In the olden days, when I was a kid, Raya Cina, or Chinese New Year cerebration in the lunar month, it was full of dreams and expectation for a kid liked me who hailed from a very poor family, my parents were carpenter cum small pigs rearer.
New clothing, fire crackers, angpow and the most yearned for were the F&N Sarsi and Orange aerated juice, which I must make sure they had at least two wooden crates my father would have ordered! Those days, in my time, these two items were the luxury to me, a poor kid who had been brought up from such a family of destitute where even the regular drinks to many affordable kids were so meagre which became the diamond water of today!
As long as there were angpow and firecrackers, even without the new clothing, it was very much a satisfaction to me already! I would then go over to the neighbours and found my peer group and fought with them with the firecrackers, throwing at each others, liked a jamboree! They rest is history....
Hence 50 years had past. The majority of the kids who lived in the skid rows and slumps have become now the parents of the average families, or even leaders of the society. Most of those still kicking have lived through the wax and the wane years along the path of growing of the Nation. Time has seen the evolution of the Society from the days of undeveloped pro-independence stage of the Nation to the present waxed luster of being an advance and developed Nation earning admiration from the many, still, the undeveloped third world Countries. We can proudly proclaim to the world that we are not too much lag behind the modern era, we are in, to level with the western tag, in terms of technology, IT, National developments and living standard of the peoples etc. Except, the inevitable differentiation of cultures and living philosophy, styles and believes. This is normal as to no one is born alike, the coin has also its two sides.
If I would say - the kids are the fortunate and gifted beneficiaries of what the ancestors had passed to them the legacy of today's empire of riches in life styles and livelihoods amid the much more conducive environments of modernization and peace - retrospectively, little will I hear is the objection!
Had we ever heard of the eponym - 'whizz-kid' - one who had been only 13 years old and enrolled Oxford University at the age of 15 after a mere two years to qualify all his Pre-U credentials - when Thomas Alva Edison had only become the great inventor of the first tungsten bulb at the age of 32, near to his middle age, after thousands of failure in experimenting for a year, until the success of creating the first bulb in the world! The founder of Yahoo is also a youngish entrepreneur who was at the age of below 30, had risen to his height of success! All these are the examples of elitist prodigies.
I am not trying to allude that kids nowadays are more brilliant and inventive,and the veteran of those days, less great! I was merely trying to 'stabilo' the difference on how lucky they are the modern kids, they are living in this modern era which provides them all the infra structures to help them develop their cerebral faculties and excel - by their slogging hard forefathers!
Regrettably, the modern kids nowadays are either ignorant or naive they do not even wish to bother how Rome was built, neither the mystery of the Pyramid which made up of millions or billions of bricks without the aid of the modern building technology, is of interests to them! To them, it's all the common phenomena, as common as the kids are dying their hairs with multi-color toners to make them look trendy! Little or no interest they would show - their concerns - of why they should celebrate the festivity with apropos to the understanding of the cultural value which flows from the ancient time, from their great grand fathers as the nearest reference. They just couldn't careless!
What it means to the youngish kids, when all these Raya or Festivals are concerned?
Well, to the small kids below puberty age, the meaning of Raya is nothing more than revelry just like during my olden days, the expectation of new clothing, angpow and firecrackers are put together to mean Raya mood for them. It's a Raya mood which they will concern the most, not that they are celebrating Raya with a spirit of nostalgia and piety, let alone to mention the traditional culture and its value. It's the days of happy hours whereby they have school holidays to forget about the tedious home works, their pet aversions.
For the youngish adolescence, the lads and the lasses - Raya is a festival for holidaying, courting with boon companions and lovers, spendthrift in fashionable wears and entertainments, a time for relax et cetera. Little do they know or wish to know that it's the time for them to engage in the introspection of the past behavioral handicaps, and to take stock of the pros and cons, et cetera. It's too cumbersome for them to rekindle to the 10 or 20 commandments in life. Though not all may have such same mentality, but ten to one, I am assured!
And here, you can see the paradigm shift is taking its course.
Nevertheless, it emerged the opportunity for the Politicians to exploit the Raya atmosphere in the festive holidays, to entertain their voters and serve them with the yearly goodies of buffets and handouts of 'angpow' to the pleasing kids! They have made it a trendy fashion in lieu of and replacing the real cultural meaning and essence of spiritual introspection and rehash to make them the better men - cleansed - to serve the public demands, and changed!
Somehow, these politicians are either hypocritically oblivious or equally naive, they have preferred not to acknowledge with the facts that they are also the descendent beneficiaries of the National relics by the forefathers and began to abuse! First they would lie. Then they would steal! Upon seeing that the national coffer is full of gold. From small pilfering it grew with their lusts to reap, when they are treating the rakyat as non existence and transparent instead of they do things with the required transparency! That's what we call it corruption.
Due to corruption so rampantly worming its way, at every corner, the crates of gold stashed in the national coffer had also been depleted in no time, much sooner than expected! Then came with the high capacity rpm chain saw, the natural resources would become their next target, woods of forests had been cut down to turn into gold bars for their own keeps! Still not satisfied, oversize suction pipes were used to install underground to suck day and night, the oil reserve, non-stop without any sluice valve to siphon and dry up the oil wells until no more reserve, and it's soon! Hence national reserves turn into private reserves solely enjoyable only by the corrupted politicians amidst the cronies connected to them!
So, the Raya is still a Raya. The only distinction is - it has become a National event for the powers that be, for the top banana politicians to buy supports and votes, via the remnant of resources of the National coffer - from the kampung folks - to be precise! The private reserves will be private owned and they will celebrate their Raya in a land far off beyond seen by any of the ignorant rakyat!
Only the old but sociable 'traditional genes' will still be portraying the traditionally cultures and preachings of good values - morally, benevolently and compassionately et cetera - friendly associable enough in celebrating the auspicious Ramadan Raya together with the compatriots in the Country.
Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to ALL fellow Malaysians!
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