scene from a morning run and thoughts on culture

I sat around a table of gorgeous senior citizen women yesterday afternoon, listening to them sing traditional Mongolian songs as we played cards, drank tea and ate cookies.

As they remembered songs and wrote down lyrics and joined in the sing-a-long, I started pondering my own identifications with culture. They have these songs, these traditions, these stories and cultural landmarks in their lives. And I....well, I'm not really sure what I have.

I know that the majority of my ancestry is German, along with some other mixings of Western European roots. I did not grow up doing culturally German things (unless occasionally eating bratwurst counts for something) and choosing to study German throughout high school and university was less a cultural choice and more of an "I'm a nerd and find this fun" choice.

Which begs the question, what culture do I claim as mine? By not being sure am I (falsely) acting as if my culture is so dominant it need not be defined? By not knowing am I saying that my culture is the standard (also NOT TRUE)?

And then this morning, I read this post on Rage Against the Minivan.

I read her words to Holli and we had a brief conversation about it while we got ready for the day. Living in Mongolia has certainly given me a new understanding of the parts of ourselves and our values that are different from those held here.

It's also made me ask a lot of questions about how these cultural values and traditions are formed and what they are rooted in. Why do we value them? Why do we keep practicing them? Are there certain ones we've let go of over time? Have we developed new ones?

And for myself, how do my values and traditions shift and change as I live in a different culture and create a life here? Will these changes remain for the rest of my life or are they only temporary adjustments born out of the need to live and function here and now?

Read Kristen's post and let me know your thoughts. And make sure to check out the comments on her post- Holli and I particularly related to the comment about the use of an oven being a part of white culture, or as the commenter put it, "My oven makes me white!"