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Student Eye Prom Night Dreaming
W
hat do you remember of your high school prom? The excitement? Or the anxiety? You may remember entire weeks, months even, leading towards prom night, when even boys fussed over what suits they were going to wear, which pants with which blazers. It’s a time when minds float and eyes wander, as optimistic teens dream about all the perfect ways prom could turn out. But what were all these dreams really? Were they merely excitement for a nice prom, or did they represent something real to you as a teenager? Prom is sometimes seen as just an excuse to hang out with friends in a more formal and fancy style. For many of the shyer teens, it’s also an excuse to finally gather enough guts to ask their crush out to prom. It’s not every day that you get to dance all night next to your dream girl! — though in my school, many of the guys end up coming to prom partnerless,
146 | Word May 2014 | wordvietnam.com
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coming in large packs to make it seem intentional.
Before Life Gets Messy But it’s the time prior to prom that students enjoy and remember most clearly. They’ll go out with their friends to pick out their outfit, gossip over the lunch table about who’s going with whom, spend hours at home trying to fix their hair to perfection. Alongside this excitement, teens often craft these tremendous fantasies and expectations of a very romantic, thrilling and unforgettable night. These fantasies, I think, are the basic foundation of proms — teen’s fantasies of adulthood. Although many of my friends would disagree, the whole practice of wearing suits and dresses and participating in a formal event in a very formal place resembles our images of adulthood. The idea of prom in its basic form is a reenactment of these fantasies
— a teen’s dream of a future world filled with good looking, nicely-dressed people, with good food, music, dancing and some romance, too. When the actual night comes, what we pictured never quite happens. And, as teens enter true adulthood, they will most certainly not party every night or spend each day picking out new dresses. But that doesn’t matter. While proms are based on this whole concept of teenagers becoming adults, they are more a part of teenage life, a beautiful and unique tradition that exists only for people of this age. And although it may be unreal, it’s not necessarily something that should be condemned or criticised. Like tooth fairies and Santa Claus, proms and their fantasy of adulthood is another innocent and youthful belief that lets teens dream and be excited to grow up, and is better left unspoiled. — Tae Jun Park