Lantern Festival

I have always been doubtful of the criticism about synchretism. Well, not only did I grow up in a highly multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society – there were two people within the household who, originally orphaned after World War II, grew to their teens not knowing that they were in fact full siblings, yet having originally been raised one by a Chinese family, and the other by an Indian family... One spoke only haka, the other mostly only tamil and a little english.

And it was virtually a complete accident that they were employed within the same household too, with my father and mother going through birth and immunisation records with a schooling register that was being formed post-war, from memory I think just to work out what real ages students were, and discovering the facts of the situation when they realised who the actual individuals were these particular details referred to. I won't go into how the matter was eventually revealed to all the people involved, suffice to say it all went extremely well indeed.

The internet is doing one thing very well and that is to underscore that the world of human beings is actually only one world. People today can and do rapidly access information and cultural ideas and aspects from across the entire globe and there will be an inevitable social, cultural, conclusion to that in the future.

Fifteen days after the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year, is the lantern festival. I understand this as a Taoist tradition – because that was the predominant Chinese ethnic cultural group dwelling in that part of the world where was raised. I do think in fact, that it is indeed a Taoist tradition fullstop, but of course it has been changed around in varying parts until today, say for example in Singapore, it is quite a bizarre, commercialised, spurious portrayal of something, I'm not sure what, but certainly something the Singapore government feels will appeal to the tourist dollar. Singapore is the very 'least Taoist' place in the world that I can think of!

Synchretism is one thing, but then there is such a thing as simply a bad human, and there is such a thing as a bad type of government or system, or a malicious tyrannical dictatorship- these things are not about differences of philosophy; they are about evil motivations and corrupt and evil motives. Whether they are disguised or rationalised spuriously, or whether they are open and obvious, it is possible to detect the difference between what are merely distant philosophies, and otherwise simply narrow-minded, single-minded, self-aggrandizing and self-important attitudes.

However, just for the moment, I shall focus only on the Lantern Festival, its beauty and its subtletly, and its myserious aspect, which is typical of all things Taoist. On the lanterns, there are meant to be puzzles of various kinds, that you can contemplate and try to solve, as the light breezes touch the swinging brightly-coloured candle-holders... as they slowly sway on long strings in the warm evenings...

Best,
Calvin J. Bear