This is the Year of the Dragon, being a sign of majesty and power, dragon was used to represent emperors throughout Chinese culture and history. Composer Hou Dejian’s ‘Descendants of the Dragon’ in 1978 represented the desire and aspiration of those Kuomintang soldiers and their next generations who had left China to settle in Taiwan on their mother country. Only since that time, Chinese called themselves as “descendants of the dragon”. Recently a Malaysian singer Wee Meng Chee aired a new version of the song and MV to tease Communist party and the Chinese government who do not align with the world values as they are selfish, ego, ignorant, mean amid their economic uprise. The MV became viral in in two weeks with over 8 million hits and a lot of responses.
I have been asking myself should I be proud of being Chinese? Are we really superior to others? We have supreme culture? We have not been respecting people of this land? Are we honouring Australian system, culture and values… the western people who came to here for long and those different ethnic communities who migrated to here over the past few decades?
I have been saying grace for becoming an Australian here. This young nation respects humanity, freedom, justice and democracy whereby attracted a lot of immigrants in fulfilling their dreams here. The earlier settlers have been accommodating, and with many of them were originally from the lower sectors of the society, Australia was built upon a generous and caring social system. With a low population on a vastly resourced territory, the society is willing and capable of offering help to people in needs. We see a future of Australia in such a circumstance.
My next generations to come will be Australians who know Chinese and retain their Chinese lifestyle and values, but at the same time they respect, freedom, justice, law, democracy and human right. This will be what most Chinese Australians want – owning the best of both worlds, then extending this to the Australians around, giving their best to contribute in this multicultural nation.
Lunar New Year tells the importance of building human relationship as we celebrate with and bless our friends and relatives around, akin to the blessing of Christianity. This year while we celebrate Lunar New Year I hope this blessing would not just happen within the Chinese community but goes beyond to embrace and enrich all Australians with a different cultural background.
Mr. Raymond Chow
The Publisher of Sameway Magazine