Recently an acquaintance went to her small Motherland – to one of the regional centers of Kazakhstan.
She got there on a celebration; her relatives celebrated the enrolment of a son in the first grade. It was not a wedding, not an anniversary. Simply, the son goes to school.
But in what a grandiose show it was turned! My friend, who has been living abroad for a long time, was shocked.
The celebration took place in a huge celebration hall for several hundred people with golden arches and monumental columns. The tables were full of food, there was no place to put your hands. The boy was brought to the hall by the golden wars on the golden throne, he was showered with rose petals, he was sung hymns, he was given a lot of money and expensive gifts.
The boy’s face did not make it clear whether he liked it or not, but he was already in the game. He is already in this atmosphere. He already believes that it should be in this way, that the more splendidly he was sent to school, the higher his status in the class will be.
I’m scared for us, Kazakhs.
What do we teach our children? What values do we inculcate Every day we laugh here on Facebook, over Kazakh showing-offs, and in the evening we go on such celebration, joyfully clapping our hands in the crowd, putting crumpled bills in the pocket to the originator of the celebration, stroking the head, praising him. We ourselves are nurturing future homesteads, the “golden youth”, which will compete not in knowledge, but in wheelbarrows, iPhones and celebrations.
Kazakh showing-offs will not pass by themselves, as long as we participate in them.
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