I was born as a Buddhist ( which most of Malaysian Chinese claim they are, but practically we are not) but hardly seen my parents practicing Buddhism. When i was 5, my family converted to become Christian, and then i spent the next 2-3 years in Sunday school but never got baptize till today. Despite that, i still declare myself as Christian because i've used to being known as one, and i got to fill up something in the "Religion" section of Mykad application, albeit technically and practically I'm far from being one.
The fact that i'm not fully committed to the any religion doesn't stop me to think that kids should be raised under influence of a religion, to help them define what's right and wrong. But why i failed to commit to any religion? .. i think i know the answer... it's because i ask too damn many why..
If there's one thing i never failed to do in my life, it is asking why in every damn thing i ever came across. I hate to admit but this attribute makes Engineering a perfect career choice for me. I tend to see things from logical and scientific perspective, so I always struggle when i failed to figure out why something happened and why something needs to happen. I'm annoyed when i need to do something, albeit small thing, without knowing why it has to be done... unfortunately, being a Malaysia Chinese and having constant needs of knowing why, is not the best combination...
I mean... we never run short of supply for pantang larang ( taboo) in Malaysia. 1st of all Taboo exists in every culture and religion in the world, and in Malaysia, not to mention the variety of races and religions we have, only among Chinese, we have hokkien, hakka, teo cheow, hainan... etc.. so if we combine every patang larang from these cultures, i'm talking about a yellow pages thick of document, and that's just the table of content.
While this entry is not suppose to list down all of those, i do have one to share. I remember one of my uncle passed away when i was 14, as our family gathered at his funeral mourning for his departure, one of the elderly told us not to visit my uncle's grave stone in after the funeral, because he was born in certain time and date... and if the family member insist to do so, it will bring bad luck to the family. He then bring up that my grandma has the same condition too, that went on to explain that's the reason our family failed to bond because we've been visiting and cleaning my grandma's grave very year. I'm not sure how true is the claim, but one thing true is no one ever visited my grandma's grave after that, and... the relationship among the families remains
Cults and traditional practice define the line between cultures, races and religions, it is important because it is human nature to associate ourself to a group, to have the sense of identity. But i think we should also draw a line between a healthy cultural tradition, and a meaningless taboo which doesn't make any logical sense. I know people in the past must had reasons to create those taboos, but at the same time those days the earth was perceived as a flat surface, conquering mainland China means conquering the whole world and if the weather is too hot,the solution was shoot down the Sun with an arrow.
1 comment:
for my perception, i do any thing i want to cos life is too short, and its getting shorter since there's a problem call aging.
in conclusions, human are selfish, they always put themselves in the first place. the rest comes latter.
when i want some thing, i dont bother about taboo, i take it as an idea. when i dont want to do some thing, i take taboo as an excuse. ^^ hehe
this facts is applicable to selfish human beings, and it happens everyday. so, i try my best to be relax although still punching the pillows from time to time... hahhaha !!
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