Chinese New Year preparations

Since last Friday I’ve been waking at 5.30am to go marketing for Chinese New Year. It’s something I’ve done for years; it's become a ritual, almost a discipline. I thought I was being particularly kiasu this time, but when I reached the Kampong Baru market at 6.30am, the place was already in full swing. Clearly I wasn't the only one who believed that the early bird would get the freshest ikan and kay.

The vegetable section is always the most frenetic. Shoppers hover, point, select, reject. Poultry and seafood are not far behind, with fish still glistening on crushed ice and chickens being weighed and chopped with alarming efficiency. The fruit stalls do brisk business too, oranges and pomelos stacked in careful pyramids. Even the dried goods section is packed. Mushrooms, scallops, lily bulbs, waxed sausages, all essential for the festive kitchen.

It is chaotic in a way that only wet markets can be. Shoulders brush. Plastic bags swing. Everyone stretches forward to have their purchases totalled. The vendors perform mental arithmetic at astonishing speed. A few notes exchanged, sometimes an e-wallet beep, and the transaction is done. By 8am, the serious marketing is over until the next morning when we all return to repeat the exercise. From there it is a short cross to the adjacent food court for a quick, warm breakfast before driving home. This Chinese New Year marketing routine is tiring, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Back home, spring-cleaning has taken up the better part of the past few weeks. We tackled the house bit by bit, day by day. I would say we are 99 percent done, though there is always that mysterious remaining one percent that reveals itself at the last minute. Every room has been attended to. Walls wiped, ceiling and wall fans cleaned, cupboards emptied, tables and chairs dusted. Pots, pans and plates removed, washed, dried and returned orderly to their shelves. Curtains and sofa covers changed. Even the car porch has been cleared of fallen leaves and broken twigs, the floor scrubbed hard to rid it of moss and grime. The whole works.

Yesterday was set aside for the ancestral prayers. The evening before, I laid out the table. Yesterday morning came the formal invitation to my departed grandparents, my parents and my aunt to partake of the offerings of fruits, mee koo, huat kueh and assorted Chinese New Year cookies. One must not forget the unseen pair of door guardians; they too have to be informed to let the spirits into the house, otherwise the divination coins can be stubborn. Thankfully, there was no difficulty this year. I tossed the two coins and they landed one head and one tail at the first attempt, a clear sign that the invitation had been accepted.

After that came the other duties: putting up the New Year door sashes, wiping down the altar, tidying the joss urns. And then my own small ritual of bathing the image of Kuan Imm with perfumed water, done slowly and with some care.

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. There will still be last-minute chores like washing the cars, mopping the floors, resetting the timer switches, checking that everything is in order. Such work is never truly finished. The kitchen will be busy with preparations for the reunion dinner, the Ooi Lor. My daughter is already home from Kuala Lumpur, and my son will return tomorrow. We plan to eat at about 7pm, unhurried.

After dinner, there will be the decorating of fruits with red paper strips, the folding of auspicious paper offerings to be burned at midnight. All must be completed by about 11.30pm. If my son has managed to secure a string of firecrackers, we might light them too. By the time the Year of the Horse is ushered in and the last embers fade, it will probably be close to 2am before we finally turn in.

And then, just like that, another year begins.