Birthday is not an Asian thing!

Q: What you are gonna do on your birthday?
A: I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be having BBQ at my place.

Q: What are doing on your birthday?
A: I have no idea really. I am thinking of having a nice dinner at the restaurant

Q: Do you have any plan for your birthday?
A: Shite! My birthday was a week ago.

Birthday never used to be a big thing when I was living in Jakarta. As cultural practice, celebrating birthday in Asia is associated with middle classes who embrace modern culture, or western culture. In contrast, lower classes can’t afford to have a party and might put aside the idea of making one particular day special. For them, there are too many things that are far more important than spending sometime with family and friends on birthday. Having spent seven or six days a week at work, leisure time is hardly available for them.

When I was a kid, I was rarely invited by friends who celebrated birthday. I remember when I was in high school, only affluent people circulated cutely decorated birthday invitation in the class or close friends. Sometimes my friends and I did not come as we didn’t have any idea of appropriate presents for the birthday boy or girl. As a kid, it is nothing worse than turning up at birthday party without any presents.

Likewise, within the family, no one would get offended if every one forgets about the birthday of one family member. I’ve never received any birthday card from my uncle or aunties. My parents often did not remember even if they did, we never expected any gifts. More than once, I got up in the morning and realised that I missed my own birthday but it didn’t sadden me.

When i was nearly twenty, usually the birthday girl/boy had to shout everyone. It could be food or drinks, or even both. The birthday person can go to a restaurant or buy some take away food then eating them up at home with friends and families.

Birthday as part of festivity in our culture derived from Dutch settlers who occupied the country for more than three hundred years. Not only did colonisers bring their cultural practices but they also changed the calendar system, replacing traditional and Arabic with the Gregorian. These two calendars do not entirely disappear in modern days but they are put together with Gregorian one for those who still practice tradition.

There is one celebration related to birth in Indonesia but as far as my recollection is correct. But it is based on Javanese calendar rather than Gregorian. Usually, my grandma would prepare a plate of fruit and traditional cakes and put it in her room. I didn’t really know what was the purpose. She just told me that she did it for someone’s birthday.

Since I’ve been living in Australia birthday party becomes part of my ritual of modern culture. I get number of birthday invitations from friends. In return, they want me to make 10th of February is special for me. I do like this sort of celebration and appreciate any efforts they made to cheer me up on my birthday. However, sometimes I feel like going out somewhere on my own, wandering around the city and doing nothing special. I thought people were born in this world alone and birthday could be a perfect moment to contemplate about life.