Anglophile?

Annie Mole, Neil, Helene (StroppyCow), Ann (Pixeldiva) and Mex just took part in a 17 mile overnight walk of the Circle Line from 10pm last night. Assuming they did not quit and finished at 6am today - a jolly well done to them. I couldn't imagine walking around Central London following the Circle Line route (overground of course) after last month's exhausting Tube Relief. It is all in the name of cancer charity of course. Please sponsor one of them.

I am away from London today so would be giving London Open House weekend a miss. Always wanted to visit Ken Livingstone's command center. :(

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Yesterday I had a chat with a long time friend in Bayswater (yeah, I know the place sucks). He is an ethnic chinese of south east Asian origin (although he pretty much hates his birth country). The debate we had is one we always have everytime we meet. You see we have differing roles of the chinese community in Britain and how they should act.

You could say that I am a 'modernists' and he is a 'traditionalists'. He views the ideals of British culture as something which is not suitable for the Chinese race. Even for British born Chinese. Which is weird. Because in my opinion he (and me) retains very little of our Chinese 'culture'.

I was born in Malaysia. I did not attend Chinese school unlike most of my friends (I went to a state public school). Apart from stuffs like Chinese New Year and Moon Cake festival I have no clue on what is Chinese. My life was ingrained in the country I was born in. It did not matter what my skin colour is, I couldn't care less.

Now this mate of mine gave a very flawed example in the form of 'Chinese music'. He whipped out his Sony Ericsson P800 and started playing some Hong Kong pop music. Which isn't Chinese music. The music is 'westernised', the lyrics so happened to be a Cantonese. What is so Chinese about it that set it apart from say Girls Aloud or Dido apart from mother tongue of the artist(s)?

Apparently there is a gap of culture between British Asian (as in South Asians - Chinese are termed British Chinese) and their country of birth. Torn between their parent's desire to 'protect' their culture of origin, some has even been forced into leaving Britain. That sucks no?

I am not saying that traditional culture should be ignored but nor should British culture. If you want to bring up your children in Britain (as my humble friend does) then you should not encourage animosity against the local culture. Worst still is the concept of 'community' of 'fellow people' where immigrants would 'stick with each other'.

Incidentally the now Australianised ex-Malaysian, Cypher 101 wrote about this issue some time ago although in an Australian point of view. Read it here.