I’ve watched my students perform in Winners’ Recitals both in Singapore, where I live, and across the globe. Invariably, the program is full of Asian names. Once, a student won a competition in Vienna and went with her family to perform in the Winners’ Recital. Almost everyone was from Singapore and its neighboring countries. This led me to wonder: why are Asians fascinated with taking part in competitions?
Authenticity and individuality are prized in the performing arts. These traits make a performing artist unique and different. ‘Different’ and ‘novel’ are what sell commercially because the human brain is wired for novelty. Audiences want to see a performer with a point of view that is slightly different. Otherwise, one might as well applaud a robot performing Paganini or a recording of the same.
Competitions promote a level of homogeneity. To attain a first prize, one’s performance must adhere to a set aesthetic standard agreed upon by all the judges. These judges may be from the same country or different countries. Nonetheless, there must be a coherent aesthetic standard that the competitor’s performance must achieve to win.
This, then, is the appeal of competition to a culture that values community over individuality, communication over competition, and politeness over expressivity. Standards and norms—levels of achievement—offer the Asian psyche a degree of security, a degree of comfort that performance skills are good enough and fit in with a national, regional, or international aesthetic, as the case may be—assurance that stems from a deep sense of insecurity, perhaps from historical displacement from wars and famine that led to millions fleeing their homes and being scattered around the world.
Perhaps the need to be judged reveals a systemic cultural insecurity, an ingrained replaying of conditioned childhood admonitions where the child is berated for being ‘not good enough’ or ‘not as good as’ another child, deep emotional trauma that seeped through generations to become just another way of life.
Competition culture unconsciously causes performers to doubt their intrinsic value, to base their self-worth on unpredictable extrinsic factors, and consequently to develop anxiety.
Can there be healthy competition? Yes, there can be.
Healthy competition is when the sole aim is to become better than one was before the competition, understanding that the only thing one can control is one’s performance. Trying to control anything else, as they say, is like trying to catch the wind. This approach also helps maintain individuality and, above all, sanity during these most challenging times.