It’s that time of the year again when HK goes into overdrive with every mall and public space competing for “tackiest Christmas decoration of the universe.”
I don’t do Christmas because ‘m not a Christian (why the capital letter by the way; isn’t “Christian” a noun like “wanker” or “pederast”?) and will not only go away for the awful duration but also donate money to Animals Asia (save the moon bears) instead of buying more useless stuff for people who have everything.
And it’s that time of life again when people like me tut-tut about the materialism of young people of today, going: When I was your age…
Actually, I don’t envy young people of today. Unlike many middle-agies I don’t use every opportunity to criticise them for their taste in music, clothes and the fact that they get laid incessantly (the debate about sex education has been raging lately as it does around this time most years, with oldies saying the young people of today should be ‘responsible” and “take sex seriously.” Should they hell! Go for it, I say.
(I am, however, in awe of young people of today vs. the law of gravity. How do they make those trousers stay hovering around their mid-thigh while walking?)
I don’t subscribe to the idea that everything was better when I was young. We didn’t have mobiles, the internet and The Sopranos. And the Simpsons. On the other hand, we didn’t know that the planet would soon breathe its last with us on it. We didn’t have George W. Bush either, so we’re probably even.
But one thing we had which I think the young (Hong Kong) people of today don’t have, is a childhood.
I saw a couple on the MTR (HK’s metro) yesterday, anxiously hovering over their girl about three years old. They’d given her one of those portable whiteboards which you can draw on and delete by pulling a thing across it. The girl was happily doodling away, but that wasn’t good enough for Mr and Mrs Wong. “Draw a tree!” “No, draw a house!” “Draw Mummy!” The little girl looked very bewildered and then distraught as she couldn’t keep up with the demands. When her lip started to quiver and she dropped the pen, the father brusquely tore the toy away. Not even an outlet for creativity is allowed to be used creatively in education-mad HK, and I couldn’t help thinking that this little girl was set up for a life of feeling like a failure.
In Hong Kong, you seldom see parents playing with their children, it’s always to do with learning something. “A is for Apple, B is for Bastard…” Children here don’t have a second of the day to themselves; when it’s not school and homework, it’s piano lessons, tennis lessons and lesson lessons; not a free moment to daydream, read or just be.
Last week I went to possibly the most awful place in the entire city, Shatin’s Futuristic-port or whatever it’s called. Sorry, Science Park. It looked like one of those models or computer-generated architect’s drawings of Life On Mars.
Everything was metal and everything was grey, with the usual fascistically trimmed hedges and unnaturally bright flowers standing guard as a token of life around all the grey. I felt like one of those little people plonked down around the pavements of the architect’s drawings to add that human touch.
Anyway, I was there to check the Norwegian spelling of a computer game for little girls (and boys): Be your own fashion designer. With a background noise of incessantly playing, really irritating plink-plonk music, the child was encouraged to creatively change clothes on the various Barbie-like, inanely smiling creatures popping up on the screen, equipping them with handbags, shoes and other accessories.
A strident (Norwegian) voice told the player what to do, where to put things and what they should look like.
When the unbearable three hours of listening and taking notes came to an end, the proud manufacturers asked me what I thought of their product. I had to say: I think it’s total crap. When I was young, yes, when I was young! We played with real dolls, dressing and undressing them. We talked for them in different voices and let them have personalities and lives. In fact, we were the dolls, using our imagination to decide what was going to happen to them.
We didn’t let adults decide what and how we would play, with tinny music tormenting the ears and soul, playing dementedly while we struggled to find the right handbag to go with whatever shoes, clicking on whatever we thought was expected of us, with a mouse…
So in that respect and in many others, yes, I dont envy the young people of today. Adults have hijacked their childhood in the name of commercialism and are doing their best to do the same with their youth. The only playful thing young people of today have left is sex, apparently. Now the adults are trying to take over that part of their lives as well, with fathers scarily dancing with their daughters in various “stay pure” incestious rituals which are gaining popularity around the globe, according to the SCMP of two Sundays ago.
I shudder and I want to puke. No, I don’t envy the young. Merry Bloody Christmas, I’m off hitchhiking in Sichuan province. Stay tuned.
sex the only thing left? do they realy know or try to find out by themself. Aren`T they “infected” already by movies etc.
i am scared every time how the japanese show how to treat girls/woman.
possible i see the wrong movies…
but see the asian culture… u name the dad first than the mother… boy at first than girl….. culture diffetrence for sure, but we can change it….
btw Happy Christmas to everyone
any link or other place to find information about the scmp article ?
i can`t buy scmp in germany
Kids are gettig smarter if they learn every time. but they loose their creativity. if they CAN`T GET bored there won`t be a way they start to think about what to do. I read an article about Archimedes. He found out one great thing when he was lying in his bathtube…
I saw a wonderful title to a book the other day – it was something to the effect that Einsten didn’t do flashcards!
Did you also have those paper cut-out dolls that you could hook different outfits onto!
Seem to have disappeared!
Well of course they have disappeared. They’re almost creative aren’t they?
Do you remember we actually had to cut them out ourselves? (That’s probably why they’re not around anymore – can’t trust children under 25 with scissors)I seem to remember I also made my own stuff, with really long and wide fold-down flaps to make sure the outfit didn’t fall off.
The flaps stuck out like wings and I was angry I couldn’t make my the outfits look like the cut-out ones.
Yeah I’m glad I had the chance to make stuff myself. Now I’m self-sufficient – I fried an egg the other day!
tomaha – perhaps you are seeing the wrong Japanese movies… I would guess that every country has “those” movies too.
Capitalization depends on language, and English capitalization rules are … difficult.
Christian is capitalized because…
the word “Christian” is used to designate a body of religious belief or the organization (e.g., the Roman Catholic Church).
(See also Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization).
Think of it as the “name” of the organization, and, in English, names are generally capitalized.
I would argue that is isn’t “all” parents that are dismissing their children. I do not ignore mine, and I took a job that lets me spend time with them–which costs me by not paying me as much as another job where I would not be able to spend time with my children.
Mistakes parents make are often corrected by their children–I would love to see a study of the children affected by their parents to see how many follow their parents example and how many do the opposite to “make up for” the pain they felt as children. It isn’t just “time spent” with the kids. Some parents drink and/or party too much.
However, commercialism and “making it” seem to be thought of as “successful.” My argument, of course, is that “success” is subjective–what you view as success may not be success for me. Neither one may be “right” or “wrong,” but each has its own set of economic costs.