Embrace your culture

Before you start reading this blog, please understand that this probably is really rambley and it is longer than my usual blogs. This is because there are so many things that I wanted to include but I also didn’t want to split into two. There will be more blogs like this in the future, about the Tamil culture, the civil war, etc.. but for now I hope that you enjoy this one x

Anybody who knows me or has met me, would know that I am proud to be Tamil. I had mentioned this in ‘What is being Tamil like?’ post and I will say it again, I am proud to be Tamil and I always will be. I take pride in knowing the language, being able to speak it, read it and not that very well but also write it. However it wasn’t always like that, in fact until about 3 years ago, it was the complete opposite and in this post I am going to be talking about how I got rid of the mindset of being embarrassed of being Tamil and how I learnt to appreciate and embrace the rich Tamil culture.

 I had gone Tamil school from a young age, for a bit when I lived in France and then I started attending Tamil school again about 2 or 3 years after I had moved to the UK. I had been taught to speak the language from a young age as it was easiest for my parents to communicate to each other and us in their native language. I don’t remember exactly when I had started hating going to Tamil school but I did, I hated the fact that I had to wake up early on a Saturday morning in order to learn a language that I didn’t really enjoy learning, probably because I did find it really hard at first and I think having failed grade 3 and having to re-do it just annoyed me more. But I did not enjoy learning Tamil and I remember a few people thought that it was weird that I was going to Tamil school so I started slowly to become embarrassed and annoyed that my mum still kept making me go. I also started becoming extremely embarrassed of being Tamil when a bunch of Tamil girls at school  would hang out together and just speak Tamil, dancing to Tamil songs and even doing performances at because I knew that some of my classmates were calling them ‘Fresh’ or just laughing at them. That’s when I had decided that I wasn’t going to be like that, I wasn’t going to be called ‘Fresh’ and I wasn’t going to speak Tamil anywhere else apart from Tamil school and my parents, but even then I spoke more French or English when I was communicating with my parents, rather than Tamil. I thought that I was too cool to speak it, I didn’t want to associate myself with them so that people thought that I was cool. Which honestly, thinking about it now, it’s honestly so stupid. The reasoning behind it all is dumb but then again I have to also remind myself that I was very influenced and I always wanted people to like me. Nowadays, I honestly don’t care what they think. They can call me a ‘Fresh pot’ or ‘Freshie’ but I don’t care because I’m no longer a 13 year old kid who wanted to fit in and have everyone like me. I had stopped going Tamil school either in the middle or the end of Year 10 because I refused to do Tamil GCSE, which is something I now really regret.

 Looking back at it now, I wish I hadn’t been like that. I wish I had carried on and I did Tamil GCSE and maybe even A-Level, which to be fair it’s never too late and I do hope that I will get the chance to do so. That being said, at the age of 20, I am more than grateful and happy that I had gone to Tamil school and I can read, write and speak it and not many people can say the same. It makes me proud because Tamil is one of the or even the oldest language ever and what a privilege it is to say that it is my mother language and it something that I will, with pride, teach my children in the future. Which is also why I really want my younger sister, who’s currently 15 to go back to Tamil school. This is because I don’t want her to have the same regrets that I have and also because it has also been pointed out by many people that there really isn’t any way of communicating with her. A lot of my family members are French and since she moved from France at such a young age, although she can understand what they’re saying, she won’t really be able to converse with them and that’s also the case with her when it comes to speaking Tamil, she’ll be able to understand what’s being said but there are only a handful of things that she can say back which means that there is really no way of properly communicating with her and I honestly think that it’s a shame that she doesn’t want to learn such a beautiful language and I feel like a lot of people are in her position as well. It’s always been said to me that if we don’t learn Tamil and then go on to teach our children, the language itself will eventually fade over time and when I was younger, I never really understood that because I didn’t care and this is due to the fact that my mindset was that no matter what the first language that I will teach my children was going to be French. Like honestly, what was I thinking? The speech itself is beautiful to listen to and the rich history behind it is just amazing and I think every now and then we all forget that.

There are so many amazing things, apart from the language that is so beautiful about the Tamil culture that I refused to see. Yes, even at this big age, I do still complain about traditional clothing and how uncomfortable it can be, even I’m not that blind to see that our traditional clothing is absolutely stunning. Our traditional ceremonies such as the puberty ceremony, whilst some may think that it’s a waste of money or they don’t understand the meaning behind it, it makes up the Tamil culture, well part of it. But everything about Tamil culture is so elegant and beautiful and to some extent, it’s a shame that I only started realising this about 3 years ago but at the same time I’m glad that I realised it then and not any later.

The way that I got back into embracing my culture and being proud of being Tamil, truth to be told happened very suddenly. I’ve known from a really young age about the Sri-Lankan civil war and the injustice that went one back in Sri-Lanka because my parents took my sisters and I to nearly all of the protests that happened back in 2009 in London. I had even done a presentation/play with a few Tamil friends of mine back in primary school, in Year 6. I started becoming interested about the Tamil culture and it's history back in 2015 when I came across an article, I can’t remember what it was called or who wrote it but I remember being disgusted by what the Tamils were experiencing, in comparison to the lifestyle that I was living. It opened my eyes and I wanted to do more. I started doing more research and I became so invested, but at the time, I didn’t really have anyone to talk to about because I literally had no Tamil friends. I knew my dad and my younger sister were part of a charity, called Velanai Onriyum UK and around October 2015, I had also decided to join the charity. This is because Velanai Onriyum Youth UK focused on providing ICT lessons for those who could not afford it, for all ages in a school in Velanai. For me, this was such a good thing and it still is an amazing thing that I am so proud to be part of. Especially because it now meant that I finally had Tamil friends and I also didn’t feel as useless, I was finally doing some good. I had always admired my parents but the fact that they had to go through that at such a young age and drop everything in order to save themselves and still be able to work as hard as they do in order to ensure that my sisters and I had a good education, a roof under our heads just made me admire them even more. That’s when I knew that I didn’t want any other Tamils back in Sri-Lanka to experience the same thing. It also meant that I started appreciating the culture and the background even more, and I’ve said this before but I am so glad that I do and that I had gotten to that stage. Being part of VOUK Youth and now being the secretary is something that I am so grateful for because it means that children and even adults can receive the education that they deserve. From this little eye opener, it went to appreciating so many more other things, I started speaking the language more, started watching some random interviews in Tamil and listening to Tamil music a lot and I mean literally every single day whenever I could and even following BBC News Tamil so that I could read some of the articles in Tamil.

There are so many things about the Tamil culture and not just the language that there is to learn and I would like to learn and I hope that overtime that I will get to do so and also do more as an individual, whether it’s getting involved in more charities or even raising awareness about the things that are happening. That being said, I should highly suggest that you go and check out Yathu’s Instagram (@yxthu__97) as he talks about the meaning behind the Sri-Lankan flag so well and also his goals about learning Tamil and it’s honestly inspiring to see people in our generation do these kind of things, speak about topics that a lot of people won’t know about and just speak about what they believe in. I wish I had the guts to do what he does because there’s so much respect and admiration that goes to those who do, well from me anyways.

Just to wrap things up, I just want to make it clear that it’s never too late to change your viewpoints and you could always start to embrace your culture at no matter what stage of your life you’re in. Whether it’s at the age of 17 like myself or even from those girls in high school or at the age of 30. It’s never to late and you should pride yourself in being who you are and speak of your culture with pride. There’s so many ways to start, by watching youtube videos, talking to your siblings, friends or even listening to podcasts such as ‘The Banana Boys’ who talk about the Tamil culture is such a way that is not only informative but also extremely funny. They only have 8 episodes and it’s honestly worth the listen, they’ve never failed to disappoint me and to some extent listening to other Tamils talking about being Tamil and their opinions, experiences are not only relatable but also makes me proud. Being Tamil is the coolest thing ever, and teaching others about our culture and history is so much fun. You'll always see me telling people to watch documentaries or print articles out so that they can read some things. I'm proud of being Tamil, and I hope that if you're embarrassed right now of being Tamil, that one day you'll see the goodness of being Tamil.

Til next time,

Sweena :-)



p.S : Sorry for how long this blog post is but I hope you enjoyed it and I have and still currently planning to write blogs about the Tamil Culture. 
Please let me know how I could improve, I just want this to be fun and enjoyable x