FEBRUARY 19 — Very few Chinese folks will say this out loud but during Chinese New Year, there’s one thing which will scare the living horse lights out of us i.e. the 20 questions relatives ask during gatherings: “Your school results how?” “You director in your office already ah?” “When you two getting married?” “How come no children yet?” “Why no sons?”, ad infinitum.

Festivities are wonderful but I guess being interrogated on some of the personal aspects and decisions in one’s life in the middle of one’s entire clan can be daunting.

Asking about each other’s lives — especially after having been apart for a year or so — is no doubt a part of what it means to be family. 

In the best-case scenarios, it’s not so much “20 questions” but “20 ways to reconnect”. 

In fact, it’s not uncommon to have cousins, uncles and aunts proudly pour out their latest achievements, plans and dreams together with the Chinese tea, orange juice and cookies.

Maybe it’s all the cookies and laughing and food and fireworks which make extended family members think the young fellas they haven’t seen in a year will feel perfectly fine being asked questions they’d block social media followers for even raising.

Maybe it’s tradition which flies like a “Free For All” flag so much so that every query can be posed without fear of a lawsuit, every intimacy probed with impunity.

Like a friendly police interrogation?

Maybe that’s why the people being questioned answer macam stress sangat.

We say our studies are fine (and throw in how Maths is our favourite subject hoping the questioner hates it).

We say maybe we’ll tie the knot in a few years’ time (and joke maybe she or he could have second thoughts).

We say we’re too busy to have a kid (just before saying, “Oh hey, your children look wonderful!”)

We say this, we say that, we say anything while simultaneously willing the spotlight to shift away from us.

Ironically one of the surest ways to avoid these awkward “firing squad” moments is to have an actual problem. 

No relative does something as insulting as ask a divorcee whether or not her ex-husband still contacts her. Likewise, only someone ignorant would ask a woman with a failed pregnancy about family plans.

Yet who knows, with social media being what it is, maybe CNY today and tomorrow will see fewer “20 Questions” and more family members simply staring at their phones and mumbling something about US politics or TB or whatever. 

The tragedy of Facebook and Instagram is that fewer of us care to speak face to face, which could mean minor redemption to young couples or adolescents simply hoping to make it past lunchtime without having all their existential decision-making becoming headlines.

Thankfully, most people still care about each other’s feelings to not be unnecessary busy-bodies. 

Also, with rising sensitivity and political correctness today I suppose everyone’s more likely to think twice before turning a family gathering into a police inquiry?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.