Swimming Before, Diving Now

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Prompt: How do you think your habitus has changed from the beginning of the semester to now?

 Although I grew up surrounded by South-East Asian culture, I was barely exploring it. In fact, I wasn't even touching any of it. It's not that I was ashamed of my culture, it was simply ignored and put aside to make space for mainstream Western media. Before this semester, I didn't think there was anything special about my own culture and the country I grew up in. Perhaps it's because I've been seeing my country everyday and being in a new country was much more exciting. Perhaps it's because I didn't make an effort to expose myself to local content creators or maybe I simply didn't think anyone would be interested in a small developing country like Malaysia.

It is week 11 as I write this and despite having only two The Particular is the Universal classes a week, the discussions have changed the way I view the world.

I'm more aware of my own habitus because of this course. It felt as if I was wading on the surface and now, I'm diving deeper into the waters - exploring areas I never thought to glance at. The discussions and interactions we had in class unravelled my habitus bit by bit as we explore the importance of cultural collaboration and awareness.

Before this course I never thought of how different Asian school life was to Western ones. I never thought anything about how my culture emphasised on the importance of family dinners or how it defines me. I didn't think twice about being billingual

This new discovery have changed the way I write, more specifically, the things that are slowly appearing in my story. I started drawing inspirations from my own habitus as oppose to others. I find myself including more pieces of my own experiences and twisting them. There were so much content to draw from in my culture that I feel ridiculous having not been paying attention to it more! My writings have become more defined and detailed in terms of character behaviours and setting which was something I found myself skimming the surface of before.

There is still much to explore and life is ever-changing. I think it's late for me to just realise how important my cultural background is to the work I put out but at least I have now uncovered a big part of me. I still have a way to go, I still can dive deeper, dig deeper. I don't think I can ever be a hundred percent aware of myself but it is a start.

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