This showed up on my Reddit feed and it reminded me that love songs, like pottery and dumplings, are universal. Especially love songs where it’s a guy trying to convince a girl she should be with him.
I think this does a great job of breaking down the stereotype we have (or maybe just me) that native songs didn’t have lyrics. And if they did they were war chants or prayers for a good hunt. Honestly I didn’t think about it too much since my exposure to this musical genre is limited. But of course they have love songs and of course it’s the same sort of lyrics you could find in any language
“Why don’t you come? Why don’t you stay?
I wouldn’t mind to see that smile everyday.”
I can totally imagine some young man singing this to a young woman he is trying to woo. I can even imagine that young man having his friends play back up singers just like this.
Singing is core to being human. Every child sings. We sing when we’re happy or when we’re sad. We sing when we’re together or all alone. And it got me thinking about what other misconceptions did I have about other music. And how every culture probably has a song (or many) that are love songs just like this.
Then my thoughts drifted to things that are universal. There seems to be so much divisiveness right now, that its good to remember what we have in common; and have always had in common
I already wrote about pottery being universal back in 2016. How every culture figured out that if you put clay in a fire it will harden like stone. I really like Mike Dodd’s idea of how it all started.
Something about his explanation is so plausible. You can totally see someone accidentally figuring it out!
While I was thinking about things that are universals empanadas came to mind. Probably because I was hungry but it occurred to me that every culture has some form of perogie, or dumpling or empanada. That the need to make food portable and put food in food was essential to our development as people in some core way.
While lots of dumplings are less portable, or non-portable (think wonton soup) many are. Bao for example, or bánh, chebureki, pastel, pastie, the list goes on. Dumplings are a group effort. Someone to make the filling. Someone to knead the dough. Someone to put them together, someone else to cook it. I really liked Eamon Rockey’s idea of it being a way to keep a perishable like meat in a sterile environment. Whether or not it is a “microcosm of gastronomy” is up for debate, but they are important not just for sustenance but culturally.
In my husband’s family for example, we eat dumplings before we travel. The pouch symbolizing the packing of belongings. We eat dumplings at festivals and big occasions. Making someone dumplings is an act of love because they can be so labour intensive.
The point is, every culture figured out a dumpling, every culture has pottery and every culture has love songs. There are some things that speak to the core of our being. That have been with us for so long it seems impossible to be human without them.
We should look to these things as reminders; that the things that unite us run deep and old. While the things that divide us are superficial, and temporary.