The fact that it's easier to write in Vietnamese also make it harder to write on some specific topic. Like some emotional situations that are said to not be able to express in words? It's because people know too many words in their mother tongue that it's difficult to pick out the closest resemblant for their mind. With foreign language, that problem's solved. Even though the word you choose is not the best one, it is the closest you know, and you don't hesitate to use it because you don't know that it may not be suitable. Ignorance's some time a form of sincere – especially when you can blame that sincere to be an error based on incompetent language skill. Therefore I will wrote this entry in English, then translate it later.
Birthday! It's a time to celebrate, to throw party(ies) to get present and… to spend money. Well, but it's not always the case! My family doesn't celebrate birthday party, perhaps it's family tradition. When my mod and dad was just little kid, their family were too poor for birthday party. They even did not know what birthday party is, because my grandparents didn't tell them. Why? Because my grandparents as well was too poor for birthday party.
Now perhaps your are thinking of some poor orphaned kids on TV or movie that don't even know what birthday means. Well that's not my parents' case. They will eventually know what birthday mean when they go to school and the other kids will sure mentioned about birthday party. They would knew but wouldn't have much time to think about it. They had to take care of their little brother and sister, they had to do the housework, they knew they would never get invited because don't play along with those rich kids. Life didn't leave them much time to jealous.
And so the grew up, two birthday-(party)-less people, they came to each other and they had me. I remember they first time I'm aware of birthday celebration. It's when I was invited to a birthday party in the neighborhood. Well, in fact, I was invited earlier but I was too little to remember and get a hold on what had happened. Later, My parents show me pictures and tell me that I even tried to take the toy from the party host! What an embarrassment, I was lucky not be able to remember it. The first time I'm able to aware that I'm invited was a little bit confusing! I didn't understand the custom. What the hell is that party? If it's to celebrate the date you was born, why didn't my parents have it? And the cake and candle stuffs and the present stuffs, all seem so strange.
Let's take a look more carefully at my situation: I remembered asking my parents for toys, but most of the time they will try to make me forget that demands. They will delay it, use "busy" as an excuse – in my father's way of demand evading, or in my mother's – she let me know the price of that toy by convert it into the number of snack I can get, the number of meat it took to make my favorite meal, the number of days she have to work to afford it. And if the toy cost too much, it will be denied flatly, no bargain! Therefore I seldom asked for toys, it's useless to ask for something that's so hard to get and will break anyway. But the time I was invited to a birthday party, my mother came home from the market with a marvelous toy car that can run on itself I was strikingly filled with SURPRISE!! I didn't dare to ask for this toy, why did she bought it – I keep wondering but didn't ask her right away. Eventually she let me know that the car is a birthday present that I will give to my friend in his birthday party.
The selfish child in me was shock! Why did I have to give him this toy car? I had never got such great thing from my mother, why do I have to give it away? What is a birthday? What is so special about it that I have to give away something I have never dare to ask for?
when they asked me whether I like a birthday party. I said no, because I don't know what to do with a birthday party