New ways of doing old things
I do try to keep up with changing practices and mores in our society.
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I try even harder not to go on and on about how things used to be done in the old days.
When I was young, I found such talk terribly irritating and I therefore want to spare the young people within my circle the kind of talk that would make them start rolling their eyes and telling themselves: there she goes again.
I acknowledge that sometimes generational differences make it difficult to appreciate and understand the different perspectives; so I ascribe my inability to understand some of the new practices and fashions to my old age.
I put the wearing of torn and frayed jeans as an item of high fashion in this category.
It is beyond my comprehension and that is it.
I do not have to understand everything.
I recall that back in 1965, my mother and I had a famous disagreement over a song.
She said this song, which I was singing endlessly and which was number one on the worldwide charts, had nothing to recommend it as a melodic piece of music.
“Just one grade up from noise”, was how my dear Mother considered Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones.
I mention this just to make the point that I am willing to be very tolerant and accept that what might seem to me today like “just one grade up from noise” is likely to appear to others like the greatest piece of music ever composed.
What seems to me like crude behaviour might be seen by some as quite “cool”.
I quite understand that Twitter, or X as Mr Musk would have us call it now, has determined that every point, statement, argument can be made within a 280-character limit.
I have tried without success to understand why our big commentators and influencers also believe that they can reduce what the Auditor-General has to say on an institution to one tweet.
Where did the One Week celebration, or is it observation of the funeral rites come from to take over the country?
Once upon a time, someone died and was buried within two or at the most, three days.
On the eighth day, there would be a meeting of the family members and a decision taken on when the funeral rites would be conducted.
When we started putting dead bodies in the morgue for long periods before burial, the One Week celebrations started and they have acquired a status way beyond anything we could imagine.
Does anyone ask why we do this?
New ways
I am just trying to understand some of the new ways of doing things and what the explanations could possibly be for the changes.
Every day I discover I dare not take anything for granted in this country.
I cannot assume I know or understand the norms of behaviour in our society and attempt to go on what I imagine to be the accepted standards.
Take the little matter of presents for example.
Once upon a time, when a child has a birthday, the child’s friends are invited to a party and those coming to the party would be expected to bring presents to the birthday boy or girl.
To the best of my recollection, it was not obligatory that a present was brought, but if brought, it was welcome and would be gratefully received.
This applied to children’s birthday parties as much as to adult birthday parties.
Of course, once invited to a party, you had a right to expect to be fed and entertained.
Now it looks like things are totally different.
When it is your child’s birthday, apart from organising a party for the child’s friends, you seem to be expected to give substantial and exotic presents to the friends that show up.
Children show up at the party empty-handed and immediately demand to be given “the party bag”, which would be filled with goodies of all kinds.
Indeed, the competition among parents seems to be who would give the more expensive and exotic presents to those who attend the birthday parties.
I hear of parents in one of our “International Schools” giving an IPad tablet to each classmate of the birthday child and inviting the classmates to spend weekends in hotels to mark the birthday of a child.
It is no longer enough to send a cake to the school to be shared among classmates to mark the birthday.
At the moment, it is not the extravagance of these presents that puzzles and irks me.
What I want to understand is where did the practice emerge from that children who come to birthday parties must be given presents.
Why is it the person celebrating the birthday that must give presents, when he/she used to be the one receiving the presents?
I have been going on about children’s birthday parties, but in reality, the practice is not limited to children’s parties.
It appears to be the accepted practice now that those who attend birthday parties are the ones that are given presents.
If you turn 40, 50, 60, 21 or whatever the favourite birthdays are that are celebrated, an essential element of the party you organise would be the presents you give to those who come to your party.
I went to a friend’s marriage ceremony recently.
I was ashamed to have showed up without a present, but guess what?
Parcels had been made for those who attended the ceremony and I walked out of the place with a beautiful present, shamefaced, if the truth be told.
Understand
I do understand and recognise the importance of mementos that have come to play such an important role in our cultural events.
What would our lives and funerals, in particular, be like without the mugs with photos of the dearly departed, or the key holders with the photos of the dead person staring at you.
Now the mementos are placed where the banks taking the donations have set up their stalls and once you have given your name and got your receipt for the donation you have made, you will be given the key holder or mug or pen or whatever memento has been ordered from China for the funeral.
Sometimes I am baffled, sometimes I am exasperated.
By all means we should be renewing our practices and not be stuck with a certain mode of doing things simply because that is how it was done during your grandmother’s time, but surely there should be some reason to the change.
