2017年10月1日

I see the same commuting passengers every morning; they include quite a number of students.   A few students of the same international school take my bus: junior high boys wear blue khaki shorts, girls mini-skirts.  I picture this happening at King Ling, with immense difficulty of which I cannot even put my finger on.  Later, I realize it is not the uniform that makes any difference, but the attitude and the character of students.  Teenagers want to be different, but they are also afraid to be different. Uniform signifies an in-group, but not for teenagers who think they want to be different.

 

Teenagers have a lot to say among peers, but little with parents and teachers. For one thing, they always think we don’t understand them. While I don’t want to call it generation gap, I cannot but admit that difference. But adults alone cannot be held responsible for it.  If there is no communication between teenagers and adults, they will never understand each other. Different parties become unhappy in their own ways. Notice how parents discuss among themselves regarding parenting, without children participation?

 

More often than not, we are unhappy because we are not allowed to do things at will: getting up late, postponing homework submission, sleeping in class, playing with friends at all hours, the list is endless. But we live in a society that our every single move affects others, and so we can never do things at will.  Unless we chose to live alone that didn’t bother anyone. Many opt for early retirement, that they live far away from others, so it doesn’t matter if they get up at noon, or blast their music, or stay unbathed for days. But once human contacts are needed, a set disciplined rules and regulations have to be followed. Rules and regulations can be obsolete over time, but it remains our duties to follow proper channels to fix them, rather than disobeying them.

 

We expect public transportation systems to regulate their schedules well, but we are lenient to ourselves in regulations governing us. Why?

 

Anson Yang