Boxing Day

The first time I heard was boxing day was in Canada. The question up in my mind is what is boxing day? Muhammed Ali came to my mind. I thought it is day where boxing match was held or boxing was celebrated as sports in Canada. How wrong was I!

Boxing day sales are held and the malls will be full of people. It is Toronto Star (http://www.thestar.com/) that explains Boxing Day to me. It is the day when all the presents are boxed. Any presents you do not like, you can bring back to the store for exchange. Yes, in Canada, stores will take back your presents and give you back the value in vouchers so that you can buy something else from the store if you do not have the original receipt. It is a good system. The money-back guarantee is widely offerred in most retail stores. If you have the original receipt and the item is in saleable condition, the store usually refund you the money. Some stores even have "No-questions" policy. They will just take back. Others ask why are you returning and record your response for statistic purpose.

I also think about their culture of consume, consume, consume. The buying of presents is a wasteful habits. A lot of people going in debt i.e. using credit card to pay for presents which the recipents may not need or like. At least for most Singaporeans, we usually spend within our means. There is no 13th month bonus and income tax is more than 40% taken at source. You get your pay less what taxes due. Net pay is about half of your gross pay. Beside income tax there is social security and you have to pay health insurance. Then you will need to pay 15% consumption tax in whatever you buy. For services like haircut, the tax is 7%. The after tax income is so low that many are always living from hand to mouth or in debt.

So with such low disposable income, the tradition of giving presents to does not make sense for a immigrant like me. Giving Ang Pow will be a lot better. Anyway, I have grown to love Christmas. It is the time for giving and forgiving. It is also family time and visiting friends. Best part is we get to spend a week at our warm home in the bitter cold winter.