Chinese New Year musings

And so, Chinese New Year day; the first day of the Year of the Water Rabbit, has landed on us. It is time, finally, for me to take a little personal breather and attempt to wake up a little later than usual. A small luxury considering that the past one month, and especially the last week, has been pretty hectic as we tried to catch up with our spring cleaning. Admittedly, we didn't manage to get everything that we wanted done and there are still parts of the house which have not had a brush or mop touching it in the last month. But this has been unavoidable as we had to contend with the rush to repaint the kitchen and repair our damaged kitchen cabinet tiles and plaster ceiling. In addition to that, the painters were rather unprofessional and not as meticulous as we liked. As a result the main contractor had to step in to rectify the sloppiness himself. Every time the contractor and his men came in, I had to spend time mopping the floor after them. This has been very tiring work for me but it had to be done.

For the four or five days prior to Chinese New Year, we had been waking up very early in order to go marketing. By about 6.45am or seven o'clock, we would already be at the market. If you think that at this time in the morning the market would not be busy, then you should think again. The place was bustling with activity. People were already doing their marketing rounds for Chinese New Year foodstuff. All the vegetable sellers and the dried foodstuff stalls were doing roaring business. People were jostling with one another to pick out their choices. The fishmongers, chicken and pork sellers were equally busy. At this time, don't ever think of buying any pig stomach for the too tor soup. All would have been snapped up already. 

I remember a very long time ago, my mother and my aunt would say that all these rush-rush activities at the wet market would last only until two days before Chinese New Year. On Chinese New Year Eve itself, the place would suddenly become quiet and less busy as shoppers would have already finished with all their purchases and the traders would be hurriedly clearing up their stalls in anticipation of going back early to prepare for Chinese New Year themselves. But no more. When I arrived at the market yesterday morning at 6.30am, the place was just as busy as the days before. Apparently, this tradition of a quiet market on Chinese New Year Eve no longer applies. People still thronged the market to do their last-minute purchases, perhaps hoping for the freshest foodstuff.  

Yesterday, I busied myself with cleaning both cars and after lunch, went about to give the marble statue of Kuan Yin her traditional end-of-year bath with perfumed water. Also tidied up the joss-stick urns which tended to overflow rather quickly with the joss-stick ashes. While my wife busied herself in the kitchen to prepare the food for the reunion dinner, I spent the afternoon preparing the worship joss paper for burning later at night. I've already given up the practice of folding paper gold ingots - it's just too time consuming - and opted for a simple design. Meanwhile, my daughter went to collect a tray of yee sang from a supplier. It was going to be the first time we would have yee sang at home. We don't believe tossing the yee sang would make any difference to anything but it would be all in good fun. After all, it's quality family time.

Apart from this tray of yee sang, our reunion dinner also included a roast chicken, scallops, the traditional too tor soup, lobak and roast pork. No bringing out the jiu hoo char this time as we felt that we already had ample food on the table, although this Chinese New Year dish had been cooked days before. Neither did we cook the prawns but I guess my daughter and son did not miss this dish much. 

Dinner over, I again gave the house a quick mop before readying myself with preparing the fruits for worship. I settled down for the tedious task of glueing strips of red paper around all the fruits. But my wife reminded me that we did not have to do so this year as custom dictated that during the first year of my father-in-law's demise, we need not celebrate Chinese New Year in the usual manner. Thus, no strips of red paper gummed around the fruits. In fact, she told me that we shouldn't even hang the traditional red cloth banner over the front door too. Well, it's fine with me although I have my own opinion about this. Not having to deal with the fruits meant that my task was considerably lightened. Nevertheless, I really didn't know where my time went because soon enough, it was time to prepare the altars for worship. Deadline as 11pm as we Chinese believe that a new day begins daily at this time. So soon afterwards, we commenced with our worship. And suddenly all around us, households were letting off their fireworks and fire crackers to welcome the Year of the Rabbit. Happy Chinese New Year!