I don’t know what exactly prompted me into writing this down. Perhaps it was a gentle stroll back into the past where people have made fun of the choices that I have made, particularly when it comes to things like reading materials.

Over the past few months (and years), I met a few people who, upon hearing that I like reading books by Miss Amy Tan, proceed to remark that the lady churns out commercial stereotypical rubbish about Asian culture. One person have even mentioned that my search for that all-elusive beauty recipe book was stupid, to say the least. To cut the story short, s/he saw no value in owning/reading/finding such a book. My hubby himself is guilty of making fun of me whenever we go to the bookstore or rental book shops. He thinks that romance novels are just look funny (y’know how the covers are) and laughs whenever I pick up a title, even if it’s just to see what the story is about. It is at times like this that I think he’s just being a bully for the fun of it.

Naturally, I think otherwise.

I grow up in a society that harps on reading but does little to promote it – books get more expensive and when someone wants to get creative, they go on the “BANNED” list. I was pretty lucky to have parents who encouraged me to read as much as I could. Most of my childhood and teenage years were spent in the library. My father used to tease me about how I was married to my books.

Even back then, I saw ALL books as the source of knowledge. Books are books to me, no matter what they were about, and they were good for one’s soul. Variety is the spice of life and all that. If one looked hard enough, you could see it everywhere – medical journals, novels, cookbooks and even dictionaries/encyclopedias. Yes, to improve his English, my father used to reach a dictionary. I didn’t see anything elite about them at all. The library certainly didn’t stamp “Elitist reading material” or “Junk” on the books, so I thought little of it.

Until I encountered these certain individuals.

These individuals profess to read classics, literary texts and yet lack 1) knowledge of current issues in their world, and 2) understanding of the world & people around them. As people who subscribe to this so-called labelling of the written word, I’d expected some form of knowledge to be retained and through that retained knowledge, some inkling of self-growth and reflection of themselves and their world. Strange how it doesn’t seem to turn out that way.

The hypocrisy struck me to the core. An seemingly educated person who lacks the very basics of what makes an educated man – awareness of both the self and the world.

But I am aware that not every learned person is like that. I know of some very learned “elitist” people who are the exact opposite. They are humble and highly educated PLUS they don’t go around dictating that we should all take Hobbes or Machiavelli as our daily and nightly bread. So who are these certain individuals? Regular folks who just invented a totally separate and new label just so that they can find somewhere to belong in this world? Or are they trying to stand out?

Maybe I’m wrong although I sincerely hope not. I want to raise children who will learn to love the written word no matter what form it comes in. Children who will grow to appreciate the subtle art of storytelling in a simple tale like Jack & The Beanstalk, the lessons on interpersonal relationships in romance novels, the logic and philosophy in works by Locke, Aquinas and even Marx to life’s history in encyclopedias and journals.

The written word, no matter what form it may come in, exists to capture all forms of our species – our culture, our thoughts, our growth, and even our decline. Think of it this way: if aliens were to come across a library, all the books in that library represents who we are, good or bad, crude or sophisticated.

Just because a person enjoys reading commercially produced literature doesn’t mean he or she lacks the ability to digest and appreciate more “elite” material. The days of high and low culture have slipped past us. Time to move on.