'Chinese' New Year
It's just around the corner. The celebration of the Lunar New Year. Guess it's all very foreign to me. Been away from home for the past two new years.
Never liked it a lot when I was kid. Sure you got the red packets and the nice goodies... but you always had the hot weather, dressing up in new clothes (which always included long sleeve shirts and pants for some reason) and having to greet millions of relatives who you never knew you had before. We don't even have fire crackers over here!
The only thing I really enjoyed about chinese new year were the two days off school or army and now work.
But that all changed being chinese overseas. You never got the holiday, it became a quirky event marked by food, chinese music and occasional greetings. Seeing how dead serious some people are about celebrating it only intensified my own frustrations of why I couldn't see it the same way. Not that I don't appreciate the tradition, it is still an important time of seeing family and being together. Just feel that i've grown out of it. There was never a magic about it to me... sad? I'm not sure about that.
When you continue doing something not because you enjoy it but out of habit, never thinking never pondering... you will do it. And when for some reason it stops and you never really look back and miss it... then you start to think, 'why was I doing it in the first place?'.
I'm not saying this is a univeral concern, it's my own, my precious. And I can't see the fuss. One of the drawbacks of being a global citizen I reckon. When you're safe and secure in your home country with no concept of a 'larger picture', you reckon this is the way it always has to be. Once out of the well you're taken by the fact that... there's a) more to life than that b) more than one way of skinning a cat (apologies to cat lovers).
Perhaps one day i'll find it again, the simple joy of chinese new year... on my terms or not. Till then i'm content to smile and observe.
Of course there's the other question of how chinese I really am... but i'll save that for another time.
Never liked it a lot when I was kid. Sure you got the red packets and the nice goodies... but you always had the hot weather, dressing up in new clothes (which always included long sleeve shirts and pants for some reason) and having to greet millions of relatives who you never knew you had before. We don't even have fire crackers over here!
The only thing I really enjoyed about chinese new year were the two days off school or army and now work.
But that all changed being chinese overseas. You never got the holiday, it became a quirky event marked by food, chinese music and occasional greetings. Seeing how dead serious some people are about celebrating it only intensified my own frustrations of why I couldn't see it the same way. Not that I don't appreciate the tradition, it is still an important time of seeing family and being together. Just feel that i've grown out of it. There was never a magic about it to me... sad? I'm not sure about that.
When you continue doing something not because you enjoy it but out of habit, never thinking never pondering... you will do it. And when for some reason it stops and you never really look back and miss it... then you start to think, 'why was I doing it in the first place?'.
I'm not saying this is a univeral concern, it's my own, my precious. And I can't see the fuss. One of the drawbacks of being a global citizen I reckon. When you're safe and secure in your home country with no concept of a 'larger picture', you reckon this is the way it always has to be. Once out of the well you're taken by the fact that... there's a) more to life than that b) more than one way of skinning a cat (apologies to cat lovers).
Perhaps one day i'll find it again, the simple joy of chinese new year... on my terms or not. Till then i'm content to smile and observe.
Of course there's the other question of how chinese I really am... but i'll save that for another time.
posted by phtzethl1 at
9:16 AM
1 Comments:
Guess I can't escape it can I? :)
but thanks... Happy new year to you too!
By
phtzethl1, at 10:44 PM
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