treated with very little respect. Furthermore, children in a family were traditionally looked after
and taken care of by the relatives, not the parents. Usually, a man would be responsible for the
well-being of his niece or nephew.
Kerala also has quite a colorful and traditional mix of art and culture. Art forms like the ancient
Indian form of martial art, Kalaripayattu is considered to be the origin of Chinese martial arts,
more specifically the Shaolin martial arts. Kathakali is the oldest form of a dance and musical
play in which all the performers are males. There are no women in these dance plays even the
female role is played by a man. This dance form is unique to Kerala - only this place in the whole
of India has this kind of art culture. Generally, it takes a person ten years in training to become a
Kathakali dancer. Considering that dancing used to be an art normally taken up by women,
Kathakali is indeed quite interesting and unique to me.
Religion is considerably diverse in Kerala. Even though most of the people are Hindus, the is
quite a substantial population of Muslims and Christians. It was believed that Christianity came
about due to the preaching of the apostle Thomas, one of Christ’s disciples in the Bible. The
apostle was believed to have traveled to India on a missionary journey to spread the Gospel and it
was from there that Christianity spread through all parts of the country including Kerala in which
St. Thomas also went to. Festivals also form an important part of Kerala culture where people of
all religions join in the celebrations. Festivals like Onam and Vishu are more or less like the
Chinese Lunar New Year or the Western New Year, which celebrate the start of a new season or
year and the reapings of a good harvest. Festivals are accompanied by colorful songs and dances,
sport events such as the snake boat racing held at every Onam festival. Rituals are performed in
temples to give thanks to the gods for their blessings for the year and to pray for more in the
coming year.
Surprisingly, Communism exists in Kerala and it actually co-exists with the religious diversity.
Kerala has a prominent communist party which had administrated the state for many years and is
now ironically one of the political parties in a democratic state. The reason for the co-existence of
Communism and religion is that the type of Communism practiced is very different from the
mainstream Communism practiced in Russia and China. This is the fundamental form of Marxist
Communism that does not advocate the non-existence and destruction of religion, only the
equality of social status and class between people in a society.
However, the main feature of Kerala is its language, Malayalam. Besides being one of the main
Indian languages, it is also the official language in Kerala. Malayalam evolved from the ancient
language of Medieval Tamil, which is no longer in use now. Malayalam came about in the 8th
century AD when the Keralan king at that time broke away from the other states in India over
some misunderstandings with the other Dravidian kings. It was from then that the language was
later founded in Kerala. The earliest form of the language was written in stone and copper plates.
Many of these were found and dug up in archaeological sites in Kerala. Malayalam, like Tamil,
belongs to the group of southern Dravidian language. It is this reason that Malayalam is very
closely related to Tamil, even more so than other Indian languages. In the past, their relationship
was so closely that they literally share many common features and it was difficult to tell them
apart; both were used interchangeably. However, over the years, Malayalam has evolved so much
with the influence of other Indian and foreign languages that it has become a totally distinct
language from Tamil. However, the two still share a close affinity with each other.
As mentioned above, Malayalam developed due to influences of other languages – local and
foreign. Besides Tamil and Sanskrit – another Dravidian language, the sheer number of words in
Malayalam vocabulary and grammar were borrowed from other foreign languages such as
English, Spanish, Portuguese and many others. In fact, both Sanskrit and English have the most
influence on Malayalam. Because of the influence and the great mix of words of other languages,
Malayalam may, at times, sound like the many languages it had adopted and assimilated. It is,
therefore, quite amazing and intriguing to me that Malayalam is actually a mixture of many
different languages put together to form a very distinct language. The nature of the language is
very much evident to the liberal nature of Kerala people, who welcome co-existence of other
cultures alongside their own, in their society. This in turn gives a considerable ethnic diversity to
the place.
Malayalam is spoken quite differently between the different castes in Kerala. There three ways in
which it is spoken and used – formal, literary and local slang something like Singlish. The written
language is also very much different from the other written Indian languages. It uses a form of
script called Koleluttu, developed originally from the Tamil system of writing.
I will now come to the second part of the paper. This part will be focusing on the business
superstitions and mentalities of Indians and Chinese in general. This is the focus of our research
project for our group and the data we got in our research came mostly from interviews that we
conducted on Singaporean business people such as shop-owners and lawyers.
In business, Indians believe in more of a good start compared to holding on to luck as a major
factor. They tend to believe in an auspicious start in opening a business or clinching a business
deal. For them, selecting a good day or time to start a business is important compared to what
comes after. It is believed that if you have a good start, things will turn out fine for the business or
deal. Even if something bad happens, Indians believe that without the auspicious start, things
could have been worse than it is. This is quite an optimistic outlook in Indian superstition which
is why I feel that Indian businessmen are more resilient in hardships and less resistant to change
in doing business. As long as there is an auspicious start, things couldn’t go too bad.
It may also be due to this outlook that Indians tend to be more entrepreneurial in business than
compared to Chinese. Chinese tend to believe that once something bad happens, even with a good
start, the business will go “down the drain” or business for the day will not go smoothly. And in
the process, they may just simply give up and stop doing the business or be discouraged to being
entrepreneurial.
Luck plays a very minor role in business for Indians compared to Chinese, who luck as an
important pillar to having a successful business. Chinese tend to have a greater fear of uncertainty
of the future than Indians in their superstitions. Luck is always something that they try
to manipulate with any means possible in their superstitions to ensure the safety or success of
their business. For Indians, as long as there is a good start in the business, what comes after
doesn’t really matter, either good or bad. What matters is that they do their best and give their
best efforts in managing the business.
Maintaining their status quo and protecting their wealth is also another thing in Chinese
superstition. Chinese will do anything to maintain their wealth and status, taking great risks in
doing so and often times to the point of gambling. However, if taking risks means losing their
wealth or status, even if it may eventually boost them, they will not take the chance and do it. In
other words, Chinese do take risks in doing business but those risks are calculated. They will not
fight a battle which they think that they will not win unless it is hundred percent victory. In
comparison, Indians are more courageous in this sense of stepping out to take risks if they can
make their business do even better or even diversify their business. They are less afraid of losing
over gaining or doing better. Even if they know the risks they take may cause them heavy losses,
they will still go ahead with their plans in business. If they fail in the process, they are more
willing to pick themselves up and start all over again. As long as there is an opportunity for a
beginning, they are willing to try again once more. Therefore, they dare to take more risks than
Chinese, in the being entrepreneurial.
However, when it comes to choosing between superstitions and profit-making in business, both
Indians and Chinese will ultimately choose to abandon their superstitions and go for whatever
that will profit their business. For example, if a certain day or time is considered to be unlucky in
doing business in their superstitions and there is a business deal or client they have to meet on
that specific day or time, they will just go ahead with the meeting or the deal. Business is
business; if there is a wide-open opportunity to make money, why throw it away over some
unstable or irrational superstitions, which has no real guarantee of success? All of the people
which we interviewed during our project, express this common view.
Therefore, in the final analysis, it is money that matters, not superstitions. To most people,
superstitions are just beliefs which has no true or real basis and guarantee. Whatever is profitable
for the business must be done and whatever that prevents the business from making money is
thrown aside. Superstitions, so it seems, is just something that is done out of convenience as long
as it does not interfere with the business. Ultimately, superstitions are just an added sense or
feeling of security, which may not be real, to people in business.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lee-Jay Cho. Hongkong: East-west Center, 1994
John Hutchinson . Ethnicity. Oxford: New York Oxford University Press, 1996
Micheal Carrithers. Why Humans Have Cultures.Explaining Anthropology & Social Diversity Oxford: New York Oxford University Press, 1992
Roger M. Keesing. Cultural Anthropology. A Global Perspective New York: CBS College Publishing, 1981
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Malayali Festivals.com. 2002. Compare Info (P) Ltd. 29 Apr. 2002 <http://www.malayalifestivals.com/>.