An exceptional Chinese New Year

Well, this has been a pretty much exceptional Chinese New Year in the midst of a pandemic that seems to be abating world-wide but not here in Malaysia. Infections are raging in the community and until the vaccination programme kicks off in March or April, I do not see the numbers decreasing until then. My age-group puts me squarely in the second stage of the programme which should begin from May this year but my wife will not be able to get hers until much later as she will be in the third stage when the rest of the population will get their chance.

So how more exceptional is this Chinese New Year? For one, there's this silly sohai Minister who had set the rules for this year's family gatherings and reunions. Only members of the same family staying in the same household can hold their Chinese New Year Eve reunion dinners. What crap. That's no difference from a normal lunch with all your family members on a normal day. That's gross stupidity for you, courtesy of an idiot who doesn't understand the culture of the rest of the people in the country, the product of a skewed education.

Anyway, I'm thankful that my son can still be with us at the reunion dinner even though my daughter cannot. I do miss her physical presence terribly, same with my wife, and we're hoping for the day when the movement control order is relaxed enough for her to come home for a visit. She's working in the Klang Valley and had to celebrate her Chinese New Year with friends instead.

But although it is a quieter and more sombre Chinese New Year, we still needed a reunion dinner with at least the son. Therefore, the cooking and the preparations. We tried to cut down on the amount of food, seeing there were only three of us at the dinner table, but it seemed almost impossible to do that. We still had to buy the ingredients for a reasonable dinner, meaning, we had to have the too tor soup, jiu hoo char, roast chicken and stir-fried prawns. Our son brought back some roast pork from the island and we also bought some lobak from the market here. All our must-have Chinese New Year food which would see us through the first few days of the festival until the wet market opens again.

The eve was also quieter because there weren't many houses in the neighbourhood letting off their firecrackers or fireworks. Usually around midnight, we'd be hearing lots of firecrackers being let off and seeing fireworks in the sky. Not this Chinese New Year though. What a damper, indeed! Perhaps there'll be more such activities come this 19th night -- the eighth day of Chinese New Year -- when the community shall pray to the Tnee Kong or God of Heaven.

Since the movement control order has also forced us to limit our movements within a 10-kilometre radius of the house, we also do not expect many visits from the relatives and friends, if at all. On our part, we can't even visit my in-laws in Bandar Tasek Mutiara because the place is in Province Wellesley South, a different district from ours, which the movement control order prohibits us from crossing. So it was through whatsapp video connections that we have been exchanging New Year greetings. 

Don't expect angpows to be greatly reduced. They have all been prepared before hand. What have to be given will be given, if not now then later. There's no escaping that. Some relatives, I hear, have resorted to crediting the angpow money into the recipients' bank accounts online but this is not something that I contemplate doing. Angpows should be given in person to make it meaningful, even though we have to wait until we meet up eventually. Still a traditionalist in many ways.

Together with the anticipated reduction in visits, we had decided to cut down on buying the festival cookies. This year, we only bought a bottle of kueh kapit folded with meat floss to supplement our annual frying of dried buah binjeh slices. We even cut down on the preparation of buah binjeh because we anticipated not being able to distribute them to our usual friends and relatives. To our surprise though, we have been receiving more New Year cookies than ever before. Our daughter asked us to collect some cookies from her friend on the mainland and then, some other friends decided to send us more cookies and dried foodstuff through courier delivery. So now, our table is filled with cookie bottles, a few still unopened but many already part consumed by the family. 

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! May you keep safe and healthy this 2021, and hope that next year's festival will be better!