High Society, High Tea & Me

I went to see a Western classical music concert some nights back. 5 star hotel, bejeweled people in glittering clothes, and we turned up in jeans and t-shirts, with enormous laptop backpacks - looking like we'd just descended from the Himalayas. I liked it, because I don't want to be like them.

We were a bit early, and a classy, expensive-looking woman asked us to join them for "high tea" while we waited. That made me almost gag. I thought the British left ages ago! But I can be polite, so I thanked her nicely, gave her some excuse about having to run somewhere, and we escaped to the hotel's bar where we were sure no "high tea" is ever served. I don't want to become a person that drinks high tea.

The string quartet were good. Very Western, very classical - blonde and blue-eyed and neat suits. But I sneezed, my throat tickled endlessly, I couldn't stop fidgeting, I had to fight a serious urge to whip out my iPod but I thought that would be too rude and despite my lack of "culture," I'm not a rude person. It was not that I didn't like the music, I did, but it's still the kind of music that lulls. And I'm a very lull-able person.

They did play a really delightful piece by Rabindranath Tagore at the end, which was better than the Beethovens and Bachs they'd played before, in my opinion. Not that I don't like Beethoven, but I like it spiced up. Like what the Trans Siberian Orchestra and Metallica did to his 5th Symphony. Or to Pachelbel's Christmas Canon. That's my idea of good "classical" music.

More whispers and complaints - "I don't understand the chandeliers..are they even chandeliers?" remarked one friend. "What don't you understand about them?" "They look like they're having a massive hailstorm in here..it's too overdone!"

"I hate those flowers (anthuriums) - they look sordid with those male-genitalia-like-things sticking out of them.."

"The cellist is really cute, I wish he had some serious Indian-fetish..hehe" "Maybe if we join him for high tea..."

"I don't understand why they've spelt 'Quartet' with a double 't' - I hate it, just like the way I hate and will never date men that spell 'Good' G-U-D"...

More titters. More turning heads and glaring eyes.

End of concert, and the crowd gives them a standing ovation. "I don't even know what exactly standing ovations are supposed to mean" said one friend. "It means 'Stand up and ovulate' girls, so let's stand and ovulate."

I had fun, but the fun mostly came from tearing the place and the crowd apart. It wasn't right, but it sure made me laugh. We spared the quartet at least. I find it difficult to understand such a world of pretense and ostentation. And I'm very glad that this is not my world.

I can listen to classical music and even love it in the privacy of my room or my headphones. When one doesn't have to wear fancy clothes and it doesn't have to be associated with high tea. And where you don't have to watch out for high-tea drones - old men with weak necks. No strength to carry their heads upright, I assume, because their faces will continuously be turned down in a bust-level angle, gaze firmly fixed frozen on your chests... **sigh** Poor chaps.

All I know for sure's that high society and I don't mix. Maybe if they take the high tea out, I'd be willing to compromise... :P

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