What a hectic weekend. Two big weddings, with plenty of dressing up to do.
Friday started with an extravagant dinner at the Sentosa Resort and Spa, hosted by my cousin and her new husband. I'm not very close to her, but enough to not raise an eyebrow upon hearing that the groom from Taiwan was much older than her and exceedingly wealthy. To be honest, I never really thought that she was pretty, but boy, the wedding photos were really BOOMZ. I will never underestimate the power of Photoshop again. Technology can really make people look... I dunno. Prettier than they ought to be. The food was awesome also. Abalone and scallops galore. Great atmosphere too, if only the sound quality of the two live singers (friends of the groom) could be better adjusted.
Next, Saturday was another busy day with Caleb and Jennifer's wedding. Emceeing with Michelle at the church service was fun, and as I predicted a long time ago, Jennifer did cry at her wedding. I told Michelle how I thoroughly enjoyed the way Caleb said his wedding vows almost poetically, and I wonder if I could add another dimension by gently stroking my bride's face during my own wedding. God knows when that will happen anyway. But no bittersweet feelings, even while witnessing a childhood crush say her lines and vow to love her new husband for the rest of her life. Frankly, there's no better catch for her than Caleb. Another sumptuous dinner at the Marina Mandarin ballroom, with more abalones and prawns, and then the end of a beautiful memory. If either of you are reading this, congratulations again, and thank you for the invitation to a great wedding. +)
Now for the breakthrough. You know how during these kinds of dinners, how aunties and uncles will ask you stuff like "So when is your turn", "Got any girlfriend or not" or some even better still, "Where's your girlfriend?", as if I'm expected to have one now. I don't see Andrew and Nicholas getting fired by such questions, maybe because of the Chinese tradition of expecting the oldest to get married before the younger ones. Frankly, I don't like such questions, because wriggling my way through requires me to either lie or be so bluntly frank it hurts. Not saying anything isn't helpful either, because some people will just make the funniest assumptions that I just broke up recently, am gay, or both. So, not one to lie without giving myself away super obviously, I just say the truth.
"Not anytime soon."
"Nope, don't have any girls who want me."
"Nope, I don't have a girlfriend."
So, being the usual curious uncles and aunties (mostly the latter), they'll continue probing further, often to the embarrassment of my parents who are nearby. So, I decided to use my answer to conduct a social experiment to see what people's reactions are, and how they are grouped.
"I'm still studying la, Auntie. Study no money wan. Poor family some more leh. No money = no girlfriend."
But I did discover something extremely unusual upon giving this answer. I took my lifelong assumption as a hypothesis: That those who are middle-class or slightly lower in class status would reply with surprise, and that those who are higher or upper-class would nod understandingly. Apparently, I found a slightly less expected dichotomy. Regardless of class status, those who are 40-ish and below all nodded understandingly, and those above all gave surprised answers, arguing that not all girls go for money. Such a remark thus deflected all attention from myself, setting the ground for extremely hostile and interesting debates between members of that table, giving me enough material to write a rough thesis.
Of course, being extremely pleased with myself for killing two birds with one stone, I proceeded to move from table to table (mostly among the relatives for the first wedding and the church friends for the second) to try out this new trick.
Then upon returning home, I suddenly heard God speak from the small voice within.
"Victor."
"Er... Is that You Lord?"
"Are you really from a poor family? Think about it."
"Yeah, I am. Technically speaking, yes."
"Look around you."
And as I proceeded to recall my memories of both weddings, I saw something else. A different definition of "family".
In the first wedding, I saw my relatives. Arguably, my relatives from both paternal and maternal side are all extremely successful people from all walks of life. I saw my immediate family as "poor" relative to all of them, which was largely true, but social capital-wise, I am wealthy beyond my dreams. If there was such a thing as total net-worth of family assets from 2 degrees of family onwards, the simple connection of my dad and mum puts our family right at the top. My dad and mum are arguably the poorest among their siblings by far (though admittedly the happiest by far too), but their siblings are immensely wealthy and famous. Which means that from another perspective, I'm not poor, and thus I could have been lying all these while.
In the second wedding, I saw my church friends. Church friends technically form a "family" from the Christian perspective, and though not all of them are richer than me, but there are some who are wealthy beyond my imagination. Informed by my parents, my church comprises of a disproportionate amount of millionaires (though by visible lifestyle it's nearly impossible to believe), which accounts for the extremely important status that it holds in the Anglican Diocese, despite having a weekly service attendance of less than 120. Moreover, wealth is not measured simply in monetary terms, but in spiritual terms: there are also some (especially in the youth) who are spiritual giants and whom I know will go on to become great servants of God, which more or less will account for their financially-impossible-to-calculate wealth in Heaven.
So is Victor really poor? From those (extremely valid) perspectives, I don't think so. So why when asked, does he go around claiming that he is?
With a little self-examination, it only boils down to two reasons:
1. It is an easily swallowed rationalization of loneliness.
2. It acts as an effective filter against girls who are interested in the only thing he personally despises.
As useful as it maybe, Victor has to understand that the holiness of God does not stand for any form of lying, and will weed out even those beliefs that he might have come to assume as the truth.
No more lying. If nothing, Victor has to learn to shut his trap. The truth, if to be told, is that Victor is way richer than any one of you can believe.
My poverty was simply a matter of my perception. The truth however, is no respecter of any man's perceptions, only God's. -Valentino Casanova
The reality of life is that your perceptions - right or wrong - influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place. -Roger Birkman
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