HIS Ramblings

I consider myself to be a talented writer, but I have not written anything for months. Not even an entry inmy journal. Lack of time, mostly. Lack of inspiration,sometimes. Now I'm trying to write, but I don't knowwhat to write about. So I checked my email instead.Well, my email tells me to write about marriage. 4 friends of mine will be getting married this month.2 of them to each other, which is good, because itmeans I save on one angpow. One of them is one of my oldest friends a secondary school mate from myhome town. He's the same age as me, 29. The other 3 are friends from my college years. They are a year older than me. 30, the cut-off age. If you are past 30 and not married yet, you are considered ¨late.It's worse for girls because men can marry later. DidI say ¨girls? I mean women. See what I mean. You are no longer a boy or a girl when you are 30.Although some short-sighted old ladies still call me¨boy. Children, however, have no such short-sightedness. They call me uncle. I was surprisedthe first time I heard it. Still considered myself tobe ¨brother, not ¨uncle. I have a photo of mine which I took during my early 20s. Didn't think I changed that much until people started commenting about how different I look from my photo. Really?Didn't even notice. You always think that you look the same. Then I looked in the mirror and found out that they were right. Good thing is, I'm much better looking now than I was before. Hey, I didn't say it.The people who commented on my photo did. Or maybe they were just trying to recover from their earlier faux pax. Anyway, I digress.
According to the Department of Statistics, the average age for Malaysian women to get married is 25 and 28 for Malaysian men. I say that's not fair. I'mMalaysian Chinese. Chinese people marry later. I suspect the average for Malaysian Chinese to be 27 and30 for women and men respectively. If I were to follow the crowd, that leaves me one year. Good thing I've always been different. My parents got married at 27 and they expect me to do the same. Every time I go back to my parents' home, sooner or later the topic would come out. They know how much I hate it, but they can't help themselves. It's like an unfinished business for them. It's the circle of life. Your parents brought you into this world, they go to school, graduate, get a job, get married, have kids,give them a good education and see them graduate, then the kids get married and have kids of their own and they become grandparents. My parents' life cycle gotstuck after I graduated from college. Instead of doing the ¨normal thing, I quit my job. And I'm not married. It's like if you don't get married,something's wrong. And it's not just the parents. My friends are worried if they are not married. They want to get married. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against marriage.I think it's a wonderful thing. You meet someone you love, and you want to spend the rest of your life with him or her, then by all means do get married. But does it have to have an expiry date? Why 30? A long time ago, people got married when they were 15. It's a different millennium now. We shouldn't be getting married at the age our parents did. After all, we havea longer life span now. 30 years is too short to be single. Now, people start to panic when they are reaching 30 and just take any Tom, Dick and Harry orMary, Jane and Sally that comes their way. Just so they can get married.
I would love to continue this discussion, but unfortunately it's 22:26 and I have to get ready to go to work. Maybe next time. I mature late. And I look young. I still look like someone in his early or middle 20s. and I have so much to do. Getting married doesn't fit into my schedule. Not yet anyway. But I do want to marry the girl of my dreams one day. Just not today.

*** The honorable LOK shares his deep thoughts with us ***