My Family Culture

"A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture."

I suppose my three items would be:
1.  Teacup from my great-great grandmother's china set
2.  A photograph of our home
3.  A cook book full of family recipes

If asked to explain these items, I would say that the teacup is a piece of English china that was used by my Cornish great-great grandmother.  It is important to me because it represents my connection to Cornwall as well as my connection to the women in my family (not to mention the ever-important ritual of drinking tea).  The photograph of our home would represent and demonstrate our home as the center of our lives and the stage for living out our family culture.  The cook book would contain recipes for scones, Cornish pasties, Tuna Pie, and other family favorites that have roots in our family cultures and traditions.

If I could only keep one item, it would probably be the photo of our home.  If the photo could somehow contain enough detail, many elements of our family culture and history could be seen from the way we live and the items we display at home.

What an incredibly difficult, almost impossible decision!  Apparently, I don't have many cultural symbols in my life!  I found that it was hard to boil our family culture down to three items.  I also found that I was selfish and self-centered in choosing; I'm not sure these items represent my husband's family culture as well as mine.  Mostly, I see this exercise as a demonstration of how invisible our family culture may be amongst all of our possessions.  I try to overtly demonstrate our Celtic heritage, including Irish, Cornish, and Scottish, in our home (we have framed maps displayed, Scottish art, Irish lore, Celtic books, etc.) but "three small items" didn't give me the opportunity to pack all of these things.  A very hard thing to think about!