Popagandhi

Most Chinese people have reunion dinners. I have reunion high tea.

My family believes in getting it over and done with, so this means we gather around 3pm, eat by 5pm, and be done by 5.30pm. Past experience has shown that other people don’t start before 7.30pm, and evidently have more things to say to each other than my family does.

In recent years my sleeping habits have descended into new pits (of sloth), so this means breakfast for me is, in fact, one and the same as reunion dinner.

“Wee shin yew a hair pee chai niece knew ear end mare knee pros per roos dais a head. Year year got fish luck step grow high horse go for dog year.”

It seems around this time every year that a flood of letters are published in the Straits Times, regarding what it means to be Chinese, and how we should be mindful about our traditions, and who we are.

A friend of mine decided that one tool which could aid us in this quest, is a Samsung camera phone with special effects such as “blue focus” and “yellow focus”. When “blue focus” is selected, everything in the frame which isn’t blue turns out gray, leaving only the blue objects coloured. As my friend was showing off his phone to me, he put it on yellow focus, started trying to take a picture of me, and said.. “Now we will know… if you’re really yellow.”

It’s not anything I do consciously, but I do have a large proportion of friends who are not Chinese. My family has given up on trying to remember all their names, and rely on the mental heuristic of referring to each of them by their race (not too blatantly, of course). When there are too many from one group (especially the Indian group), they have to drill even deeper. The old folks, especially, are very bad with names, speak no English, but take a keen interest in the number of siblings my friends have, what each sibling does, and where they live. I’m quite glad few people in my social circle understand Teochew, because I don’t know what they’d say if they ever heard my grandmother saying: “So who sent you home tonight? The Indian guy who is a doctor with one lawyer sister and who live in Bukit Timah? Who else did you have dinner with? The Javanese girl with three siblings, who…”

I have mixed feelings about the Chinese New Year. While I appreciate the red packets, I’m completely detached from the traditions, superstitutions, practices; in truth, I dread most of it. I can’t bear it, because I can’t bear small talk and meaningless conversations. It’s not a manner of being Westernized, or English-speaking, or wanting to be something else. It’s simply a matter of this festive season being the one which violates all my basic needs: of good music (need I say more?), of good food (my palette, weaned on Indian, Malay and Thai food; is terrified by too much Chinese food), of good society.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, puts me to shame, by working so hard on getting herself in touch with my own culture. She has been speaking with a forced Chinese accent for the last couple of days, and accusing me of being racist whenever I speak of the “munjen new year”. I don’t think I can bear to hear her say “Wee Shin Yew Hair Pee Chai Niece Knew Ear…”, ever again.