Chinese New Year 2015 - Fixing the family
Any festive moment that involves me seeing family members can always be counted as one of the top on my short but sweet "list of favourite holidays".
I never thought of my family as well knit. There was never a truly happy marriage with a truly happy couple with any family member that I knew. My grandparents, upon visiting them, were always badmouthing another member of the family or even each other, and question another relative's actions in front of them, during Chinese New Year! I always thought of my family as only being extended to my grandparents. Even after going from house to house, it never felt like they were family. It felt like they were just acquaintances to me, and I'm sure that for many of the youngsters in my generation feel the same way.
But this year, I came in with a more mature perspective. Many looked up to me as the oldest of the family and the biggest in terms of size and height. Many would try and strike a conversation, and I would try and prolong it for as long as possible.
I realised that the term 'family' is a very loose term. You can treat your friends like 'family', and some of your cousins are not considered your family members, and it's only when you open your mind and try to be friendly with your relative can your idea of your family get bigger and bigger. I never thought that relationship troubles were very hard to resolve. It's all about communication isn't it? When something goes wrong or you don't like something, why not just talk about it? It's the person you chose to spend the rest of your life with, the least that you can do is be frank... but that's perhaps I will never understand because I never was married. The dynamics of the relationship change, especially when you commit yourself to someone for the rest of your life.
As I grow up, I realised that I have to do this in about 10 years, which is slightly over half my lifetime. I will have to bring my kids, wife and grandparents all over to different relatives. For many, the thought is scary, but for me the idea thrills me. Where will I be in another 10 years? Have I met the one for me yet? How many children will I have? How will the other relatives grow and develop? However I digress.
What I was going to do today was try and figure out which houses I would visit when I grow up, and I realised that I would not omit any relative for the world. I would see the same one that I do today, and prove to the world that having a happy family is possible. I want to prove that everything that can be solved by communication and that at the end of the day, a family can be perfect. With that in mind, it may be beneficial to start getting closer to my distant relatives, and I hope to do so in the years to come.
Happy Chinese New Year, and may it be a blessed one.
Cheers,
Matthew Tan
I never thought of my family as well knit. There was never a truly happy marriage with a truly happy couple with any family member that I knew. My grandparents, upon visiting them, were always badmouthing another member of the family or even each other, and question another relative's actions in front of them, during Chinese New Year! I always thought of my family as only being extended to my grandparents. Even after going from house to house, it never felt like they were family. It felt like they were just acquaintances to me, and I'm sure that for many of the youngsters in my generation feel the same way.
But this year, I came in with a more mature perspective. Many looked up to me as the oldest of the family and the biggest in terms of size and height. Many would try and strike a conversation, and I would try and prolong it for as long as possible.
I realised that the term 'family' is a very loose term. You can treat your friends like 'family', and some of your cousins are not considered your family members, and it's only when you open your mind and try to be friendly with your relative can your idea of your family get bigger and bigger. I never thought that relationship troubles were very hard to resolve. It's all about communication isn't it? When something goes wrong or you don't like something, why not just talk about it? It's the person you chose to spend the rest of your life with, the least that you can do is be frank... but that's perhaps I will never understand because I never was married. The dynamics of the relationship change, especially when you commit yourself to someone for the rest of your life.
As I grow up, I realised that I have to do this in about 10 years, which is slightly over half my lifetime. I will have to bring my kids, wife and grandparents all over to different relatives. For many, the thought is scary, but for me the idea thrills me. Where will I be in another 10 years? Have I met the one for me yet? How many children will I have? How will the other relatives grow and develop? However I digress.
What I was going to do today was try and figure out which houses I would visit when I grow up, and I realised that I would not omit any relative for the world. I would see the same one that I do today, and prove to the world that having a happy family is possible. I want to prove that everything that can be solved by communication and that at the end of the day, a family can be perfect. With that in mind, it may be beneficial to start getting closer to my distant relatives, and I hope to do so in the years to come.
Happy Chinese New Year, and may it be a blessed one.
Cheers,
Matthew Tan
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