Yes, I spent a great deal of time at reunions and fancy dinners in Malaysia that weren't even very fancy to begin with, and I guess, while I did enjoy myself with some of my old friends and cousins, most of the time was spent smiling and look vastly entertained for huge expanses of time almost every night. No one's fault. That's just how fancy reunions and dinners are. I mean, take sometime to think about it.



As a toddler you're prodded and poked into smiling into a camera lens that's only out to take happy pictures of you because that's what's cute and that's how babies - little human beings - are supposed to look like. Healthy, happy and always looking perfect with the best clothes, the best hair accessories and shoes, with an overly-eager adult beside hoping to take a lucky laughing-shot with you like you're some animal attraction at the zoo. You're trained to look perfect.

As an adolescent, you're scolded and rapped into sing the most wonderful of praises to your parents peers and to seem like a lovely polite and intelligent child that reflects such wonderful things of your parents. You're made to be polite and obliging and armed with the sweetest lips to soften each and every single condescending uncle and auntie you have in your whole family, and the most impressive airs to intimidate all your cousins into feeling terribly inferior. You're trained to sound perfect.

As a teen, you're whacked and beaten and reprimanded into conforming to what is deemed to be the perfect filial son or daughter who is polite, who has the best friends, and mixes with the best groups of high society that will bring you that much closer to your 5Cs and that luxurious life your parents never got, and are not getting through you. You cannot mix with "bad" company because alcohol and a life of indecency and disgrace is a life that they're already living and no, how could you ever think to give your parents such a terrible fate. Rather, how could you think to re-give them such a life? You're trained to behave perfectly.

So when does this life of superficiality and this obsession with the veneer end? When you fucking leave the house and become your own person. You'll make your mistakes, you'll regret these mistakes but God damn it that's what we are supposed to go through.

Okay fine I'm not an unfilial creep. Therefore as abruptly as this is, I shall end on as happy a note as I can muster for the night.



The Definitive Guide to Surviving Reunion Dinners!

1. Be in great physical shape. You never know when someone's going to comment on your pant size and how it's grown since you were like, four years old.
2. Be sure to have sufficient facial warm-ups particularly in the cheek and eyebrow region. Alternate between a big smile, and a small smile to achieve maximum orthodontal exposure. Also, ball fists, and gently use knuckles to rub out any spots of tension in these areas, in a gentle, rhythmic motion in the outward circling direction. Caution: massaging your face in an inwards circular motion could cause the sagging of the face which would cause aggravation, which would cause excessive wrinkles, which would cause- just don't do it, okay?
3. Revise each relative's familytree and how they all converge to become a lovely family forest. Take regular, minute amounts of anti-depressants such as alcohol or Prozac, if you are easily overwhelmed by immense amounts of stress. Consult your family physician first, regarding dosage.
4. Do your best to improve on your most commonly spoken dialect or language at least 3 weeks prior to the occasion for best results. Translators are readily available at all good book stores, and should be frequently used in every-day conversations to improve fluency. Caution: Friends of a different language might not appreciate the sudden inability to comprehend or communicate with you, but this is easily remedied with therapy. And gifts.
5. Ensure that you are well acquainted with the various kinds of laughters and signs of pleasure. Note the subtle differences between a chuckle, a giggle, a snort, a snigger, a cackle, and of course, the ever favourite hearty explosion of laughter. Practise and understand their various uses and the appropriacy of them in different circumstances. Do be careful to practise in isolation.
6. Dress appropriately to the event, and always be sure to be modern, yet conservative and preppy, because all relatives love a wonderful good little child. A slick, hair-damaging and stupid gelled-down appearance for the hair follicles, yields the most positive results from old aunties and uncles.
7. The final and most important thing to be wary of, are the many cameras being whipped in and out of bags and pockets throughout the night. If in doubt, smile first, then later try to decipher to whom you are smiling at and whether you are the one being photographed. It is absolutely paramount that you look happy and glowing in all your pictures, as if you are having fun, and as if you couldn't possibly want to be in anyplace else at that point in time.

Gah whatever.



/edit: okay maybe I'm not that bitter after all. Just a tad annoyed, that's all. Food was awesome though! =)