In Continuum.

The Chinese seem to have a different view on birthdays. Instead of receiving gifts and greetings on your birthdays, the Chinese believe that you should be the one thanking your parents, especially your mother, for giving birth to you in the very first place. It may seem odd to most of us out there who have been so used to throwing great big parties for ourselves, giving excuses to invite all your friends into your home when you really could have been better off by holding a simple dinner at a fancy restaurant. It's something about the amount of pain your mother went through when she was giving birth to you, and that you should thank her for going through with the entire ordeal just to make sure you get your lazy bum out of her womb. Like many traditions around the world, such logic doesn't actually make any sense. In fact, if you are picky about things, like me, nothing does. Still, it really depends on how you want to look at your birthday and how you want to celebrate it. You can receive gifts and thank your mother at the very same time, or you can refuse the gifts and then forget about your mother altogether - then get drunk. It's really up to you, because it is your birthday and you can cry if you want to. I think it's a "party" in the context of the song, but who cares - it's my birthday. 

Some people think that it is somewhat of an honor if you share your birthday with somebody famous, someone like Dalai Lama or Nelson Mandela, or somebody like that. Some may prefer to share their birthdays with celebrities, like Bono or maybe George Clooney. It is interesting to know that somewhere on the other side of the world, somebody famous is celebrating his or her birthday in the same time as yourself, it makes you think that they are celebrating for you too. Well, they are really not, they are just doing their own thing and you are doing yours, and that is really the end of that. I cannot be bothered with who shares my birthday when it comes to somebody famous, but I did a little research on it anyway. There is something disturbing when you know more people who died on your birthday than those who shares the same birthday as you - and the latter group of people aren't exactly too famous either. Let's see, I know Gary Busey and Colin Hay from the list of births, but I also know Edward Young, Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and William Hickey died on 29th of June. So much for a birthday. 

I am the type who prefers to keep my birthday a hush-hush unless I am being asked about it for whatever reasons. Filling up a registration form for a debit card, online forum membership, a lucky draw at the shopping mall, or to some random stranger on the street asking for a minute or two to answer their silly questions. These are the only occasions when I give my birthday out freely, although I cannot say the same about every other time. It is not shame that keeps my mouth shut, but it is just not a social norm to be announcing it to the world, unless you are rich enough to throw a big party every single year, and you need to make a list of guests six months before the actual birthday celebration. In that case, it does make a little more sense. Still, I have been the kind of person to keep things on the down low, simply because the birthday boy gets all the attention, and there are times when these attention are rather unwanted to begin with. That is especially true when you are turning nineteen in the army and you know the kind of horrific things your platoon mates are capable of if they find out that it is your birthday. I don't suppose anybody in my platoon back in those days knew my birthday, they are probably still oblivious to it. Seeing how the other people were treated, I guess my secrecy was for my own protections. 

It involved buckets of cold water, bottles of snake powders, tubes of camouflaging cream, rolls of rope, many instances of full frontal nudity, and humiliation on an epic scale. Explicit details shall be left out of this blog entry for the younger readers, but it is not difficult to imagine the kind of chaos and confusion involved in birthday celebrations like that. To call it a "celebration" is really quite a strange expression, since you are really the one suffering while everybody else gets the time of their lives with camera cellphones and filming your ordeal at the same time. I was never part of the group of torturous people, neither was I the victim in any of those platoon-stripping frenzies. I made sure that I stayed away from everything, which also gave me a good reason to be immune to such humiliation. I remember this one time when Eugene Sin, my platoon officer from Hell, decided that it'd be funny to throw eggs and flour at one of my friends, who was never really part of the gang anyway. He bought the eggs and the flour, but it was funny how nobody was interested to be a part of his crime. The eggs ended up in our bowls of instant noodles, and that was the end of the story for that. 

So, this birthday thing, it is my birthday today, the big two-two. I suppose it is a big thing, because you only get two identical numbers in your age so many times. Celebration isn't my thing, and I suppose I said the same thing last year when I turned twenty-one, when I officially became an adult so to speak. People threw parties, great big parties for their twenty-first, while I elected the way of staying at home by myself for the most part. Of course, buying books and other little things that I like has been a tradition of mine, but then the celebration does not go beyond that most of the time. This year hasn't been any different from the last, and I have been spending the better part of this weekend trying to find the bookworm inside of me that I have lost to school, and not to mention the frequent trips to the bookstore. I love bookstores by the way, most people don't like to visit that place in Singapore. The reading population is pretty low in Singapore, and I can probably find statistical evidences to proof that too. It is my haven in town, my refuge when the streets and the malls become too crowded. I run for the nearest bookstore because that is where most people stay away from. 

I think the age of twenty-two is a good year, although 2008 hasn't been the kindest of years for me. The uneventfulness coupled with the lack of luck in any field has been quite a downer to say the least, but I guess there are aspects of it I should be very thankful for - the concert tickets I managed to purchase, for example. Anyway, it's just this expectation of sorts when you turn twenty one, the way everybody sees you as an adult and sort of expects you to be able to do everything and shed all that childish and naive thoughts you've had for the past twenty years. So you get this immense amount of pressure from your parents, from your relatives, from yourself, but mostly the society as a whole. I think twenty five is a rather pressurizing age too, because that is the kind of time people usually get into a serious relationship, when some people get married and might already have kids by that age. If you are single by the time you hit twenty five, there is this blind and subtle pressure from the people around you, and you cannot help but ask yourself what is wrong with you that is, in a way, deflecting people away. Twenty two is a comfortable age, you are far enough from twenty one to be free of responsibilities, and also young enough to ignore the responsibilities of a twenty five year old. 

Some people put a lot of emphasis on birthday greetings from friends, and some people even take offense when one of them forgets or just completely ignore their birthdays, seeing it as a sign of negligence or simply cannot be bothered with you. It's strange how people place so much emphasis on a single day, and even stranger when you consider the measure of a friend through whether or not they bother to remember your birthdays or not. Presents are nice, money is nicer, greetings are fine, but then it's not like your life is going to be worse without any greetings in the first place. It is probably going to be like just an ordinary day, minus all the repetitive message tones you get throughout the day. Once in a while you get messages from people you hardly expected to get a message from - that's you Reina - and those messages are particularly touching. That is not to belittle all the other messages, but some are just extra nice, that's all. And as for those who didn't text me, so what? It doesn't really matter to me, I don't see you people as less of a friend or a person for that matter. They are just birthday greetings, and getting a hundred of those is not going to win you a prize. It is OK if you don't remember, it's not like I had some kind of publicity to promote it in the first place. 

One thing that I am particular about though, and it is the fact that we should all be happy on our birthdays. We came out from the womb kicking and screaming, and most people are probably going to leave this world in the same way that we entered anyway. The last thing anybody would want to do is to be kicking and screaming on your birthday, when you started yourself out in this world in the very same way and fashion. I say put on a smile, be nice to people, be nicer to yourself. It is an excuse to pamper yourself, even if it is just an excuse. I bought myself more books, I sang aloud on my guitar, and I annoyed the hell out of my neighbors by playing in the dining room once more. But it is my birthday, and I want to be a happy person in this day. It only happens once every year anyway, so we can all be excused and be merry. This birthday thing is over-rated, but only if you place way too much emphasis. It's all about the four letter word people, it's all about K.I.S.S, and that is the acronym for "Keep It Simple, Stupid". Simplicity is everything on your birthday, and less is more. Be happy on your birthday, you owe it to yourself. 

P.S. As you can see, my love for books is life-controlling.