Chinese New Year

By the time you read this, you would have finished eating your reunion dinner with your loved ones, finished visiting your relatives, resting now and waiting for day two of the Chinese New Year to come.

Here, it is just another day. DH has gone to work and the kids have gone to school. Nothing, literally nothing is happening, just another Monday after the weekends. Ann's teacher has requested some information on Chinese New Year so she could share with all the preschoolers. Ann has brought some red packets stuffed with gold coin chocolates to school to share with her little friends.

We have spent the weekends calling home, sending Chinese New Year greetings to all families and friends. Listening to the Mediacorp artiste singing Chinese New Year songs (over and over again). Yes they are CDs brought from home, at least we console ourselves, we could a least soak in some Chinese New Year mood. Time is also spent thinking about home, who will be visiting now, what delicious food mum will be cooking, her braised pigs' trotters, her longan water...to all of you who is always thinking of running away from Chinese New Year, let me tell you honestly that it is not a nice feeling...homesickness set in deep and hard when you don't have your family with you...trust me, that few Chinese families that are here, wish they could just get home.

I love Chinese New Year. When I was a child, I looked forward to every Chinese New Year. Nevermind if I have to travel one hour on a non-aircon bus to the Changi village, that was where my grands lived. Nevermind the discomfort, the heat, the sweat, just bring me there! My family and I would visit my grands on the eve of Chinese New Year and stayed there for a night. My mother would buy my sister and I new pyjamas.

All, about 15 to 20 of us (cousins, uncles and aunties) would sit around a huge round table eating my grandmother's old chicken rice. Self-bred, self-slaughtered, homecooked chicken. It was so full of fun. While we were feasting on the chicken on the table, the mosquitoes would be feasting on all our legs under the table. Remember, it was a village! After dinner, all of us would gather in front of a tiny 14" black & white TV, wating for the then Radio and Television Singapore to broadcast the Chinese New Year variety show. We would watched till past midnight. At midnight, my uncles would let off real firecrackers. (I mean real, not the battery operated ones) They would string the firecrackers together to form a really long one and hung it on a tree top. After the last cracker has exploded, my grandmother's front porch would become a red carpet. My grandmother would then start distributing red packets to all the grandkids. As I type, all these just bring me smiles...happiness is what you remember.

I am not an old-fashioned traditional lady but as I became a wife and now a mother of two, I still love Chinese New Year. I love cleaning up the house, decorating the house, buying new clothes and pyjamas for DH and the kids and of course all those marvelous goodies. I love going to the market on the eve of the eve of Chinese New Year to buy things which I may not need! The stalls would remain opened till the wee hours of the morning. On the eve of Chinese New Year, after eating our reunion dinner with our families, all four of us would wear our new pyjamas and just simply having fun at home. I still love watching the now, Mediacorp Chinese New Year variety show and waiting for the only newspapers to be delivered to my house. You see, Chinese New Year is a big thing here, most offices would be closed for two days.

I know many of you detest listening and answering those irritating questions...before you got married, it was 'so when are you getting married?' Then you got married...it would be 'when are you having babies?' Then you have a kid....it would be 'when is the second one coming?'...Argh.....neverending irritating questions from second uncle, busybody third auntie, forth great auntie....let's put it this way, you only see them once a year, listen to them once a year, answer them once a year....do you really need to get all upset over something which you never have to do it everyday? Take it as a break from the monotony of life. Don't all these add colours to our life?

Or you find taking two oranges, travelling round the whole island, making pit-stops every now and then, just to stare into the one-eye monster, watching repeated Jackie Chan movies, eating your number 100th pineapple tart, munching countless love letters and of course, adding to your ever increasing calories... My friend, I wish I could just sink my teeth into one tiny open-face pineapple tart, licking the burnt bak-kwa flavour off my fingers...all these would be heavenly...

I love Chinese New Year not just for the glorious food but also the time where I could catch up with all my once-a-year-then-see relations. Isn't it sad that within the same family, we don't even know each other. Here in the US, Christmas is equivalent to our Chinese New Year back home. It is a big occasion where family members travel for hours and even days just to be home with their families. We often want to follow the trend and the many practices of the west, why not this aspect of theirs where a festival means being home with your loved ones.

So, my friend, run not away from Chinese New Year but soak in the festivities, embrace the love of home and families and savour every minute, every second of it...while you are still in it, ENJOY!

Here's wishing you a very ox-spicious and ox-traordinary year where the Lord's abundant favour continues to rain in your lives...