2022年4月1日

We all know 1 April is generally called April Fools’ Day; many have a bit of fun and laugh when pranking others.  The origin of the day is unknown, some say it dated back to the 14th century where one of Chaucer’s characters told a tale.  Nowadays we laugh briefly at each other’s stupidity in believing in lies and things don’t come true.

 

As we grow older, we are less humored and more serious about day-to-day happenings, and dare not trample or make fun of others too much, lest we might hurt others’ feelings, or being revenged, or being sued. We tend to think making fun of others, and embarrassing others are childish and immature; so mature people, or adults, would not do it among themselves. That’s why I hesitated to call March our summer holidays, but Long Easter. Years later, we would not be able to explain to our juniors why we scheduled a summer holiday in March.  We were instructed to let staff take as many leave days as possible in March for we would need them to work on different tasks in August. That is another joke we were played on. Not to mention we were told not to go to hospital when we needed help in early March.

 

Haven’t our students suffered enough? Can a school be reduced to only books and screens?  Five years from now, many of these senior students will have graduated from universities and they will become the pillars of society before long; how can they run the city with such little exposure of everyday life, humility, and interactions, silly or intelligent? That might be a huge joke we will have to bear in the very near future.  When something is gone, it is gone forever; we can revive, imitate, or recreate, but still the new version is not the same, for example, a joke gone bad or a soured relationship.

 

Like a small number of members in our city, I am now consuming the canned food which I bought for a reason, which now turns into a joke on me.

 

Anson Yang