Living at the bottom of a well

How far our country has drifted apart can be seen from the hoo-ha over the celebration of Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day is not a religious occasion, even though the practice starts from the West. It is not a Christian tradition, nor related to any pagan activity.

I read a news report that the Tunisians are using roses and the Valentine Occasion to celebrate the disposal of Ben Ali one month ago. They must understand Valentine’s Day better.

It is of course up to any preacher or any religious person to stop his or her own followers from celebrating such an occasion, since that is what religious freedom is about. It is also the duty of a religious teacher to show his followers the right path.

But to attach the word ‘sin’ to that day and attribute that day to another religion without knowing how the occasion started in history and how most people celebrate it is really laughable.

I, myself, have not celebrated Valentine’s Day for a long time, but I will never stop my children or other people from celebrating the occasion.

How does a typical young couple celebrate the occasion? I asked my children and their friends, mainly in their 20s, how they celebrated the occasion this year as well as year before. I received the following answer.

Normally, it is just a way of showing love (“showing love” is different from “making love”, I must stress);  a typical boy goes to a typical girl’s house and presents her with flowers or a gift. They then proceed to dinner, and given the high price of food, not necessarily will choose to patronise a posh hotel restaurant. Most of them will go to a mid-range but decent restaurant, and after dinner, they head to the cinema, and after that, the boy sends the girl home.

Out of all the people I asked, no one went dancing after dinner. It is not like those college graduation balls where you may have dancing after dinner. Those occasions are organised en mass; Valentine’s is between two persons only.

Of course, I am just middle-class, and the friends of my children are all middle-class as well. I do not know what those in the higher echelons of society, like the children of ministers, top government servants or big tycoons, do. But if I am not wrong, there are more middle-class people than upper class, and therefore, the middle-class experience may be a better barometer of how Valentine’s Day is usually spent.

Remember Mother’s Day and Father’s Day — also practices that originate from the west but not religion-related — where working children will take their parents out for a meal, not so much for the food, but as a token of appreciation and a mark of respect, indirectly telling their parents that however busy they are, they still have a place in their heart for their parents.

My late parents used to tell me that I did not need to take them to posh restaurant. Just the restaurant down the road would do. My late father would say it was not the food that mattered, but the thought that counts.

Valentine’s Day is one such occasion. An occasion where a husband can show his love for and appreciation to his wife and a couple in a relationship show each other that they have a place in their heart for their loved ones.

It is the thought of taking their loved ones out that counts; not the food. I do not know about the dancing and sinful act part, since none as far as I know would do such a thing. “Sinful acts” resulting in unwed babies can actually be done on any other day, not necessary on Valentine’s Day, as long as the moral values of the people involved are low.

To equate love and sinful activities is naive, and demonstrates a real breakdown in understanding of another person’s value system and culture. Over 50 years after attaining nationhood, it is really a shame that the people have drifted so much further apart.

What is the point of having open houses when we do not even make an effort to understand the culture, and belief and value systems of another person?

I blame this on education. Our education has failed to produce thinking, intelligent, liberal, analytical and tolerant individuals.

Instead, we, as a nation, have become increasingly narrow-minded.  The sky that we view from the bottom of our well is unfortunately — to too many of us — the whole world.

 

(This article is also posted in the breaking view section of TMI ,  click here)