Cross-cultural advocate and author, Yang-May Ooi, tells us about the inspiration behind her new multimedia project, Belonging Across Cultures.
Belonging Across Cultures: Bringing People Together through Stories
I feel that today, more and more, we are fragmenting into division and disconnection. We only have to turn on the news or open up any social media platform. Many people seem to be angry about something. Someone seems always to be pointing the finger at someone else for the cause of all kinds of offence, troubles and problems.
We all believe ourselves to be decent, good and kind. Many of us fly into conflict over hot-button issues, urgently defending what we believe to be right. But so do those who disagree with us believe themselves to be decent, good, kind – and right.
So we splinter into warring factions of us vs them, leave vs remain, pro- vs anti-, this belief vs that belief, who belongs here vs who does not… and so it goes on.
In spite of ourselves, we all seem to be shouting across the divide with no wish to listen, understand or empathise. Or to see the humanity in the other person.
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Join me to bring people together
My new multimedia project, Belonging Across Cultures is my creative response to our increasingly divided and disconnected world. My hope is to invite us all to take a moment to reflect on the things that we share in common instead of the differences that divide us. And to be curious about what is making us – as individuals, as a society and as nations – so angry.
There is power in numbers. So may I invite you to join me in this experiment to bring people together across cultural and social divides? I would love to have your company as we explore, talk, wonder and discover together… Could there be ways of healing divisiveness and slowing down our modern world’s spiralling disconnectedness?
In Belonging Across Cultures, I aim to share stories from across cultures and from unexpected perspectives. I go in search of what brings us together, what values we share, what struggles and joys we all experience. I also recognise and celebrate differences because it is in our distinctness that we find the great gift of being human.
Go to Belonging Across Cultures and have a look around. Or subscribe to the convenient email version for the free monthly digest of the latest stories and insights.
The world needs your voice
If you have a story that could promote connectedness and understanding, or a point of view that could inspire empathy and reflection, I would love to hear from you. There is a great need right now for voices like yours and mine to share stories and perspectives that could bring people together across the rifts that our modern world is creating. Please get in touch via the Contact page here or over at Belonging Across Cultures.
Yang-May Ooi is a cross-cultural advocate and author. She is the founder of Belonging Across Cultures, a multimedia project bringing people together across cultural and social divides through stories. Her creative work includes novels The Flame Tree and Mindgame and a family memoir & theatre performance Bound Feet Blues. She is also the host of the podcasts Creative Conversations, The Anxiety Advantage and MetroWild. Find out more at www.TigerSpirit.co.uk. You can connect with Yang-May on social media – @TigerSpiritUK.
