happy halloween! actually there's nothing happy about halloween, and i'm now here to blog about how much i hate halloween. actually i have nothing against the festival per se. i think that the idea of getting kids to dress up as fairies and skeletons and have them go around literally begging for sweets and snacks is actually quite a cool one. what gets my goat is the halloween fever in Singapore. it's almost as though everyone is jumping on the halloween bandwagon and organising halloween parties, the Night Safari is having this halloween-themed thingy during october. i mean, what's the point of Singaporeans copying this Uniquely American (pun intended) tradition? it's like Americans holding getai during the seventh month and seeing ang mohs prancing around makeshift stages in glittery costumes blaring hokkien songs. it all seems so pseudo to me. it's like, oh Americans are celebrating halloween, it's so cool, we get to dress up in weird costumes and scare each other to bits. how shallow.
it amazes me how people can get excited about halloween here in Singapore. in a culture where death, monsters, ghosts and ghouls are supposed to be inauspicious, even taboo subjects, it's funny how people are falling over themselves to dress up as those. i bet some old people would be shocked, even offended at seeing this young generation indulging in halloween parties and celebrating with jack-o-lanterns and witch costumes. i think, even in an age of globalisation, there are some traditions unique to certain cultures and it should stay that way. halloween has no meaning to ordinary Singaporeans, it is a totally foreign practice, with no particular religious or cultural significance, yet it's being celebrated to an extent far beyond that of a normal holiday. it's not that i'm xenophobic or traditional or bigoted, it's just that Singaporeans who grew up in kampungs and HDBs playing marbles, uno cards and zero point suddenly wishing each other 'happy halloween' smacks of pseudo-ness. it's just so fake, a mere pretence, a pitiful excuse for drunkenness and debauchery. 'oh it's halloween, so lets have a massive party and get all drunk'.
it just goes to show that Singaporeans are mostly still suffering from some kind of a colonial hangover. anything that is Western (or Japanese) is automatically superior, good and cool, whereas anything Asian or Middle Eastern or from the developing world is greeted with skepticism, and in extreme cases, scorn and disgust. i think it's high time we stopped trying to emulate the West (and Japan) and start creating our own culture, our own way of life, and be proud of it. we can spend our whole time trying to look like, think like and act like an American, but we'll never be an American, at best a carbon copy, but never the orginal, and at worst, a desperate poser. i'm proud of my Singlish and my hawker food. not that i'm extra patriotic or anything, it's just that this was how i was brought up, and i don't see a need to twist to fit anyone's (Western) mould. i think it's perfectly possible to be Asian and modern as well, without a need to turn into a pseudo-American or pseudo-Brit.
ok, don't know what that rant was all about. it's saturday night already! how time flies. soon it'll be time to book in. i hate this seemingly endless vicious cycle of happy fridays, moody saturdays and sad sundays. it must be broken soon! it will be! at least it will on 021210. the magic number...having said that, this year seems to have passed by sooner than i had expected it. looking through my camera pictures, i realised what a great year it had been, from xiangying 09 to POP to the Bintan trip, my first without parents, to the various church activities, what a year it has been! and lets hope it'll end on a high with Livewire 2nd birthday bash, youth camp, and christmas coming up.
and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and who have been called according to His purpose. i guess that, in all that has happened, is happening and will happen, God is good and all things will work out for me if i keep loving Him and stay true to His purpose for me. To God be the glory.
