Chinese New Year

Eh, it was faster than I expected. I didn't say all that I wanted to say, but what needed to be said got out at least. I still feel a bit angry that all this big mess happened at all. Angry at what, or whom, I'm still trying to work out. Needless to say, though, that we will not be able to stay at this stage. Whatever happens now, whether things look up of slide into oblivion, relies on what we do next.

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The highlight of CNY eve was, of course, meeting up with the old class. Heh, RJ's CNY celebrations were wholly forgettable, mere gestures in the way of racial recognition. I don't know how many of the people there actually wanted to be there. All I remember of it was that Kats was fiddling with the knot on the big red banner from where we were sitting on the second level, Yiting on the other side, and all of us laughing together at the hapless people downstairs with the spluttering and misbehaving tech.

HC, on the other hand, had quite a happening thing going on with their street carnival. Throngs of people, lots of stalls and attendant hawkers, loud cheesy CNY music and the hot sun...these people definitely had the better party =P Saw Joel's junior class (including Izzy and this other RI guy who mistook me for one of his long lost compatriots on one of my crashes) selling fruits or something like that. Met lots of old iSpark people wandering around. The envoys from RJ joined the 4M people to head for the staff room, where we found only Mrs. Ng, Ms. Ong and the venerable Ms. Mok =P Mr. Liew was apparently sick due to overstress or something like that.

Eventually the 4N bunch all arrived...Sots, Kats, me, Liang See, JY, Shaun (okay, so he was from 4L), Joel, TLJ, YJ and Wenkai. It's not a bad turnout, but there was a twinge of jealousy at seeing almost the whole of 4M crowded around Ms. Gwee's table. Heh, those who were not in attendance were either overseas or at home. And with Mr. Liew leaving, Ms. Ong not planning to stay and the changes wrought by the HIP (what's with all the IP puns? VIP, RIP, HIP...), the only thing that will remain recognisable would be the school buildings like the clock tower itself. And when that happens, when all the people are gone or going, then my attachment to that old place will accordingly die out. I never had that elusive Huazhong spirit anyway.

Arh, we're getting old, us 4Ners. This will be our last CNY together with the teachers in the old school I expect. But yet, although what we have has to end soon, I am already surprised and warmed by how long 4N has lasted. I have to say that I didn't expect all these individual connections to last so long. Perhaps it is the JC life and its rigours that make us all pine for the old times in that old classroom. I know that nowadays I am caught up in nostalgia for the "good old days".

Heh, after that we went down to Cine to try to catch a movie. In traditional 4N style no one had planned what to do, and we ended up picking a movie that none of us had heard of, Shaolin vs. Evil Dead. We thought it would be a laugh to watch some cheap lame stuff. We came out afterwards stunned and traumatised by what we had gone through. It's not that the movie is really all that scary. Okay, it was scary, but only because it was so bleeping bad! My gosh...the movie had every cliche you could think of for a horror flick...zombies digging their way out of the ground with worms squirming in their open sores, two rival mystics and their respective disciples, a wholly superfluous and predictable love subplot between the only eligible couple in the show (excluding the evil dead), and a boss zombie that possesses the bad mystic and forces the good one to risk his life to save him (the good one was also perpetually shaking his head sagely at the bad deeds of his nemesis). Highlights: an exploding toilet, a boy giving birth to a boy as big as himself and tau huay used as a courtship gift. After it was done (the ending effectively nullified everything that happened before) we were laughing our heads off cos we couldn't believe we actually sat through all of it. You guys should try it...it's so bad that it's a spiritual experience in itself. You'll realise that the ranks of really trashy movies are as exclusive as the Oscar awardees' club.

Anyhoos, afterwards we wandered around for a bit more, recovering from the trauma and threatening to beat up JY cos everyone conveniently blamed him for getting us to watch it =P Hehheh, those playful tousles are never going to happen in 1A; if I tried to do anything like that I'd probably be expelled. Then the gathering broke off with those with change going for pool and lanning. Me, I followed Joel back to his place to pick up Kerouac's On the Road. Mused for a bit at his place over the dilemmas of JC sociodynamics; it was good to have someone to confide in, to have a guy to confide in, because some things are just more easily discussed with members of the same gender. Why is it that the arty-poet type female also happens to be the most intolerable? Plath-like girls are best admired from a distance I guess; the personal contact would be too disturbing. And anyway, anyone with that much angst and literary flair has an undeniable egocentric edge to her personality.

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Today was the usual CNY visiting round of the relatives on my father's side. Heh, the day started with me remarking to myself how contrived it is sometimes, to have to go around exchanging the requisite hongbaos, eating the expected tidbits and exchanging the usual pleasantries. Family reunion by pressure of tradition. As Hardy said, traditions are authenticated by the apathy of their practitioners towards what they are doing. And if there ever was a culture who placed paramount importance on appearances...

Hmm but luckily that cynical view didn't last too long. Now that we're all older, I find that the old camaraderie that the three oldest shared when we were all in primary school has been reestablished somewhat. I guess we've all settled into our lives for the time being; no one is just into a new school or just over a major exam. There are more common things to talk about with Ying Hua now.

And I wonder whether this is the basis for the gatherings every year for CNY. Because the adults definitely see something in it. And they all certainly have things in common to talk about all the time. Maybe when we get old enough to establish an adequately impressive constellation of commonality, we will appreciate the sentimental-nostalgic value of these traditions, with their reassuring familiarity that faithful yearly repreoduction generates. To take stock of one another's lives, to keep up appearances of familial cohesion, to keep score with one's relatives of one's achievements; perhaps there is something noble that drives all these pretensions. When we are young we can't stand these traditions because we know they don't matter; when we are older perhaps we will diligently perform them because we will know what does.

Anyway, family reunions are interesting times, chances to meet new people and complete strangers that your parents assert are blood relations. I discovered this long-lost aunt who's a journalist in the Orange County and back here for holidays. And apparently she's my senior too...she was in Purvis's class from the batch of '98 if I remember correctly. She'll pop down to school on Monday to try to catch the teachers =P And then there's this other uncle who was from RJ too, but now he's doing law. Both were from GEP. And there's this uncle who just returned from Taiwan where he's based. The big houses we visited today bear testament to the success of this Leong stock...with branches stretching to China, France and the US. It's a bit intimidating, really, to have so much success in the family, people who made it big and are all no longer here. But it's also surprising to find that other family members have already trodden my path. Eldest brothers will understand the relief at discovering that you don't have to forge entirely new roads through life to set an example for your siblings after all.

We ended off at Tanah Merah for dinner with the extended family on my mum's side. I think I didn't recognise half of the people there...only my cousins and closest aunts and uncles were familiar. It's once again quite spooky to discover that even within a "family", there can be strangers. But it was cool to chat with my cousin. She is definitely more streetsmart than I am, more world-wise. And faced with all these new circumstances, what with the Monday Incident and its reprecussions, it is great to be able to get the opinions and advice of an experienced veteran. And anyway, I got the impression that both of us needed to talk. Once again, primary-school bonds are renewed, and this support from an unexpected but close source is most welcome at this time.

So in the end, though it started off like Christmas-day, it ended on quite a high note. I think I prefer CNY to Christmastime. It feels like more people believe in it...

pondered by phoenican @ 9.2.05