Saturday, July 21, 2007

Cultural Ruts

We attended a performance by some Chinese acrobats today. As you may know, these folks are just pretty good, and today’s performance was no exception. They made the very difficult seem very easy, and made the impossible seem just a bit harder than easy. Along with the acrobats, some Chinese yoyo performers showed their skill, and some dancers did a Chinese dance. All in all a very enlightening and entertaining afternoon.
I was struck this afternoon with the idea of the incredible diversity that is built into this world of ours. Venues such as this performance allow one culture to contact another in a non-threatening and educational manner. We are privy to a small piece of China and are blessed and made better by our appreciation of these people and what they do.
All too often, we are stuck in our cultural ruts, rubbing elbows only with those who are like us. We don’t have experiences that get us out of our cultural boxes, and when such experiences are made available to us, we often turn away from them as something that is new and different. We want everything to be the same.
Thanks to all who made this performance possible. It was good for me to get out of my rut and appreciate another people and another culture.

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