Living in Cultures & Commutating With Cultures

(Transcript from a talk to the Chinese Professional Association of Canada (CPAC), Enlight, the 3nd annual conference on March 2, 2014)

Thank you, Peter, for your kind introduction and thank you members of CPAC Enlight for your invitation to speak at your conference. It is my great pleasure to be here among such distinguished guests/speakers. Being a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum and a professor at East Asian Studies Department at the University of Toronto for 17 years, my career has provided me with opportunities to observe the origins of cultures, to learn about the diversity of cultures, and of course to teach my understanding of cultures. So today, with this invitation, you have encouraged me to think about how my understanding of cultures has helped me to become a member of the executive team at one of the Canada’s largest cultural institute, the Royal Ontario Museum.  The ROM has over 6-million objects, 29 galleries, and more than 300 full and part-time staff. As a Vice President, I am responsible for research and collection management of World Cultures including nine departments: East Asia, West Asia, Egypt, Greek & Rome, New Word Archaeology, Ethnology, Canadiana, European Art, and Textile and Fashion.  It is really the first time in my life that I have had to think about how my career connects these two aspects - living in culture, and communicating with other cultures.

Of all of us here today we are very fortunate to live and work in this wonderful country, Canada.  This is a multicultural society where we can be proud of our own cultures, and appreciate the diversity of others. Regardless, of what we do, what our professions are, where we apply our skills to do the work that we do, and where in fact we encounter other cultures.  Everyday we see cultural shocks, different cultural manners, cultural behaviors, cultural mixes, but mostly, I would say, conscious and unconscious, you are communicating with cultures with your colleagues, your managers, your co-workers and, your employees. Every word you say, every action you do, you are presenting yourself within your culture. Therefore, we need to take advantage of multiculturalism by learning from each other, but more importantly from our own cultures. My question to all of us is really, how much do we know about our own Chinese culture? Sometimes when we are in Canada, we take for granted that being a Chinese person living in Toronto we know more about Chinese cultures then our neighbours. But, is that true? I will get back to this in a few minutes. But first, let me ask you this - do we see any advantage to gain in our careers by knowing more about other cultures?

Yes, take my own personal experience for example; I studied Chinese archaeology and cultural history in China before I came to North American to complete my graduate education about twenty-five years ago. At that time, I was probably only one of less than 10 Chinese international students outside China studying archaeology, most of my fellow students were studying engineering, computer sciences, physics, and chemistry in the 1980s and 1990s. It was regarded as strange to people to be studying archaeology outside of China. But, what were the differences between archaeology in North American and China – in the past I would have given you a ton of reasons, but today, I can just say one word – and that is “culture”.   I learnt at the University of Toronto how archaeology can make ancient cultures be relevant to our living cultures today and globally.  In China our universities tell our students how old an object is, and how great the things are that we have discovered in archaeology - which is meant to make us proud to be Chinese. For example,     terracotta warriors, in China we feel so passionate about this discovery, because it is one of the greatest finds in China and it makes us so proud. This idea that this is something we have and you don’t - too bad. But, frankly this is not a good way to communicate with culture, this is a form of communication that irritates your colleagues with other cultural background. But if we are able to use this discovery and tell your colleagues that 2000 years ago in China someone for some reasons made these terracotta warriors, and why, that would allow us to think what we are making today to landmark the history of next 2000 years? That is the difference of thinking and teaching.

When I applied for the ROM job in 1996, I was still a PhD student in the Anthropology Department (by the way, in the past three decades, I am still only one Chinese student graduated in archaeology from that department). I was lucky to be on the short list for interviews because I was considered as an extra, which means the Museum did not need to pay for my travel and hotel expenses in order to fly me in for the interview. I felt lucky in a way and also feel like I had nothing to lose and everything to gain in this experience. At the end, the museum selected me over the other four candidates who not only had PhDs in Chinese art and cultures, but who had work experience in a museum environment. I on the contrary had no work experience in a museum, and I did not study Chinese archaeology at University of Toronto, instead I focused on Canadian archaeology. Before that I also studied Near Eastern and Egyptian archaeology in the USA for my masters degree. The reason that ROM gave me the job is two-sided: on the one hand I had an understanding of global and comparative cultures, which meant that I would give a new perspective on Chinese cultures, and on the other hand, I demonstrated that I as a Chinese student was successful in studying Canadian and/or other cultures, therefore, I would have the potential to succeed in other tasks. Now today, I served on many occasions as the chair of search committees for new curatorial hires at the ROM.  In this role what I look for in a person is someone with a cultural understanding and the potential for success in both creative and innovative ways. Since you all are coming with strong cultural backgrounds, you need to turn this to your advantage.  It is not necessary that you are building your careers only in the field of your training and in the area you work at best. You can do something new and still be successful if you demonstrate you are competent to achieve your goal and work on your assignments. Your potential for success can be found in your understanding of cultural diversity.

Within past 12 years of working at the ROM, I have successfully brought three major Chinese exhibitions to Toronto: The first one was the Treasure From Sanxingdui, the Lost Civilization and Mysterious Bronze Age Archaeology in 2002. The second one was Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta Army exhibition in 2010, and the third is Forbidden City: Inside Court of China’s Emperor to be opened this coming weekend. All of these three major exhibitions are in collaboration with Chinese prominent museums and cultural institutes approved and supported by Chinese central government, so that Toronto and its visitors can truly view the hidden national treasures of China. Toronto’s Chinese media has used these opportunities to praise me for making a great contribution to the Canada-China cultural exchanges. To them, I was the one who was able to introduce Chinese cultures to Canadians by bringing Chinese national treasures or ancient artifacts to Canada to be appreciations by our western friends. But I laugh and disagree. I feel the objectives for cultural exchange is NOT just the appreciations of cultural phenomena. Focusing on something in my culture has and yours does not is a misleading in cultural exchange. I would say cultural exchange is to build a connection between diversified cultures, to find common origins and ground, and to make communications with cultures.

So really, what is the “culture”?  Let me first say Chinese culture is NOT just using chopsticks and drinking tea at Chinese restaurants, Chinese culture is NOT the dragon dances during Chinese New Year or the Moon Festival, Chinese culture is NOT about dragon boats and blue-and-white porcelains. The same can apply to American culture not being about eating at MacDonalds and what is found in Hollywood movies, African culture is not about hunting and camp dances, Indian culture is not about Buddhism and elephants, and French cultures is not just about art and wine. I still remembered the first year I took the anthropology course in 1990 at Tulsa University, Oklahoma. For the first time I learned the concept of “culture” from my American professor and I found it still is very useful. Culture is a learned pattern and behavior within a given society. Cultures are transformed within the societies, and cultures can be re-formed with introduction of new members of societies. Materials like food, objects, clothing, are manifestations of the societies that survive over the history, materials of which are being excavated in archaeological sites and displayed in the museum, but they are only remains of a culture, not cultural itself.

Culture is the belief people have learnt from  past generations and the belief people want to pass down to their children. Thinking about ourselves, we keep telling our children - those who are born and grow up in Canada  about Chinese culture, because we believe that is our culture, and we want them to know all about it. We use chopstick because we are told to by our parents, and we hold that belief and force our children to believe too. But at the end of the day, our sons and daughters learned more, in their own way, about living with today’s technology, social media, and culture from their schools, and they tried to distance themselves from what their parents told them to do. WHY, because we didn’t tell them why Chinese believe chopsticks or teas are good for them, at least not in the way our children are not convinced. 

Learning about culture is not just to observe cultural behaviors, it must inquiry why unknown behaviors happened. Why American love MacDonalds and French love arts, where this phenomena came from. When or if  Chinese love MacDonald and arts like American and French, or more than American and French, are they considered a part of American or French cultures. Of course, not! Really when we are dealing with food for example, do we know what are really in the minds of American, French, and Chinese?

Culture is what our philosophy, values, and views of the world are based on. Differences in cultures are the differences in perspectives like illustrated in this picture. To put all different perspective together and make this place a harmonic environment for the cat, the fish, and the kid, is really what you need to success in a working environment. Imaging in a work place, no matter if you are little poor fish, or an angry but scared cat, or you are an naïve body-type employee, or you are a big boss who are taking this photo, your survival in this place will be depending on how you can read the other minds, how you can feel what they feel, and of course, how you can understand their own cultures.

Therefore, you need to build a communication that can bridge these wired but real differences, to have a communication that can provide an understanding of foreign and unknown feeling, and a communication that can bring all these difference together. If you can do that, you will be admired and will be success in your areas of expertise. My point is: beyond your excellent and extraordinary skills and expertise in your field, regardless of your achievement in technologies and information, you just need to cultivate yourself with a foundation of culture, an understanding of cultural communication, because we are indeed living in this country of multiculturalism. We need to face that, and we should take advantage for ourselves.

In order to have an understanding of cultures, my advice is you start to visit a museum!!!

A museum is a place where the convergences of cultures from ancient time to the modern, and from Pacific to Atlantic oceans. This is where you can start to think NOT just what other cultures are represented, but to think what these different cultures in common. Therefore, if you are at a museum like the ROM, you look at the treasures on display, you can learn what they are; but importantly you would find very awarding, if you ask where these treasures were made in different cultures having something in common and/or the same objects having different values of views and beliefs in various cultures. That is what you need to find out at the museum, but just how much they are worthy!

I am going to give two examples from my exhibitions, how these messages can be read through the interpretation of museum display. My first exhibition in 2002 showcase the treasure discovered in 1986 at Sanxingdui of Sichuan province.  It is a great archaeological discovery in the last century. When we put artifacts together and displayed in the exhibition hall like this, we need to send out messages why they are significant.  In this case, I would tell our visitors, that back to 3000 years ago, within today’s China, we had very diversified cultures between Zhongyuan Central China and Shichuan Pingdi plain. But archaeological discovery show they also had cultural interaction, adopting materials and ideas from each other. It means, if we are talking about the cultural difference between China and America today, in another 5 – 10 thousand years, maybe this difference no long existed as we are already witness a globalization, that changes our understanding of cultural difference.

My second exhibition in 2010, the terracotta warrior exhibition, that everyone in the world knows about it. Most of my Chinese friends seems take it for grand that is the great pride of China. They never think of why the terrocotta warrior appeared only at that time. My western colleagues and friends were eager to know who was his crazy guy Qinshihuangdi to build such crazy things during the short time span? What did he think he was doing? I feel it is interesting, that such a great question has always asked by western visitors, but not Chinese who think we know enough about the Qinshihuangqi, the First Emperor.

This was the most successful exhibition in the ROM recent history, attracting 355,000 visitors, but I had to regrettably report that I have not seen enough our Chinese visitors in the gallery. My sense is that Chinese people believe we have seen these on site in Xian, why do we need to see then in the museum. But now you should know that you need to come to the museum not to just see objects, but to try understanding why these national treasures have become treasures. In my way of working on this exhibition, I tried to explain to the visitors through the display of the warriors and other objects from the Warring State period to Han Dynasty, a notion that how a marginal state raise to a powerful empire 2500 years ago, ending a 500 year war and conflicts, providing a foundation for a wealth and prospect society of Han dynasty. What it happened in our history may well happen again, and in fact, it is happening in China right now, after 200 years of wars and  social instability since the Opium War in middle of 19th century. The repeating history was then a process of cultural building, because the culture as I said is a learnt pattern and behavior.

Today’s museum has a very different mission than many decades ago when museum were just for displaying objects. At the ROM, we are building the museum to be recognized globally as an essential destination for making sense of the changing natural and cultural worlds. We as managers and curators at the museum are trying the best to interpret the cultural remains and objects to make them relevant to today’s worlds. We want our visitors to understand where we come from, and how the worlds have been changed, how can we survive in today’s changing working environment.

So please come and visit us at the Royal Ontario Museum, and you will find there is an entire world in the front of you. The objects in the museum they are not just arts and artifacts, they are not just ancient cultures, but they are a part of our living cultures. In understanding them, you will be able to make communication with cultures and to allow you to have a broad new perspective that helps you with the successful career. The ROM offers excellent networking opportunities for young professionals, including a Young Professionals Circle and signature event, PROM.  This year's PROM will be called "Forbidden PROM", inspired by the exhibition The Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China's Emperors.