I love Chinese New Year. I mean, how can you not. I am conditioned to respond with enthusiasm at the sight of bright red angpows. Just like how Pavlov conditioned his dog all those years ago, only that I do it at a higher level, with more subtlety and small talk and less salivating.
But I have to admit that this CNY, I really felt my age. Where did all these little kids come from. I could have sworn that just a year ago, they didn't exist. Wait, you know what, they really didn't. And suddenly I have to play with a whole coterie of babies, clasping their tiny little hands, even smaller feet, and I have to contend with their slightly older siblings calling me uncle. And their beaming grandparents handing those little critters over to me, saying "Come, let uncle carry you. Boy, don't kick around. Look at uncle, boy ah. Look at uncle."
"Yah, smack your backside then you know." That last phrase was from me. I mean, I like kids but how do you engage a baby that doesn't even want to look at you. What I do sometimes is feed them peanut shells when their grandparents aren't looking. They really seem to love it. It's salty and fibrous after all, makes a good chew toy.
No, I'm really kidding. Their grandparents would kill me for that. But I did feed a toddler some. His mom later fished it out of his mouth, and smacked his butt. He will never eat another peanut shell again. One learns best from the school of hard knocks.
But well, I am still not used to being called "uncle". I am just 24 years old. Uncle used to be what I called other people, and they have always been those who hid in corners or pretended to be extremely interested in whatever was showing on television while their wives were busy making small talk. It gets quite funny sometimes when something like "Enchanted" is showing on television for the kids' entertainment and you see your 50-ish uncle straining to try and follow the inane sappiness of it.
And in another sign that things have changed, my peers have started giving me angpows and asking when it will be my turn to get married so they can save the angpow on me. And all my uncles and aunties start looking at me and going "Next one your turn ah. My son and daughter all married already. When can I attend your wedding dinner? Hahaha."
Very funny meh? How come I'm not laughing. I felt obligated to at least make a half-smile and laugh a little, but it came out like "hurhur" which didn't really do much to convince them that I was really very amused by their question.
There was a really funny moment this CNY though. A cousin of mine took out this list of formal addresses for relatives in Chinese that he printed off the Internet, saying that everyone should start learning how to call each other so it was more polite. You know, like what you call your second aunt's husband's sister on your father's side, that kind of nonsense. After awhile, he looked at the English translations, and he proceeded to say this.
"Aiyah, just call everyone auntie and uncle la. It's so much easier."
Precisely. Because CNY is the time when you meet all these random relatives that you probably wouldn't know from another person on the streets, and yet you have to pretend to be cordial because somehow by some stroke of fate you are in the same house.
So you have to make conversation with someone you could hardly care less about, and ditto for them, and pretend that you are genuinely interested that their kid is attending the same course you are, that they had a really tough time in the army, that their son ran away with their life savings and so on. I was talking with one of my more distant cousins, and the conversation ran into many awkward pauses, not least because I really didn't know what to fill it with, and same for them.
I mean, I can do small talk, but for most small talk, you have the option of saying bye and walking away when you run out of stuff to talk about. When its CNY, you can't leave till its polite to do so, which can be anywhere from half an hour to an hour. An hour of small talk between two disinterested parties is probably something you could milk for comedic effect because of all the badly spaced pregnant pauses and hanging sentences, if only you weren't the person stuck in it.
"So, I heard that you are studying now."
"Yes, I am studying mass communications at NTU."
"Wah, your English must be very good." (Seriously, why is this all they ever say about people who do mass comm? It is so not true.)
"Erm yah."
*awkward pause*
And this is when the humble angpow, the ambassador of goodwill, makes an entrance, so they can save further awkwardness.
But they then struggle to find the right filler phrase to say. Should it be "学业进步" because they can't be sure if you're still studying? Should it be "快高长大" because they are unsure if you are still a teenager? Yes, I still pass off convincingly as an A level student, I have good genes. Or should it be "心想事成" because you're already working? As a matter of fact, I got all three from different people, and I couldn't care less because all I cared about was that red packet they were holding.
I think I might have scared a few of them by being a little too eager to take the packet out of their hands before they had finished saying their filler phrase, which was quite obvious because their fingers were still gripping tightly to the angpow when I pulled on it. I know I have this crazed loopy grin when I want something really badly. It freaks the shit out of people, or so I've been told.
And the angpow comes into good use because the other favourite pastime of CNY is gambling. Your parents will normally chk you when you try to gamble, but during CNY, they are the ones opening the house and inviting people to gamble.
Only at CNY. Huat ah!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Results aren't everything, the journey is.
Every student looks upon the release of results with a mixed trepidation, one filled both with hope and the very real prospect of despair. Results, while often an impersonal letter grade, are linked to a semester of hard work, and more than a little frustration at times.
It is not often however that one can say that one is fully satisfied with the results one sees. There is always a module where one could have done better, some where one did better than expected.
This semester, I did mostly okay. But there was one module though that disappointed me greatly, because the letter grade I received signified a lack of recognition for all that I'd done, and more than a little partisanship on the part of the instructors.
I've never felt this way after seeing my grades. All the previous times, I was satisfied because to a certain extent, I knew I deserved them. But this was the first time I knew for certain that I did not deserve the grade I'd got, and that people who were less deserving had done better, and very markedly so. It was so ridiculous that the only reaction to my grade was shock and indignation, even amongst my peers.
I did not sleep all night after seeing that result. It was not so much the disappointment that came with it, but more of a feeling of betrayal that left me sick to the stomach and unable to feel any emotion. It was such an extreme wake up call that I did not even feel sleepy. It was the final nail in the coffin of a whole value and belief system that I'd grown up on, that the deserving get what they deserve.
When even that leaves you, there is really very little else that can motivate you to work hard for success, other than a stubborn faith that there must be something better than this, a light at the end of a never-ending tunnel. There is really little one can do about subjectivity in grading, even if the results have the effect of branding certain people as better than others. A single grade can mean so little, and yet so much.
When I was younger, it was all about working hard to do well. Now, I know that it is a lot more than that. With a bell curve system, it is often about who took the class with you. In a team effort, it is often about who knows how to showcase themselves better. In classes where the quality of one's work is subjective, it is often open to debate what grade one really deserves.
And in the ruthless competition against one's peers, someone is bound to get left behind. Those who are in front seldom stop to think about the person behind them, often someone who put in just as much effort, but just wasn't as lucky on the exam day.
I know one's happiness should not depend on grades, and really for me, it doesn't. But for that one module, it was not the grade that I was seeking. It was the recognition of how much I'd put in, which by the lack of an acknowledgment through the grade I received, was really a slap in the face. It is the kind of feeling where words will not suffice, and even now, for someone like me to say that I can't describe the feeling in words several hours later is really a reflection of what I feel about it.
I find it really ridiculous that now I find that I have to appeal for what should belong to me, as though the instructors could not see it fit to give me the grade I deserved in the first place. I do not say this lightly, because at times I did feel like I was carrying the whole team. But of course when I have to say it like this, it becomes an exercise in hubris, as though all I had to stake a claim to a grade that should have been mine is a bruised ego. And its not even ego that motivates me. It's just an acknowledgment that my efforts and sacrifices were appreciated.
Really, it is not so much the fact that I did not get the grade that stings, it's the fact that people who did a lot less did, because it really makes you wonder if you could have done anything about it, at all. It also highlights to me that maybe, studying in this school is really a farce, like I'd always suspected.
I guess I had better start getting used to that feeling. In the workplace, I'm going to see many more undeserving people get promoted ahead of me because they know how to carry balls.
It makes for a very jaded and cynical person. Sometimes I forget that I'm just 24. I've spent a whole life fighting, thinking that life should be fair and reward those who are willing to put in the sacrifices. But life doesn't owe me anything, and it never will.
It is not often however that one can say that one is fully satisfied with the results one sees. There is always a module where one could have done better, some where one did better than expected.
This semester, I did mostly okay. But there was one module though that disappointed me greatly, because the letter grade I received signified a lack of recognition for all that I'd done, and more than a little partisanship on the part of the instructors.
I've never felt this way after seeing my grades. All the previous times, I was satisfied because to a certain extent, I knew I deserved them. But this was the first time I knew for certain that I did not deserve the grade I'd got, and that people who were less deserving had done better, and very markedly so. It was so ridiculous that the only reaction to my grade was shock and indignation, even amongst my peers.
I did not sleep all night after seeing that result. It was not so much the disappointment that came with it, but more of a feeling of betrayal that left me sick to the stomach and unable to feel any emotion. It was such an extreme wake up call that I did not even feel sleepy. It was the final nail in the coffin of a whole value and belief system that I'd grown up on, that the deserving get what they deserve.
When even that leaves you, there is really very little else that can motivate you to work hard for success, other than a stubborn faith that there must be something better than this, a light at the end of a never-ending tunnel. There is really little one can do about subjectivity in grading, even if the results have the effect of branding certain people as better than others. A single grade can mean so little, and yet so much.
When I was younger, it was all about working hard to do well. Now, I know that it is a lot more than that. With a bell curve system, it is often about who took the class with you. In a team effort, it is often about who knows how to showcase themselves better. In classes where the quality of one's work is subjective, it is often open to debate what grade one really deserves.
And in the ruthless competition against one's peers, someone is bound to get left behind. Those who are in front seldom stop to think about the person behind them, often someone who put in just as much effort, but just wasn't as lucky on the exam day.
I know one's happiness should not depend on grades, and really for me, it doesn't. But for that one module, it was not the grade that I was seeking. It was the recognition of how much I'd put in, which by the lack of an acknowledgment through the grade I received, was really a slap in the face. It is the kind of feeling where words will not suffice, and even now, for someone like me to say that I can't describe the feeling in words several hours later is really a reflection of what I feel about it.
I find it really ridiculous that now I find that I have to appeal for what should belong to me, as though the instructors could not see it fit to give me the grade I deserved in the first place. I do not say this lightly, because at times I did feel like I was carrying the whole team. But of course when I have to say it like this, it becomes an exercise in hubris, as though all I had to stake a claim to a grade that should have been mine is a bruised ego. And its not even ego that motivates me. It's just an acknowledgment that my efforts and sacrifices were appreciated.
Really, it is not so much the fact that I did not get the grade that stings, it's the fact that people who did a lot less did, because it really makes you wonder if you could have done anything about it, at all. It also highlights to me that maybe, studying in this school is really a farce, like I'd always suspected.
I guess I had better start getting used to that feeling. In the workplace, I'm going to see many more undeserving people get promoted ahead of me because they know how to carry balls.
It makes for a very jaded and cynical person. Sometimes I forget that I'm just 24. I've spent a whole life fighting, thinking that life should be fair and reward those who are willing to put in the sacrifices. But life doesn't owe me anything, and it never will.
Monday, January 17, 2011
so freaking crazy.
do you ever feel overwhelmed by how many things can demand your time and energy at the same time? I always do.
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