of relatives and relations

To those peeps who i ps-ed by cancelling the ice skating trip, a million apologies!

I just spent almost a whole day of supposed rest and relaxation (although i was supposed to be back in school helping out with the farewell assembly video...) at Tan Tock Seng Hospital visiting my aunt who is currently undergoing an operation to remove her gallstones with my family. At first I was rather reluctant to spend a whole day there when I could be out touring the whole of Singapore, but it turned out to be an whole day well spent.

I didn't really expect the whole of my extended family to gather at that same ward too, so it was the adults gathering in the ward discussing past present affairs (or whatever they gossip about everytime) and the teenagers and kids sitting outside amusing ourselves with whatever we could find.

The old adage "blood is thicker than water" stands, but it is a little ironic that I am closer to my classmates and schoolfriends and acquaintances than my relatives whom I share the same blood with. For someone who only sees his extended family once every year during Chinese New Year and during special occassions such as weddings or hospitalisations it can be quite a shock to see your cousins and close relations change drastically everytime you see them. So we all started talking seriously, asking how we were doing, what we were currently doing, learning more about each other, and talk we did.

It was extremely heartwarming and satisfying to get all your questions about "How's he doing? How's she doing?" answered instantly. It was humourous to hear ancedotes about their lives outside. It was an eye-opener to hear them talk about their experiences outside in the working world. But best of all, we realised that we still cared for one another and were concerned for each other's well-being. And then I wonder why we don't do this more during CNY.

It seems that each year, CNY comes as a break from the hectic school life and not as a time for get-togetherness. Come each New Year's eve I look forward to the reunion dinner and then that's about it. The next 2 days become a hectic schedule of hopping all over Singapore and having awkard moments as relatives struggle to remember your name or whether you existed in the first place (at least that's how screwed my CNY is). Talking and interacting becomes non-existant as we sit in one corner watching TV or gambling or playing games without ever really 'talking' to each other about each other.

So by talking, we rediscover each other. We relive past memories and days of old. We reminiscence about the past and wonder what could have been. We wonder aloud why we drifted apart. And we start to remend broken bridges and renew relationships. I left TTSH knowing that bonds and relations have been renewed (even if it is only by a little bit). And while I know that being a JC student involves throwing away 2 years of your time to be a chao mugger (which simplifies to I AM DAMN BUSY) and means that it may be hard to find time to interact with relatives more, the rebonding has to start somewhere, doesn't it?

I wonder how many of us here do have close relationships with cousins and such. If I may generalise, our upbringing in Singapore schools means that we form much closer ties with schoolmates than relatives (at least I do). We study with our friends. We eat with our friends. We go out and shop with our friends. We talk crap and chit chat with our friends. We bitch to our friends about other friends. But I have yet to see someone who can really replace 'friends' with 'relatives' in those previous sentences.

erjian came, saw, blogged