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| My brother and his wife playfully posed for a photo under the banana trees during our recent visit to Uncle Roland's house in Kota Tinggi, Johor |
For families who are going through changes, the Chinese New
Year is an opportunity to start new traditions and create new memories. Those who have suffered a recent bereavement
still have to eat and they usually opt for low-key gatherings at home. This is also an excellent time for bonding
and healing as the family comes together to carry on with established family
traditions, cook familiar recipes and reminisce on past experiences with their deceased
loved ones.
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| Family members enjoying festive goodies at Aunt Sylvia's house in Johor Baru |
As in all Chinese families, we maintain the tradition of
visiting our elders and in the absence of our late Ah Kong, the home of Uncle
Roland, our eldest uncle in Kota Tinggi is the first destination for our new
year visits. Our visit usually includes
a quick tour of his garden where he has a collection of orchids and fruit trees
and visitors from the city cannot resist taking photos of his giant mangoes and
auspicious pineapple plants or ong lai
which literally means “good fortune comes,” in Hokkien and Teochew
dialects. As my brother and his wife
admired the banana trees, thinking of how our uncle will enjoy the fruits of
his labour, they also had fun dancing Bollywood style around the trees!
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| Our aunts serving homemade dessert of Teochew or-nee or yam paste in New Year gathering in their father's house |
Two years ago, my brother and his family relocated to Kuala
Lumpur for work and studies and we often tease them that they are now orang kay-el city folks. Every time they come back to Johor Baru, they
head to their favourite street food vendors not only to satisfy their yearning
for familiar comfort food but also to tah
pau or pack as takeaways, and store in deep-freeze to take back to KL and savour
it slowly whenever the craving arose. It
is no different in this new year trip back as they even have orders to pack
more portions for our cousins who returned to KL from Australia and the UK with
similar cravings for JB street food!
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| Dad and mum [Left] with grand-uncle Leong and grand-aunt [Right] during their dating days in Johor Baru's Istana Gardens, 1953 |
When I was a child, it was always fun to receive hong pau or red packets filled with lai see or fortune money and then tally
up the total to find out how much I collected.
In those days, the only other money we received was our regular school
pocket money so the annual hong pau
money received was like a small windfall.
Our parents have post office savings accounts in each of our names and
my siblings and I were encouraged to bank-in and save our hong pau money.
As we grew older and could manage our money better, we were
given the option to spend the sum on something we deeply desired instead of
saving it. I soon learnt that it’s not
the contents of the hong pau that
matter but the Red colour of the paper packets that signify the giver’s wish to
me for good fortune and success in studies or work. Over the years, the designs on the red
packets have become so attractive and creative that I started a collection and
now, every year I look forward to see new and interesting designs more than the
contents of the hong pau.
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| Together again in Johor Baru - CNY 2012 |
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| Dad [Left] with grand-uncle Leong, together again in 2014 |
At Chinese New Year, we are overwhelmed by the colour Red as
it is the traditional Chinese colour for good fortune. Orange colour has also earned its special
place in Chinese traditions because the Chinese translation for the word orange
is kum or “gold” which equates to
wealth and good fortune. Mandarin
oranges feature very prominently in this season and as a tradition, a pair of
oranges is presented to the hosts in home visits to wish them good fortune and
before you leave their house, they will reciprocate by presenting you with a
pair of oranges to wish you the same.
The Chinese New Year celebration is an opportunity for
family reunions not only of the immediate family but also for members of the
extended family to meet again at gatherings.
Our family has a tradition to gather for dinner in a granduncle’s house
in Johor Baru on the second day of the new year and this is where we can meet
family members from Singapore and elsewhere because almost everyone will be
there. As years pass and our elderly
become less mobile and more dependent, it is up to younger family members to
make the extra effort to ferry them to events such as this.
It is important to get elderly family together and let them
reminisce and talk and laugh about issues common among them to encourage them. With deteriorating health and memory in their
twilight years, such gatherings may even be the last time they can meet and
interact with each other so I’m particularly pleased that my dad could share a
laugh with granduncle Leong from Singapore.
They share a happy history as they once enjoyed their dating days in the Istana Gardens way back when it was the most romantic place in Johor Baru and
their girlfriends then are now my mum and my grandaunt!
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| After a grueling ride to Desaru, Andrew [Left] and his friends loading their bicycles onto the car before returning to JB |
My nephew Andrew, who is based in Perth, is keen to make new
memories this new year, and brought along two of his bicycles for a riding
experience in Johor. He and a few fellow
cycling enthusiasts took advantage of the festive break to enjoy the great
outdoors of Johor Baru by bike and took a ride to Puteri Harbour as a
preliminary exercise.
The next morning at
5am, his ride that started from Taman Molek to Desaru took more than 4 hours, 3
tube changes, one wheel change plus a 12km "SOS" ride, for him to cover a
treacherous 80km ride by the highway.
With the support of a team of “marshals” who were just a phone call
away, the valiant riders kicked off the Year of the Horse in a most memorable
way with a ride to Desaru on their iron horses!
Great to see the family photos...
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