Monday, October 1, 2018

Can you interpret the poem "Festival" by Kenneth Wee?

"Festival" addresses the age-old difficulty of generational gaps, in the setting of a traditional Chinese-style New Year's celebration.
It's written in first person, using the royal "we" to symbolize the author's generation, which is two generations removed from the "old men," their relatives who are talking nearby in groups while the youngsters watch television.
The author establishes that though young and old people are gathered in physical proximity, they are experiencing the festival in vastly different ways. The younger generation feels like outsiders, separated by language, food, and tradition. "We know them not," Wee writes of the elders. The rituals that the older generation relishes—gossiping, eating special foods, dancing to traditional music, and hanging decorative couplets —mean little or nothing to the author and his peers. They prefer watching screens to talking, cheesy pizza to "tasteless" food, rock and roll to Chinese classics, movie posters to decorative Mandarin characters.
Yet, despite the wide cultural gap, there is something deep inside that still touches the author. In the final stanza, as he watches his old relatives, he is reminded of his heritage and confesses, "I'm proud to be Chinese." This is followed by the powerful final line of the poem—"In English"—which succinctly summarizes the contradictions between his old culture and his new one. That "we" think and speak in English symbolizes the younger generation's distancing itself from ancestors' heritage. And that "we" are proud to be Chinese symbolizes the dilemma of young people caught in transition, who are not immune to change, yet also yearn for the cultural traditions of their childhood.


"Festival" is a poem by Singaporean writer Kenneth Wee. The poet is of Chinese descent, and "Festival" is a recollection of cultural festivals in Singapore. Although the poem uses the first-person plural perspective ("we"), the poet portrays the general youth of Singapore who have lost their connection to traditions.
The entirety of the poem illustrates the dualism of old traditions versus the modern lifestyle of Singaporean youth. One of the most vivid contrasts of this duality is found in the fifth stanza. The poet describes the rhythm of the traditional lion dancers outside as the teenagers inside the house dance along. However, the reader quickly discovers that the youth are dancing to modern rock music rather than the traditional drum melodies of the festival taking place outside.
The last two lines of the poem also succinctly describe the "two worlds"—i.e., traditional Chinese-Singaporean culture and Western imported culture—that today's Singaporean youth occupy:

And we think: "I'm proud to be Chinese,"In English.

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