Comforting sounds
I fully concur with a friend's remark that visiting relatives during chinese new year is a part-time job. I would like to add that most times it is nothing but a part-time job.
I guess it's kind of sad for many kids and their older relatives things would devolve to fake smiles and superficial chit-chat. Then again, you can't choose your family members like you can choose your friends. That is, for me, the crucial difference between friend and family. You can't choose your family members like you can choose friends. With choice you are assured the friends you have are people with whom you would enjoy being with. The same cannot be said for your relatives, especially when you don't live under the same roof as them. So maybe we should change the statement to: I guess it's kind of sad for many kids and their older relatives that they were born into their respective families and got related, quite by luck, the way they are related.
It's like throwing you into a room and forcing you to befriend a random person. Many of us would oppose such an arrangement, and yet this is the very sort of arrangement that most family relations can be reduced to. Never mind the fact that maybe your relatives have bought you things when you were young, given you red packets during chinese new year and on your birthdays. Because then you are only indebted to them in monetary terms and I don't see how that compels one to be cordial with them. In fact, if you become cordial with them on the basis that they were very generous to you then I would say the relationship becomes even more contrived than it already was from the start.
The older generation would probably say they are your elders and hence you must be friendly to them no matter what. I think, well. Usually when I hear this I just go along with the flow more because I do not want to upset the status quo, rather than because I find there is any sense is that line of thought.
Ultimately, if you're born with uncles and aunties and cousins and nephews you enjoy being with, then good for you. You're very lucky. The rest of us are not so lucky and have to put up a front every family gathering. After years of doing that it's no wonder that some times, both sides don't even bother putting up a front anymore, which suits me perfectly fine because putting up a front is so tiring.
I still like my grandmother though. I remember the times she would pat my back as I fell asleep, when I was a small kid.
I guess it's kind of sad for many kids and their older relatives things would devolve to fake smiles and superficial chit-chat. Then again, you can't choose your family members like you can choose your friends. That is, for me, the crucial difference between friend and family. You can't choose your family members like you can choose friends. With choice you are assured the friends you have are people with whom you would enjoy being with. The same cannot be said for your relatives, especially when you don't live under the same roof as them. So maybe we should change the statement to: I guess it's kind of sad for many kids and their older relatives that they were born into their respective families and got related, quite by luck, the way they are related.
It's like throwing you into a room and forcing you to befriend a random person. Many of us would oppose such an arrangement, and yet this is the very sort of arrangement that most family relations can be reduced to. Never mind the fact that maybe your relatives have bought you things when you were young, given you red packets during chinese new year and on your birthdays. Because then you are only indebted to them in monetary terms and I don't see how that compels one to be cordial with them. In fact, if you become cordial with them on the basis that they were very generous to you then I would say the relationship becomes even more contrived than it already was from the start.
The older generation would probably say they are your elders and hence you must be friendly to them no matter what. I think, well. Usually when I hear this I just go along with the flow more because I do not want to upset the status quo, rather than because I find there is any sense is that line of thought.
Ultimately, if you're born with uncles and aunties and cousins and nephews you enjoy being with, then good for you. You're very lucky. The rest of us are not so lucky and have to put up a front every family gathering. After years of doing that it's no wonder that some times, both sides don't even bother putting up a front anymore, which suits me perfectly fine because putting up a front is so tiring.
I still like my grandmother though. I remember the times she would pat my back as I fell asleep, when I was a small kid.
1 Comments:
isnt it an occasion for us to beef up or learn our social skill and eq.....they bought things is that they care and concern instead of thinking they would get repaid in future.....
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