Posted by Yong TM (202.156.2.219) on December 30, 2002 at 04:00:56:
In Reply to: Yam Seng (Cheers) posted by Khew Chee Keong on December 28, 2002 at 10:24:30:
Your simple question actually is representative of a large genre of questions, relating to Christianity and culture. Many people simply assume that if it is not 'Christian-sounding', then it must have Satanic influence of some sort. As I am very effectively bi-lingual and bi-cultural, I have a particular sensitivity to these sort of questions.
On a micro-level, the 'yam-seng' thing is simply the Cantonese version of 'bottoms-up'. Nothing very exciting about it to talk about, except that it seems strange that in multi-dialect Singapore (where Hokkien is the dominant dialect), the Cantonese version should prevail. In Mandarin, its simply 'kan pei', similar sounding to Japanese.
I am of the opinion that Christians who cast doubts upon such traditions do not quite understand the relationship between culture and faith. I have seen so many examples of blind adherance to what is supposedly 'biblical' that it is rather comical at times. I was in a church where the song leader and his back-up singers and dancers were all dressed in pseudo-arabic customes, dancing in a arabic manner while they led worship service. This is very strange and irrelevant.
Culture and faith is a very big topic of course, but one interesting thought I have for you would be this: If Jesus Christ were born in China, churches today will all look like Chinese temples. Much of what we read in the Bible is cultural in nature. They reflects the life and culture of the Jewish people. It does not mean that we are to follow them (in any case, we do not follow many, many things the Jewish people do).
Many people equate being 'western' with being 'Christian'. You may notice that I do not have a 'Christian' name. This is because I am not convinced at all that Christians need to take on a 'biblical' name. It is more a reflection of cultural superiority of the west, than an adherance to biblical principles. When I was studying in the US, I noticed that not one of my Japanese or Indian friends have 'western' names. However difficult their names were, they made sure that people remember them, instead of quickly adopting a 'western' name for conveniece the way the Chinese did.
Other Christians cast doubts on images of the Chinese dragons, lion dancing, red packets during Chinese New Year etc. The right thing is for us to be able to tell what is cultural and traditional, and be able to handle them with wisdom rather than a plain sweeping western-ape-ing response. I see no problem in acknowledging that while dragon and lion dancing had their origins in non-Christian and superstitous sources, in themselves, the crystalisation of a people's artistic expressions can be seen and appreciated. I think Satan is smarter than what we think... he uses more subtle and lesser-identified manner to beguile us rather than hide behind all these 'obvious' cultural expressions.