Celebrate... think about celebrating

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Today - Weekend, May 31, 2008

ONE of the greatest inventions in human history, and certainly the most delightful, is the celebration.

No other creature on earth celebrates. Some say the elephants have learned to mourn, and everyone knows the dolphins have learned to play. But people are the only creatures on the planet who actually celebrate a happy event.

You don’t see birds dance around an egg or antelope fuss over a birthday. And you can’t really count a doggie jumping up and down at the joy of receiving its master (doggies jump up and down at pretty much anything).

So if one of the greatest gifts of mankind is the capacity to celebrate, why is it so hard for the adult Singaporean to have a celebration?

It’s not about just having a good time. Expatriates havealready told us we don’t know how to party. When they invite us to one, we go, we eat, we hang out with our own families and then scoot early. We don’t stay and celebrate. Or party. At a party.

But the celebration is something more. It is that moment or day or period we mark something good, usually an achievement of sorts, and it can be done loud with a party or with as little as a drink at the coffeeshop with friends.

And that, it can be safely said, is not a strength of Singaporeans.

You seldom hear of people here calling for a celebration. When someone hits a milestone, they seem to look right past it to the next — an endless marathon with no tape to breast.

Okay, say we put it down to Asian modesty. We are not the sort to trumpet our achievements with a party, even though we may show off in other ways, with the flashy phone or latest car or coruscating jewellery.

Some even say it is the legacy of the immigrants’ culture. We are transients, collecting, never truly spending unless it is on an investment to make more. Gratification is waste.

Perhaps we even fear the curse of the third eye, so we look past the milestone and don’t dwell on it in case the heavens humble us with a calamity. It’s very Asian to be negative.

After all, statutory holidays aside, all our major celebrations are imported from the West, commercially manufactured events that probably bring more delight to people who run the classifieds sections than the actual targets waiting in long queues for dinner on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day.

But in modern Singapore, shouldn’t we stop now and then and mark a milestone in the life that our grandparents and parents gave up their own countries and families to build for us here?

If we could celebrate a personal milestone, invite home for a drink the ones who helped us make it possible because nothing good can be achieved only by self-will, no matter what we think — every pinnacle has a broader base.

And a thousand times better, pull together a celebration for someone we love or just like, to mark their personal milestones. Or if we are the focus of a celebration, can we accept it with grace, not embarrassment? Do we know how to receive a toast, let alone give it?

Imagine what a country we would be then. The MRT, the buses, the taxis and cars would be filled every day with a million people heading off every evening after work to a celebration of one sort or another. There would be more smiles, even for the stranger.

Now you may say this is a strange time to call for a culture of celebration when for many Singaporeans the struggle of daily life just got worse, with the price of nearly everything up by a measure. The mood, one could say, is suitably grim.

But we are already famously grim. We are one of only a handful of countries in the world, which have spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars just to ask ourselves to smile.

So perhaps it is in the tougher times we need to look for cheer the most, and flit to it like a moth to light. What else is there in life worth doing?


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Comments:
First, we should ask ourselves "what kind of celebration". It is a fallacy to equivocate all kinds of celebrations. An element of conspicuous, boisterous, and seemingly superficial fun seems intrinsic to the author's concept of celebration - indeed Singaporeans seem to lack this. Is this the only kind of celebration? Quiet reflection or a warm dinner would do as well, and in fact may be more valuable.