K: Culture

1.) A noun meaning intellectual and artistic activity and the works produced by it. 2.) A noun meaning the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another. 3.) A verb meaning to grow (microorganisms or other living matter) in a specially prepared nutrient medium.

Since I can’t read the labels on the bags of “potting soil” that I buy for my plants, I’m sure there is some of the third definition going on somewhere in our apartment.

I realized yesterday that I forget that there are other definitions than the anthropological one (#2) for the word. Observing, misunderstanding, and adopting ways of living from a culture that could not be more foreign leaves little elbow room inside the word for other interpretations.

I forget that in my past life when the most foreign place I had spent a significant amount of time was Britain, when I studied literature at university, and lived in Denver where theatre/concert tickets were easy and affordable enough to come by (our favorite is still 2Pianos 4Hands), if someone had used the word culture I would have thought instantly of the first definition and tossed in a quote from some poet to solidify the argument.

Now, culture is a word so vast I will never plumb the depths of it and so dense my understanding will never light the whole cavern at once. Culture simultaneously excites and exhausts.

But there are moments when culture and culture collide, when the works produced by intellectual and artistic activity transcend the dimensions of one culture into the realm of humanity and up there without the interference of misplaced manners or a lamentable vocabulary, one can just employ the senses to enjoy well managed talent.

We had just such a restful evening yesterday. Beifang Minzu Daxue (our college) is fortunate enough to employ a couple from Russia/Kazakhstan, who are concert musicians, as teachers in the music department. Last night Olga accompanied three of her students in a concert for which they must have spent endless hours preparing. A couple of clarinets and a saxophone as well as the grand piano presented a sumptuous selection of celebrated classical pieces.

The evening reminded me that even in the grueling (but satisfying) work that is intercultural living there is culture to be had and enjoyed.

"For without culture or holiness, which are always the gift of a very few, a man may renounce wealth or any other external thing, but he cannot renounce hatred, envy, jealousy, revenge. Culture is the sanctity of the intellect." [William Butler Yeats]