I live in Singapore. This country is a stone soup (a la the parable). The ingredients started coming as waves of immigrants during colonial times.
Less than a hundred years ago, my grandparents immigrated to Singapore from Chaozhou and Hainan Island (some stopped over in Malaysia first), making a living doing the things they knew – cooking, accounting – just a few of the hundreds of thousands of other Chinese immigrants here. They laboured alongside old-locals, new-locals and fresh immigrants from various other hometowns across Asia.
What drew them to Singapore was a promise of work and economic growth. In this country that was still learning how to walk, there was so much to be built and done. But no one was coming here for the ‘unique Singaporean culture’. The culture was nascent. And the atmosphere within the vast working class was pragmatic, keeping their heads down and doing the work, focusing on bringing money home.
Some families, in their private spheres, held tight to their generational cultural traditions. My parents didn’t care so much.
Both my parents, before they met each other, questioned their parents’ Chinese ancestral worship practices. They converted to Christianity, attended English-language schools, and their favourite TV shows were American through and through (Green Acres, anyone?).
When my parents got married, they were given free rein. For the main event, they opted for a Christian church ceremony and a banquet dinner. They did hold a Chinese tea ceremony, but only a very small one for their parents, which wasn’t extended further to aunts or uncles. Doubtless this was quite different from their own parents.
My parents took parenting into their own hands, inspired by the changing cultural scape around them. My mother vowed to be a better friend to her children than her parents. My dad became the homemaker, much to his mother-in-law’s disapproval. And they got to build the lives that they wanted.
Lately, I’ve been wondering how I’m supposed to conduct my own wedding.
Within my circles (namely middle-class Chinese Singaporeans), there is a set formula for weddings:
- If the couple is Christian, they hold a church wedding with regular Western rituals (walking down the aisle, exchanging rings and vows).
- Whether the couple is Christian or not, they will probably hold a banquet lunch or dinner, usually in a hotel or fancy restaurant, for upwards of a hundred guests. The couple will walk down the aisle, speeches might be given, and other small activities might be arranged, like live music or games.
This formula serves most couples quite well. It provides enough structure and grandeur that keeps the elders happy and the couple sane. And the couple still gets to inject some of their personality into fun touches, like the door gifts, decorations or activities.
Look, I’m really uninspired by this formula. It feels generic and un-thoughtful, all for a lot of money. But if I’m looking for alternatives, there’s not a wealth of cultural inspiration I can turn to.
The thing is, unlike my parents, I’m not religious. I converted out of Christianity many years back. I’m also even less ‘Chinese’ than my parents. My Chinese language proficiency isn’t great, and my regular accent these days has a Gen-Z (chronically online) American twang.
Culture-wise, I would confidently say I’m Singaporean. But that is its own can of worms – what is Singaporean culture? It’s hard to put your finger on this, beyond ‘multi-cultural’ (which often just means that we like to eat all the foods) and ‘pragmatic’ (technological, efficient, but not very sentimental).
So if I want to design a wedding that makes sense for me, I’ll have to put in some extra thought about what the wedding means to me.
But it wasn’t just weddings. I realised that the same issues were coming up with funerals.
Funerals are largely structured based on your religion, and most people are religious in Singapore. I’ve only ever attended religious funerals. Then what happens if you’re not religious? How do you help the mourning view and process your death? What would my funeral look like?
Another thing is birthdays. I’ve always had a weird relationship with celebrating my birthday. On one hand, it’s supposed to be a day that commands attention from others. On the other hand, how embarrassing it is to ask for attention! What are birthdays about? What does it mean to celebrate ‘me’ every year? What is the birthday supposed to do for us?
In our modern, hyper-productive lives, we pass from one stage to another literally without ceremony. We’re expected to keep moving, rolling, and taking the changes to our age or our identity or our family in our stride.
Ritual and ceremony are often seen as unnecessary, like clunky relics of the past. Or they are often performed a little hollow, with the meaning unclear.
My parents discarded a lot of the ritual and ceremony they didn’t enjoy as they built up their marriage and family. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But then there was a void that was left, and one that I’m now trying to fill.
I’m doing a research project of sorts into rites of passage, specifically modern ones.
A rite of passage can be defined as a ceremony or event marking an important stage in someone’s life, especially birth, the transition from childhood to adulthood, marriage, and death. My main motivation is that I want to design good rites of passage for myself and the people around me.
I’ve been reading books and talking to people about this topic, which signals a slightly longer-term interest that I have. If you have any stories of modern rites of passage you’ve experienced (a National Service passing out parade? a break-up party?) or thoughts you’d like to share on this topic, please reach out and I would be honoured to hear them.
Stay tuned!
Note: This post was originally put up on Substack, but I thought about it a bit longer and realised there’s no need for that, so it has been moved here and edited further.
joy wang 
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