My CNY Greeting

Its February. Is this Chinese New Year month? Nevermind. I just realised that I won't be home for this celebration. But apart from the angpows, and family, is that really a bad thing? What is this holiday to me? Other then bad parties, days of leftovers, and oh yes, all those greetings.

Don't you hate those greetings? Its bad enough you are forced to wish well the people you rather see lying in a pool of their own blood in a ditch somewhere, or the friends of friends of your parents whom you do not recognize. You, as a human of the 21 century, are expected to inform everyone in that ever expanding address book that they are to enjoy a prosperous New Year via electronics.

Because of technology, we have to send e-mails, e-cards, postcards, greetings. We seek out our friends online, on blogs, on Friendster, in chat rooms. If only the person who invented Instant Messaging had patented his invention, he would be earning trillions by now. No wait, he probably is already.

The worse part about all this, is the senders of the greetings are expecting a reply from you. Maybe just to show to their co-workers that they do have friends. Perhaps its ok to not make a reply if say you meet that person everyday in school/office, but how many of us meet our friends on a daily basis? All of them? Well, apart from George W. Bush who sees his one and only friend Dick Cheney everyday, but last time I checked, they were not chinese.

Meaningful? How difficult is it to type "Happy New Year" and send it to everyone in your mailbox? It wouldn't take me more then a minute. I might just do it on the last minute.

If you do receive a message that is truly fantastic, for heavens sake, don't forward it. Chances are, your friend who sent that greeting is also a friend of that friend you will be forwarding that too, and he/she would have received that greeting too. Much worse, your receiving friend is the one who originally composed that greeting. That would be embarrassing.

So here's my proposal for CNY 2007. Let's not send greetings this year. Lets not continue this ridiculous tradition. I say it ends now.

Electronic greetings: 1972- Febuary 3 2007.

My message will not go out by itself. Tell your friends! And those with support, leave a comment.

However, judging by the amount of trafic that this blog recieves, I predict another good quarter for the telecomunications companies.