Going through the motions

Today was the first day of the Lunar New Year. As always, in between all the rush of the day's activities, I found myself thinking about the meaning of the festival.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Chinese traditions, the first and second days of Lunar New Year are usually spent visiting familiy and relatives. We bring gifts of fruits and confections and the elder and/or married relatives give red lucky money packets ("lai see") to the younger generation. During these 2 days, we usually see a lot of relatives that we don't see that often.

And therein lies my quandary.

I guess one's views on visiting depends on whether you're a glass is half empty/half full type of person. One view is that because we don't see these relatives that frequently, visiting on Lunar New Year is all the more important otherwise we'd lose all contact. And on the flip side, some would argue that since we don't see these relatives that much anyways, there's not much point in visiting at all.

Being the pragmatist that I am, I fall into the 2nd category. If the reason you don't see these relatives that often is because of geography (i.e. you require a plane ticket to visit them), then I can understand the desire to see them once in a while to catch up. But if you live in the same city and you still only see them once a year, chances are you don't place much value in keeping contact, and going through the motions to see them seem insincere and superficial. Visiting someone because "it's traditional" is hardly a good reason. If you really thought of them as family, you wouldn't need an offcial holiday as a reason to see them more often.

Probably not a very popular point of view (especially on a day like today) but frankly, sitting around for an hour and making small talk while trying to avoid awkward silences is not my idea of making connections.