In one year and out the other

31st December often holds a note of finality, like the lingering autumn leaves on a tree or the splendid final chord of a symphony – though they are just like any other leaf or chord, their arbitrarily determined chronology lends them a special significance that we are more than willing to pounce upon as a marker in the shapeless linearity of time. As the year draws to a close then, we feel that this day, a little more extraordinary than the rest should be one to cherish, like a enduring handshake before a parting. One may look back, misty-eyed, upon the events of the year past, a compartmentalised segment of time, or to nobly gape at the foggy recesses of the future.

Indeed, the closing of a year usually inspires such prudish sentimentality, such as this, with talk of bracing oneself for the unknown, steeled by the lessons of the year, serious head-nodding and expressionless contemplation when, any other date might have been suitable. This ridicules the very idea of distinctive "New Year's" parties, as the express significance of the date does not make it any more worth celebrating than any other day. The very concept of "New Year" is very much a Western invention and a symbol of our piety to the past and to the orthodoxy. The keeping of time and its related technicalities are very much an issue close to human civilisation and its development so far. The system we have now is the numbered ball that has popped out of a lottery randomiser – chosen arbitrarily through chance and physics. This however is a rather poor excuse for launching into the justification that the new year (no point giving it more emphasis than it already needs) barely scratches the surface of this issue:

Every day — and every moment of every day — is the start of a new year, because it is always exactly one year away from a corresponding moment one year previously. Of course, this rather academic view is echoed by the quote from American Beauty, that "Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

If one wants to count in years, why do so in years of 365 or 366 days? This irrational convention arises in deference to the Sun. The Sun mattered then because it regulated the sequence of the seasons on which farming depended. Probably, therefore, the Sun became the arbiter of the length of years only when people started agriculture: in the span of human history, this makes it a recent event.

In the ancient times, carrying over till now in the Chinese and Islamic calendars, most timekeeping was lunar. The Moon’s machinations echo rhythms of the body: the menstrual cycle and our sequence of sleep and wakefulness. Some human groups keep star-time, usually on the basis of a cycle of Venus. Ancient Mesoamericans observed a 260-day sacred year, in tribute to the rough correspondence of the term of a pregnancy to the passage of Venus.

Nature, it can be seen, often dictates the means by which we measure time. More eminent civilisations utilised the celestial bodies for their greater prominence and regularity. But some cultures have never done so and relied on making comparisons between linear sequences of events. The Nuer of the Sudan use the growth rate of cattle. A famine, war or pestilence might be remembered as occurring “when my calf was so high”.

For us in industrial and post-industrial societies, these have lost any significance they might once have had. In 1896, the discovery of constant, regular radioactive emissions gave us a universally valid way of measuring time independently of all sidereal bodies. The official global standard of time is now the average rate of radiation emitted by atoms of caesium-133 in 200 oscillators.

We can divide up the inaudible and ceaseless footfall of time as we please, and such is the way that we have chosen to do so. Officially, it makes everything neater and more methodical. Philosophically, it is much more convenient to think of things chronologically, tidily organised like objects in cardboard boxes in a mover's truck. 31st December might just be like 1st January, but I think we can all still exercise the right to some self-delusion in penning out our resolutions and seeing out the year either in quietude or heavy drinking. Had I not thought so, I would already have gone to bed instead of waiting for the little rush that accompanies the clock ticking down to zero.

At the Present Moment

Christmas is a time of gift-giving, whether it be goodwill or capitalism that compels one. People who don't get any gifts would feel being unloved, and hence it has almost become a duty to give gifts to people you love (or at least are supposed to love, if modern wisdom has come to bear) even if it means slipping them fifty-dollar notes under the table at the family dinner. Though I think money is the most imaginative of gifts (because it provides the most opportunities, like the imagination) many people think that giving an original gift that the receiver surely would like is the best thing to do. Good intentions, while arising from thoughtfulness, have been the root cause of many awful things, like the atomic bomb or watermelon liquer. Hence arises the culture of fencing goods that other people thought that you would love.

Present recycling, or re-gifting is, like many other scientific but ultimately useless things, an art, for, before turning one's nose up at a present and hastily repackaging it for its new destiny, there are many considerations to be made. A quick ethical check reveals no inherent moral short-comings, for a present received becomes property and with that the free rein to do what one pleases with it. From an economic viewpoint there is market efficiency, for designer shoe polish might actually get to someone who cherishes it (though it might take decades).

Then a careful removal of the old wrapping paper, an inspection for hidden, personalised notes that may or may not have crudely drawn hearts on them before the final presentation. This is what mini-nightlights, tartan scarves and celebrity cookbooks were made for. Of course, this can't become a habit, or there would never be sweaters with bunny motifs sold afresh again.

But as it is with all human interaction, things can become complicated. The two unwitting parties might find out in a rather red-faced moment, and they either feel cheated or unwanted.

This, and other horrors of opening your present to see one of your "re-gifts" coming back to bite you in the ass, are of course only a concern of those who have an established "under the Christmas tree" gift-giving tradition. For everything else, there's cash.

One of the prerequisites for becoming a global citizen is the ability to treat every country as home (that is, every country where the present government has been in power for at least two hours and members of the armed forces are all over eighteen (how much more stylish it is to spell out numbers, in the vein of recent film titles (and in a ridiculous form of decadence I will take the chance to use brackets within brackets within brackets))) so that the frequent jet-setting will not induce too great an upheaval in one's life.

Such a description can only conjure up the image of the glamorous, super-bourgeoisie pink Taittinger sipping jet-set bedecked in designer clothings and accessories; like haute couture magazine photos come alive in a macabre, Flatworld-esque fashion. But for the rest of us, the transition between two countries is usually an event and not something like clipping ones toenails. There usually is an air of novelty and unfamiliarity in arriving in a country after spending a considerable amount of time in another, especially for those who have been bred on travel for the purposes of tourism only.

Thus I was a little miffed coming home for the first time (but perhaps with the knowledge that I would soon be travelling elsewhere again) not to find the air of importance that usually surrounds such an event. Of course there were the usual familial greetings and warmth which are customary and necessary (such as my mother's gastronomic re-education programme) but otherwise I could have been returning from any other place.

But that's probably because I had already unconsciously swapped "home countries" (but enough already about 'stayers' and 'quitters' so oddly (I hope it does not last long) here had become like another tourist destination. In fact, the only other place I've been to so far has inevitably been Orchard road (and the fact that it rained so heavily I couldn't make out the festive lights is probably some sort of cautionary sign the meaning of which is unclear) and the fumes of capitalism gave me a headache. It was probably time to go home when I swayingly saw the words on the MRT sign mysteriously morph into "Oxford" (more than a passing resemblance really).

It will be time to depart again, thus consigning this little jaunt (a word that does not do justice to the revulsion felt at a 13 thirteen hour flight in economy class) to a mere rest stop, but perhaps for now like a rest stop of throwaway importance and stale coffee.

Love eventually

So pardon me for ripping off the catchiest (although similarly literal to the others) title of a Christmas romantic comedy, yet another esteemed British institution. I had previously not talked about the beautiful, manicured lawns of England, their imperialist doings and other such topics familiar to great travel writers such as Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson, because obviously they would be able to do (and have done) a much better job at saying the same things about them as I would have been able to, without the lunatic and rambling sentences. So no, the fix for laughing at the fascist way the English maintain their grass will not be found here (though I must put in a good word that people who live in the lush tropics should try to understand the obsession of people in colder climes to actually get some plant to grow properly in the outrageously hostile climate. Of course, this turned out to be grass).

But indeed there are several other (more serious) mainstays involved with making fun of the British, in the same vein as how the Jerries are seen as rote and sexless, or the French weak-willed people with bad accents. It is possible, living amongst these people even for a short time to pick out, as one would a hair from one's soup, all the shortcomings that they have, and that also have been satirised (but usually with goodwill, unless you are French) by countless generations of authors and film-makers.

Talking about such (minor) irritations isn't going to change anything, and rehashing old comments is a tired business, much like thinking about how to use up dinner leftovers. This is also why I have not talked about such issues (and hence have had rather limited content), and this is also in the spirit of trying to grow to enjoy the place (or drink enough to be able to ignore it completely). I only realised this as I sat along K—Parade, being free enough to watch everything go by at its languorous English pace; Maybe it was the fact that I would be leaving it for home soon Somehow, even though the germ of the feeling was just forming I knew I would finally see past its obvious defects.

Analogously, this was like the slightest of twitches I felt in my eyes (I think it was the soundtrack that did it) near the end of Love actually (and no it was not due to staring at the screen for a straight two hours). Whilst I won't be getting any "epiphanies" (actual quote) from it anytime soon, likewise, I hope to be talking about it in a more pleasant manner as I would like to do for here. Indeed, it is love eventually.

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

The oft perverted song of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and its requisite content of assorted miscellany (hence its ease of abuse – it is easier to fit words to a tune than to think of sufficient ones under a common aegis) quite aptly describes this hodge-podge of things that, in retrospect, also describes in acute detail the mish-mash (there are too many words invented to describe variety) of activities and sights that passes for diversity here.

The Christmas spirit; everyone talks a little about it around this time (just as even market-stall holder uncles were talking about September 11th at around that time, but only in the context of perhaps pork prices), fueled by the bright and sparkling Christmas lights and the umpteenth loop of Wham's Last Christmas, snaking through shopping centre PA systems and polyphonic ring tones. But until one reaches into the heart of English (Gasp, "European!" if you please, sir) lands around this month then one has not seen how deeply such considerations are etched into the whole English psyche. The Christmas shopping, Christmas pudding and other Christmas related traditions that we had dreamily contemplated only from glossy, imported story-books become instantly tangible here, as they always had been, but to us as though we had snapped our fingers and made it materialise right away. Going for such traditions and indeed even a Christmas dinner was probably seen as imperialist and as kow-towing to the West. But it is essential to partake in such deeds for, to some extent, the assimilation into the culture of the West. Much like the blonde hair and fair skin it is key to much of the spirit of the West (but as with physical features there is also a stunning multiplicity)

Tramping through the rubble that lined the floor of the dining hall the next day, detritus crunching underfoot like the golden dried leaves outside, hoping not to spot something too odd amongst the expended party poppers and Christmas crackers (amongst other expended objects), it was not difficult to imagine the alcohol-sodden mischief and wanton partying that must have taken place in the spirit of Christmas. Then, the realisation, which may strike at anytime, when one is slicing cheese or washing the dishes, that hey, Christmas started out as a Christian celebration right? And they wouldn't condone such behaviour especially not in the context of Christmas would they? And it's not even the 25th yet. And don't 25% of all Britons label themselves secular?

Let us (pretend that we can) not talk about the religious connotations of Christmas (though I fully acknowledge their inseparable presence, and as such this is as knotty as trying to remove all the hairs from a kiwifruit) however, as much has already been said about that by more suitably qualified and esteemed persons. What may be said of it however is that it is stitched together from a whole plethora of traditions that don't all have very savoury/congenial origins, much like the English monarchy or the Italian civil service. In keeping with these traditions (and in keeping with the previous line on food) there have been the most drastic of arrangements in order to maintain their status quo so much so that the same effort would better have been utilised to think of a more progressive circumvention of conditions. Such is the strange story of the massive misnomer of the festive food of the minced meat in a pie. Of course everyone knows these delightful raisin-filled pastries contain not a scrap of meat in them. This anomaly dates back to Oliver Cromwell (who, being the oddball of the Middle Ages has most of the peculiar legends in England being traced back to him) who banned the use of meat in mince pies because it was indulgent. So to keep in the spirit of things people started filling it with raisins, nuts, rum and brandy (which, of course, as old Oliver was constantly full of them, were not indulgent at all) though I can't see how these could ever hit it off as successful beef analogues. Such is the continued attempt to adhere to tradition that also explains why people choke down fruitcakes, denser than a cannonball, sweeter than a Christmas romantic comedy, year upon year, and on Boxing Day fret about how to get rid of the colossal, languishing pieces of it, like an old, incontinent grand aunt.

That doesn't mean we can't invent our own traditions to hold dear and treasure and follow for all the years to come. In fact, binge drinking with its associated joys of projectile vomiting and waking up naked on King's lawn is rapidly becoming the favourite tradition of students here. But not only for Christmas, for also for special things like end-of-Term, and the 15th of November, and Tuesdays.