FB post dated November 14th - "Shut the fuck up at concerts."

Attended a lovely concert last night with some colleagues in the music circuit.  The experience was marred by a few issues.  I could forgive the Arctic-like, severe and intensely bone-chilling drafts of the air-cond that blew right on top of us from 830pm to 11pm.

But I can't quite rest my heart at the `sakit-hati-ness' of the behavior of the audience.  For the reason that I think what I have observed last night reflect a much bigger issue facing the…youth of our society today.

We were sandwiched by a row of elderly audience behind us and a group of four young ladies/girls who sat in front of us.  At numerous occasions during the intimate moments of the performance there were audible chatter behind us - please note that it was chatter, not whispers.  In front of us where we had no choice but to look between the four heads belonging to the four young ladies, to enjoy the consummate performance on stage.

The performance featured vocalists, a jazz band and contemporary dancers.  For the most part of the evening whenever the dancers make appearance, the girls in front first watched (though I think it looked more like they were gawking), then exchanged remarks among themselves, then giggled uncontrollably…non-stop.

Now, how the dancers' performance fitted into the music performance is another issue - but the fact that these young people (ok, I am assuming by merely guessing that they look young, they look early twenties to me) thought it was okay to start a forum about the performance right there in the middle of the concert, among other audience - is beyond my best effort tolerance.

I practice self-censorship consciously in all my self-published content - blogs, FB tweets, instagram, etc.  Outside of the cyber world I try my level best to do the same.  As I age I put in more effort in behaving myself in public, when dealing with frustrating people, I try to put peace and solving a problem before satisfying my urge to reprimand - I really try, trust me - I used to be a lot louder and wouldn't think twice about telling someone off in public, loud.

At the beginning of the concert I turned to the chatting elder-lies behind me and smiled first, gestured for them to shut their gaps and said softly, "I want to listen to his singing."  I looked into the pair of eyes I met, sitting behind me, on a face of a woman who clearly looked old enough to be my mom - they looked happy to be at the concert…except they really didn't know how to stop their chatters in a concert like that.

Unfortunately for me, I was expecting a lot more from the girls in front of us.  They were young people who were clearly privileged enough to attend such a classy event - a live music concert; they looked like they are at university-attending age and they each had a piece of paper with them and they would sometimes write something on the papers in the dark (I wish I knew what the papers were).

The four of us behind the girls watched the show patiently, it was a long and cold night.  Towards the end of the performance the lead performer engaged us in a most soulful, and quiet ballad, featuring a dancer.  One of the girls continued her antics of mocking the performance by covering her mouth, stopping herself from laughing, and exchanged words a few times with her neighbor.  I decided to talk to her, I tapped her lightly on the shoulder and said, "This is closing to the end already, could you please pay attention to the stage?"

The girls didn't quite stop their gawking and giggles after that but their moronic behavior was reduced.  I could tell that the girl whom I tapped was dying (inside of herself) to take a good look at me and stare right down at me.  After the show I spoke to some musicians about audience etiquette.  Our conclusion was that - the older bunch had no idea that talking during a performance is fucking rude - they simply had no idea what renders appropriate behaviour at concerts.

The young ones?

Many people talk of Malaysians being people lacking in exposure of worldly things - specially in the arts and music industry.  Comments like, "Yalah they don't know ma what world-class standard is like."  "Not bad already for a Malaysian/local show." …..etc.

My point is, long winded as this entry is (apologies) - so yes, we are village folks, we don't know any better, but are we ready to remove ourselves from our narrow-mindedness and our so-called `backwardness'?  And for those of us who know better - are you ready to educate and help open the eyes of those who don't any better yet?

So if you know that when you attend a live performance with three hundred other audience in the auditorium, you are to put your phone on silent, and leave conversations with your friends for appropriate break of the performance - would you do something to ensure that your fellow audience do the same?

Or would you just sit there and ignore the bad behavior for the sake of peace? Of avoiding making a scene?

A few years ago I sharply told a mother off for talking to her family (a pair of parents and two teenagers) during a performance in a theatre.  This lady received several warnings from other member of the audience during the show - "Please keep quiet, I didn't pay to hear you talk, I paid to watch him dance." etc.  So on my way out of the auditorium I stopped by her seat and told her that she really shouldn't be a bad example to her children.  Her reply was, "No we didn't talk, we didn't do anything wrong. I don't know what you're talking about."

Later on at the foyer of the theatre I saw her again, again I approached her and told her that everyone who sat near her could she and her family talked during the show, ahem, she was so good she actually scolded me and called me a bitch loudly…with people near us who looked on, disdainfully.

I rest my case.  Again, I apologized for the lengthy writing to illustrate one point.

Again, my question again - if you know better in being a worldly person with manners, would you care enough to educate the others to improve themselves?  Clearly, if there are not many of people like me around to single out the spoiled kids like the ones we encountered last night at Tribute To Yao Ming's opening concert - I would always look like the bitch who is self-righteous and a snob who tell people off.

The road to a more mature society, getting to the first-world country…and all, seems very long and cold.