At the Kerala Literary Festival, there was an interesting session that included come comments about the bits of generational memory that are lost when children grow up in a culture that is different to that of their parents. While on project in Nepal I had an interesting conversation with another volunteer about third culture kids (kids who grow up in a culture different to both their parents). In my case, I grew up in Australia with Scottish parents. I then moved to England. So I feel very British (though more English than Scottish, despite my heritage). Now, these cultures are quite similar to each other, and other than some interesting slang (“the whiteboard is a bit skewiff, give it a wee shuggle”; “I’m going into the kitchen for a wee poke”; “I only brought two pairs of pants with me and I’ve been wearing these for four days”; “do you have any lollies for the trip?”; “do you have any sweets for the trip?”; “my duvet is really warm”; “my doona is really warm”) the language is the same too. So I can only imagine what it must be like when you add different languages and different religions into the mix and cultures that differ more than these do.
Back to generational memory (I hadn’t forgotten) – I have what I think is an example of this. I’m rubbish at identifying plants / trees. Really bad at it. Trees are the big green things. Depending on where you are (and when you are there) they might be big things that aren’t actually green at the moment. I think I can spot a pine tree. I think I can spot a palm tree (though I know there are different types of palms and I can’t spot the differences). I can mostly spot ferns. I think, at a push, I could recognise a banksia and a bottle brush and a wattle. Beyond that, things get sketchy. I wonder how much of this is down to generational memory.
I didn’t really learn many trees from my parents while I was growing up. Of course not. My parents probably have a decent knowledge of trees that are common in Scotland. But I grew up in Australia and they didn’t, and the trees are different. Then I moved to England (which does not have a lot of wattle, bottle brush, banksia or palm trees). And if I were to have kids, then I’d need some serious assistance with tree recognition from someone who knows their apples!!
Of course, because I don’t know what I don’t know, I don’t know if there are other bits of generational memory that have been (or are being) lost. Nor do I know how much of that loss is simply entropy that would happen just because I don’t remember everything everyone has tried to teach me, or how much of that is due to a different cultural context. And in the case of the trees, it might just be that my parents weren’t that interested in trees and I wasn’t that interested in trees.
Language adds a very significant layer onto this too. One of the presenters at the Kerala Literary festival is called Mithu. I think her father is from Kerala and her mother is Polish and she lives in Germany. But she didn’t grow up with Malayalam speakers so the pronunciation of her own name is something she can’t actually hear properly, nor can she say her own name correctly (the ‘th’ is an aspirated ‘t’ sound, not the ‘th’ sound that native English speakers might think). And I know people who speak the mother tongue of one of their parents, but don’t speak the other parent’s mother tongue. And, somewhat the opposite, I know people who don’t speak the mother tongue of their children. While these people can communicate with their immediate family through a shared language, they may not be able to communicate at all with some of their grandparents / grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, etc. And surely that will create additional distance between generations.
There are definitely advantages to being a cultural mix – and let’s be honest, far more people are a mix than aren’t – and I’m very pleased to be able to pick the best bits from all the cultures I’ve been exposed to, but I do sometimes wonder what awesome things I’m missing.
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