Morberger Family Cultural Analysis

My mon is a representation of the values and origins of the Morberger family. To the Japanese community, mon’s are a symbol of the family’s identity and name and were popularly used by the samurai to distinguish the social class and portray the honour of their family. (Encyclopaedia Japan, 2008). When creating my mon, I wanted to reflect the Japanese use of nature and symbolism to show the history of my family name and how different cultures came together to form our family. The most notable figure on the mon is the silhouette of the Japanese dragon located near the sea. In Japanese culture, most dragons were considered to live in oceans or lakes, and were a symbol of strength and courage. (Painter, 2010). Throughout history, relatives of mine have shown courage and strength throughout their lives, such as my Opa fleeing from Germany with his family to escape the anti-Jewish regime. In Western society, a dragon is identified with fairy tales, and growing up as children in Australia, my two sisters and I commonly watched movies where the knight in shining armour would defeat the evil dragon. Many of these original stories came from the German authors Brothers Grimm. As Morberger traces its origins back to Germany, I thought the use of a dragon in relation to the popular German fairy-tale authors represented the heritage of the family name in a personal way.
Along with the water present in the mon, I chose to use the Southern cross to show my family’s individual immigration to Australia to all form my family as it is now. From my German Opa, French Grandmother and, although not blood related but family nonetheless, middle-eastern Grandfather, each trace their roots back to other areas of the world, however, they all united in Australia. Therefore, the Southern Cross is a representation of the different backgrounds of my family, yet the unity of us in