Eighteen
Eighteen. What a
special number! In Chinese, the word “Eighteen” can be pronounced in a way that
means “prosperity,” and in the same way building floors with the number four
are considered unlucky, eighteenth floors are more expensive because they are
considered lucky. In Northern China, however, floor number 18 is avoided
because apparently Chinese hell has eighteen levels, far more cost efficient
than Dante’s Italian hell of thirty three floors (one would assume then that
all eighteen floors ought to be avoided). You’d think it’s a contradiction that
one number could mean both prosperity and hell in Chinese. In Korea, pronounced
slurred, “Eighteen” is the equivalent of the Korean f word.
Eighteen. Although
tempting, I won’t go into the mathematical significance of the number since
every number seems to have at least five mathematical labels apart from its
actual name – to name a few, composite number, semi-perfect number, heptagonal
number, abundant number, Harshad number (eighteen qualifies all six labels
apart from the lesser know “eighteen”). You try looking for significance in a
number, and you’ll find one too many.
On the 6th
of May, I turned Eighteen. It was a dark, foggy night when my cell phone
exhibited four consecutive zeros. Just a few seconds ago I was seventeen and
celebrating Children’s Day. Now I was suddenly a very marriageable age. My roommates
brought out a cake they had bought for me and sang “Happy Birthday” while I
looked down at a candle-less chocolate cake. After they finished, I awkwardly
murmured my thanks and hugged them. Then we sat around waiting for each other
to take a bite of the sumptuous cake, only all of us were too full and too
aware of our weights. (Someone should have told us that the 6th of
May is also International No Diet Day.) The cake was stowed away for another
day.
Ironically I usually have
more fun on other people’s birthdays than on mine, especially if the “other
person” happens to be a deity or semi-god. On Buddha’s birthday, for instance, is
school-less. I don’t think anyone could ever give me such a wonderful present
as a No School Card unless my friend happened to be a dictator (who could make
my birthday a national holiday), or a Korean Dalai Lama (who would announce
that recently discovered, unforged, ancient
scriptures revealed that Buddha was actually born on the 6th). I also
have more fun on Jesus’s birthday because not only do we get several school-less days, but Jesus also
bestows us with seasonal films on TV that aren’t copyright-elapsed C-list
movies, a benevolent fictional white bearded man who doles out free stuff, and
50% Christmas leftover sales on Boxing Day. In fact, my birthday is the
national holiday in Bulgaria because the 6th of May is also the
Bulgarian St. George’s Day and Army Day. No doubt George deserves a whole day
to himself as well as a figurine on monastic shelves because he speared to
death some reptile that was probably just an obese, mutant iguana. If not,
dragons have become extinct, and today he would probably have been arrested by PETA.
It is comforting to
know that I share my birthday with Sigmund Freud, Tony Blair, Orson Welles, and
King Sejong, the creator of Hangeul. It is not comforting to know, however,
that since Hangeul Day has already been abolished from the status of public
holiday to one of 350 or so days that aren’t distinguished, there is little
chance of success in a petition to the government proposing Sejong be honored
along with Buddha and Jesus.
However, by some
stroke of luck, I didn’t have school on my birthday. By some stroke of negating
bad luck, it was because I had the AP Literature exam on my birthday, during
which I read a poem called, “To Sir John, On His Coming of Age.” Thus I spent
my first marriageable morning comparing poems about coming-of-age and analyzing
Charlotte Bronte’s rite-of-passage novel Jane Eyre. What a wasted morning! Were
I in one of the countries in the world that isn’t one of ten that has a
drinking age higher than eighteen (and Korea happens to be one of those
miserable ten), the morning could have been spent experimenting with drinks
that aren’t orange juice or milk for a change. Were I in England, I would be at
the polling station, voting for whichever party that would give the hottest
prime minister to outflank James-Bond-candidate Putin – From Russia with Love? – and topless Obama in red boxers at the
next G8 meeting. Were I in one of those countries where eighteen is also the
age of consent – ah, never mind.
Eighteen. I can
legally get a driver’s permit. Next year, I suppose I’ll be writing about how I’m
legally allowed to purchase films rated 19 and access adult rated websites and
videos blocked by search engines for under 19 – not that I would, but it’s the
thought that I’ve been newly enfranchised with another right that counts, even
if it is not of much use. However, now that I’ve turned Eighteen, which seems
more than just one year of a step from seventeen, but a giant leap from angst-ridden
middle teenage-hood to mature late teenage-hood-nearing-adult-hood, I don’t
look forward to more birthdays to come and instead look back at all the
birthdays that have passed, and with them, all the years that have passed. “Lines
have formed on my face and hands,” not suddenly on the morning of my eighteenth
birthday, but for quite some time in a gradual process, yet it seems that you
only stop to notice age overtaking you when the occasion arises to look in the
mirror, not to straighten your hairclip or apply lotion but to actually look for
an aged face. This occasion was my eighteenth birthday, and how old I felt! I
felt as if the last time I had looked into the mirror properly was when I was
ten-years-old and was experimenting with mom’s wrinkle cream.
I was stepping into an
entirely new world of adults, a new contender in the competitive business of match-making,
a new potential candidate for every bachelor who has already been slighted by
every eligible female in the pool, a new customer for alcohol companies targeting
18-year-olds by showing celebrities getting drunk on TV ads, a new constituent
whose vote could have (along with many other 18-year-olds disenfranchised
because they moved to Korea) overturned the hung parliament in the 2010 British
general elections which took place on, yes, the
6th of May. Here I was, a novice in many ways, but still, I felt
old. With every birthday, I feel old.
The treat of my
birthday was an email I received from a friend from England, with whom I last
celebrated my birthday four years ago. She told me about school, and how they
would be going to uni in the fall. She told me about my friends who seemed to
be living a much more glamorous, exciting life in London than my breathtaking
life in Sosa living next door to corn fields and a stinking milk factory. How
good it was to hear from someone of my past! “I
haven't forgotten your birthday (yay!) and nor have many people in school
either. Over the last few days certainly a few people have told me
that it's your birthday coming up,” she wrote. It was nice to know that I was remembered
half way across the globe, especially since I was not remembered within a few
feet radius.
And that was it. That
was all I wanted. Not for people to remember my birthday because it’s St.
George’s Day or International No Diet Day. Not for people to commemorate
Sigmund Freud or Orson Welles. Not for Tony Blair to joke about going to the
polls to vote out the party that kicked him out of office. What I wanted was to
be remembered for my birth. Isn’t that what birthdays are for
after all? Plus, Eighteenth birthdays are meant to be spent having a cosy
celebration with close friends at the pub with a few friends or an early stag
night. They are not meant to be spent taking exams in the morning and spending
two hours in the afternoon writing essays about the significance.
I get the feeling that
this time, next year I’ll be writing another reflection about how it feels like
to be Nineteen. I’ll feel older, more mature, more grown up, just as I do
today, but reading through this essay again, I realize that there is still much
in me that is a child. If I myself, upon just reading through the essay once
more, is able to realize that, there is little chance anyone else who reads
this will not realize that underneath all the excitement is disappointment, all
the flexing of muscles is fear of the future, all the seemingly careless
sarcasm is a sensitive, childish heart. Yet even this insecurity, this innocent
pretentiousness, this sensitivity, I will treasure, because I want to take a
step at a time, and today, at Eighteen, I am still only Eighteen.
Happy Birthday, _______.
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