Monday, January 30, 2006

Festivity is over-rated

Another blogpost, oh glee. And though I'm posting on the first day of the Lunar New Year, this is not going to be one of those pathologically sugar-coated I-love-Lunar-New-Year posts (no offense to people who might think that I'm calling their blogposts sugar-coated, or pathological), nor even one filled with particularly much joy and festivity. If Christmas has its Ebenezer Scrooge, then I suppose Lunar New Year has me, and that strikes me as a particularly pretentious thing to say, but its the season to be pretentious.

I can't stand this holiday. I couldn't stand this entire day, as it was. Visiting extended family, being forced to smile at people you haven't seen in ages and couldn't really be bothered about, and chime "Happy New Year" with a fake sincerity that falls so flatly to the ground you can just about hear its meaningless flopping. I used to be so full of expectations for Lunar New Year, used to think we would enjoy ourselves endlessly visiting our relatives and sitting around chatting merrily, used to envision that it'd add to the festive spirit to have all the little cousins gathered and playing with one another. That was many many years ago, and year after year of putting such a beautiful face on festivity only to be disappointed sourly by the reality of it all makes expectation meaningless. It's like expectation creates this big amorphous idea of a festive occasion, and the idea is so filled with the good things you put into it that nothing can match up to it, that even the best efforts fall sadly flat.

Routine, that's what the occasion has turned into. Always waking up to horribly garish and loud festive programmes on television (what happened to the anime specials they liked to air?) and preparing to visit the paternal side of the family before heading for the maternal side. Always bearing the bombardment of small talk, from "Wah, so big already" to "How's studies?" and the occasional "What, you're still studying? How many years more?". The red packet business is worst; most just hand them out with a sour expression on their face, and though the tradition is to wish others well when giving red packets, well who cares about tradition any more, ironically. The feeling of tiresome inevitability and routine duty rubs off and replaces the earnest gleam of the season with a practical dullness. I could, like most other people, try to think the best of everything, find the little treasures to be thankful about, but it's too much hard work in this case because they're so hard to find.

After the tiresome formalities we proceed to sit around watching television, at least whatever frightfully boring programme happens to have some relative riveted at the moment. I usually go looking for a corner to sit and read a book, and basically ignore everyone. No one sees this as being something abnormal because I do this every year, and frankly, a book of your choice is so much more engaging than insipid choices of television programmes or trying miserably to mingle with relatives that are either more than 20 years older or 10 years younger than you. The older people, on the other hand, sit around in secret little alcoves around the house gossiping about other relatives that haven't arrived yet, or children of relatives.

The thing about these little let's-discuss-unsavoury-details-behind-people's-backs sessions is that they are just about the most interesting part of New Year gatherings for me, and I'm rather ashamed to say it, just as I can imagine some people's disapproving expressions. But it just goes to show how ultimately superficial the whole process of meeting kin and having collective festive joy is. And that proof delights my cynical little soul. So I usually secrete myself into the rooms where these little talks are occuring, and people usually don't mind an unobtrusive listener. Oh, I have absolutely no illusions they probably talk about us when we're not around, about how much of a weird person I am, hiding and reading and not liking to talk. Like I care.

The tidbits I glean from today's gossip sessions are tantalising, and I am always surprised by the way life can mimic the thigns they show on television, though I'm quite sure that if my extended family is like this most other people's probably are as well, except no one really wants to air the dirty laundry. Neither do I, for I suspect my parents would have me flayed if they found out what I'd been airing on public domains.

Anyway reading gets tiresome, and all the smoking relatives makes me feel like I've lost a few years of my lifespan, or at least a few million of my respiratory epithelials have lost their tumour suppressor functions during this period. And after a while I am positively raring to leave. There's absolutely nothing to stay for, no particularly compelling thing about one's continued presence in the company of related persons who don't give a damn about you unless you're tagged with some scandalous tidbit that they can mutter about in secrecy, like if you've squandered your parents' money on gambling. Nothing particularly meaningful about it either, and I've long since discarded the illusion that staying around makes things better, that we need time to warm up. Maybe they all just want to sit around because they feel inherently guilty that they actually hate being here and feel like staying around is their punishment for thinking in such an unbecoming manner. No one dares to say it out loud for fear that the veil of collusive pretense will rip open and show how miserable we all are in reality.

Yes, for me, Lunar New Year is quite intolerable, sorry to rain on your parade. And having CHP looming isn't doing wonders for it either; I keep worrying about what to cut out from the report, and well, things never go the way you wish when you're working with other people, though I guess we're lying in a bed of astroturf compared to other groups. Not that I have anything to complain about, because the report people have all been wonderful (I'd hate to say this and make it seem like I didn't mean that statement [I did!], but I get this bitter taste in my mouth from being politically correct; I wonder if our CHP tutor does too, the way she's PC all the time). Sometimes, though, it's best not to expect too much from people. Then at least you'd get a pleasant surprise when they actually show some standard. Gosh, am I mean-spirited today, or what?

I hope everyone has a happy Lunar New Year (it doesn't make sense that you should hope everyone has a miserable time just because you do, so I sincerely mean this). Drat I hope it's not bad luck to be crabby on New Year's Day.

Avaris / 1/30/2006 12:28:00 AM

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