centered around the story of Esther. I love that story and consider it part of my own heritage, but I don't feel the connectedness that Jews feel with Purim. It's just a fun day... not altogether dissimilar from St. Pat's. But I didn't have the cultural experience necessary to appreciate the holiday fully.
1 comments:
It's fun to have some cultures inside of you. :D You should go visit Ireland when you can. :D It's interesting to see how people choice to have the culture in their lives. And how the culture can affect to them. We have to be careful sometimes.. :D
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