Social conformance

This is supposed to be posted yesterday but due to work and fatigue, it has to be postponed till today. Typical and unoriginal excuses? Yes, but they are truly true.

I was at the bus stop waiting for the bus to go school. While sitting and keeping a constant lookout for any arriving buses, a mild breeze swept across the vicinity. Across the road, stood a tall tree with it crown spread out to maximize the effectiveness of photosynthesis. When the breeze caressed it, many withered leaves floated downwards. This scene reminded me of another similar situation when I was with a varsity friend. We were waiting for lessons to begin and happen to see the falling of leaves from afar and he commented that it was a nice sight, similar to that of falling snow.

As I watched the leaves fall, a tune somehow played in my mind. It was an old song, entitled "Jiu Meng", literally, "Old Dreams". I then recalled the last time I heard the song being sung "live". It was at an elderly home when my school compelled us to go there for social work. I think I was either 14 or 15 then. To entertain the aged, one of the items put up was this song, sung by one of the girls in my class. After her song item, was a lion dance item, with loud drums and cymbals. A classmate commented how the old folks were suddenly awakened by the din after her slow number.

The singer was said to be one of the more attractive girls among my grade. In retrospect, I think she is not all that pretty; somewhat pleasant-looking would be a better assessment. There was another girl who was prettier than her, say, let's call her K.

K appeared to be a sweet, demure and mild-mannered girl. I used "appeared" because I did not know her well and judgement is based solely on my observations. Anyway, she underwent a dramatic change to become one of the delinquents and ended up in the not-so-good class. Oh, I forgot to mention that I was in the best class and she was my classmate for 2 years before streaming took place and she ended in the 4th class. I didn't think much of K's behaviorial changes back then; it was quite common for people to change for the worse during my time. Now, I wonder, "why?".

I guess K's company had changed and she somehow needed to fit in. She had to change in order for her peers to accept her and not to feel left out. I guess if I had landed in her class, I might have changed for the worse too. Which brings the question, why seek social conformance?

Perhaps it still boils down to the fact the man are not solitary animals. We want to feel wanted and cared for. That is why we are willing to alter our behaviours and appearances to suit the general expectations. My take on social conformance? I think it's good if we are conforming to good values and bad if we are all banding together for the wrong purpose. Then again, this is the gray area.

To K, her conformance to the group was a good thing, even though it meant affecting her grades in a negative way. To others, like teachers, her conformance was a bad thing; she should conform to the belief of getting good grades and not behaving like a delinquent. A high degree of subjectivity is involved and it is really difficult to judge whether one's conformance to social values are good or bad.