What is culture?

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

Perhaps, because half of its meanings pertain to excellence in arts, manners, letters and the higher forms of human pursuits, “culture” is one abused word.

In the Pinoy context, you talk of culture and you immediately hear violins, the shuffle of well-coiffed ladies in ternos and the muted talk of men in polo barong, our version of the polite society, if ever there was one.

In the words of an irreverent student, culture means “mga galinupad nga alibangbang, (flying and fluttering butterflies,)” some almost unreachable and incomprehensible state peopled by shapeless women in gowns and effeminate males in well-pressed suits or jusis. In the context of Negros, talk of culture and we are soon dancing the Rigodon de Honor, as if that was the only expression of our finer ways. Sure, it is an icon of our good life in the past, our glorious history if you please, but please, there are other ways by which the Negrense excelled, and continues to excel. Our culture is far more textured than just throwing parties. And yes, it has evolved in dynamic sort of way, we shouldn’t allow it to get stuck in history or in the past.

I know I’m treading on dangerous grounds here, but really, why does this have to be? Why do we have to be subjected to these standards when you and I know the Pinoy has been gifted so tremendously, he sure has his own version of “higher forms of human pursuits?”

Culture can be present. Culture can spring from what we may deem ordinary. Culture can be the everyday ways we often set aside for being too common.

These thoughts just flashed in my mind when I realized how people fall into the same state of mind when talking about culture, as if it was some unachievable state or standard that only the very few can access.

I once went to an evening of classical music that two-thirds of the audience obviously did not enjoy, but were either forced to come or had no way of getting out. On the way to the performance venue, I met Good Friend E, who said the performance had just started, but she was already leaving: “Daw ma antique ako ‘da (It feels like I am going to freeze to antiquity there).”

I laughed and thought, just how many of these matrons in their long gowns and pearls and diamonds really understand the music here? At least E had the honesty.

There was also a time I went to a Swan Lake performance, and matrons were gushing after. But I noticed the comments were all limited to how beautiful the dancers were, how lithe and light, how dramatic the costumes were. Nobody talked about the story, and I had to fight my mean streak to stop myself from asking if anybody actually understood what it was all about.

I once went to a D.C. art show, and I felt so odd standing in front of long crisscrossing wires, and asking why they had this clothesline here in the middle of the show. Thank goodness I did not open my usually tactless mouth because that, I was told, was an installation art by some important American artist.

Sure, there is nothing wrong about putting culture up there, where ordinary mortals can’t reach easily. After all, among its many definitions, it is about excellence, higher pursuits, human development. I guess the study of humanities wouldn’t be as interesting and challenging if it was any less difficult.

To my mind, however, limiting culture to these incomprehensible manners and art forms may have also stopped us from soaring fully, and reaching our full potential as a people. In case you haven’t realized it yet, we have defined culture by the standards of the West and imposed these on ourselves, a raw deal from whatever angle you may want to look at.

How could we soar, when arts, for example, are defined by the West and limited to the ways of the West: dance, painting, theatre, music and the like. What about our ways with the patadyong, how we weave it or even wear it, isn’t that an art form? How about the ways with which we make our baskets, aren’t they also art forms? When a waif stands before you in a crowded street and belts out a song, isn’t that performance art as well? What about those guys and gals at the Provincial Capitol Lagoon who dance, aren’t they artists too? What about the morning mass movements there, aren’t they artistic performances? The way we layer those marinated chickens on the grill, neatly lying against each other, isn’t that art too?

There is a certain vacuum, some discord, in the way we have defined culture and how we live, which could be one reason why we cannot seem to take pride in what we have, which we often dismiss as too common and too ordinary, not worthy to be called art, not worthy be classified as culture.*

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