Over the past couple of days, Chinese New Year has swept across the world, predominately across Asia like a storm of lanterns and very loud gongs and like scattered showers everywhere else that has an abundance of the Asian variety (can't hate me for saying this I myself am Chinese too) covering it with the most alarming shade of red and the thunder of even more alarming firecrackers.
Although it does mean a week off from the extreme conditions of having to deal with A-levels (which by the way has up coming trails right after, god damn it) and is a pretty good and efficient way of collecting ridiculous amounts of money (if there is only one thing we as Chinese know it's the love of cash) to spend on food and clothes I as a consumer is forced to recognise and purchase because fashion is ever changing and I want the recognition and acceptance of the world, so i buy shirts that are basically dresses on me because everything now is extra long, and my torso is extra short, also I freaking love pizza.
But, you see dear reader/myself I feel that it's great that we celebrate a Chinese tradition that has been, well frankly speaking not changed for probably centuries, we probably just have more red paper to hang up and yes I am that person that is all for change and putting a new twist to mundane events and generally trying to make it new and exciting for the youth of today. So why not right? Apparently I am so not right. But, we don't go to the temple because we're christian and we go to the Chinese church down the road where I sit there clueless for two hours. So, if we change things up for religion it's fine, but to leave out, oh I don't know, Yee Sang or as I call it Chinese salad off the menu, oh hell no. Because tradition. But, we don't actually like it, it's mostly just very dyed pickles and cucumber and I don't now what else. And I am not actually sure why, we actually still do this. ( we eat a mouthful, regret it and leave the rest on that fish-shapped platter) Even-though we can't be superstitious because we are christian right and it is supposed to symbolise luck for the new year. I frankly am just very confused because if religion really did play a part in the decision of excluding "traditional actions" many things like Yee Sang and even the colour red should not be included because we aren't allowed to believe in such things like luck.
This is how I see it. I don't mind the tradition, I don't mind getting money and buy new clothes, I just feel like we should be allowed to pick and choose which parts to celebrate. Because yes essentially we are losing our culture and values associated with them, but we can create new ones, and they can be built on top of long standing oldies. Why don't we embrace a different mind set and unique approaches to old traditions and compromise? We need to realise that those old traditions need some finer-tuning to fit into a modern world. It is an a war we cannot win, so why are we trying to stop that?
All you Asian readers/my inner Chinese man is probably hating me so hard right now. But, you know I couldn't careless, tradition is and will always change and we need to stop feeling like it is a bad thing, we have to be accepting and we have to move on, that is life basically. However, I could just be wrong and all this was a waste of time. Tell me what you think, or don't it's fine.
Best wishes,
Ez
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