Celebrating Chinese New Year

Hello there !

Just want to share with you my experience when my husband's family celebrated Chinese new year .

My mother in law .
She's a Melanau lady and a Christian .

Though father in law had passed away twenty years ago , mum ensured that Chinese new year is to be celebrated . Being a christian and a non chinese , she did not observe any of the traditional religious ceremony like honoring the god's of the household and the family ancestors , offerings of various kinds of food........so there is no altar in the house .

Mum in law married a Chinese man .
These are some of her children .

All she wants is her family to be together . A family affair and a time for reunion ...... regardless of whatever their religions and whatever her daughter in law and son in law's races are .

To get to my husband's hometown , we need to cross the river .
Years ago we used this ferry .

Now there is a bridge across the river .

She do observed some "do's " and " don'ts " associated when ushering in the new year . Like no sweeping , no lending of money , all debts to be settled before new year . The house is cleaned thoroughly before the New Year to sweep away the bad luck . She would remind me not to sweep or clean on new year day ....so that I don't sweep away the good fortune . Of course I respected her orders .....be respectful is important when you are married to another race and culture .

This is the house that my father in law built .

Its a good time for business too. People will dig deep in their pockets to spend and buy new cloths , food and decoration material s . Plus the fireworks and firecrackers ......and they are not cheap .

Her grandchildren - a mixed family of Muslims and Christians .

Everybody tried to make it home for the reunion dinner . So new year eve's dinner is usually large . Plenty of cooking to be done and plenty of washing up after that . Plenty of children in her house which on ordinary days is usually empty . A reunion indeed for her family ; of peace and happiness .

Cousins .......A mixture of chinese , melanau and malay

As for my children , they are rich in their understanding of the chinese culture and learned to be tolerant towards their cousins and relatives of another religion and race . Language spoken will be an assortment of local malay , melanau dialect , hokkien and english . Very , very rojak . Rojak people , rojak food and rojak language .

Getting ready .....

After dinner everybody tried to be awake till midnight . Normally we watched the TV programs or chatted ...keeping up with the current news on everybody's progress . Nobody played the mahjong game or took out the cards to gamble ............which is good ..............

The firecrackers .

New year is not complete without the setting off the firecrackers ; supposed to chase away the evil spirits . The doors and windows are to be opened to let in the good fortune .In our case ..some windows only ...........as to do so meant we would be inviting in the mosquitoes as well .

Fire crackers lighted up at the stroke of midnight .

At midnight , the whole sky is lit up by fireworks and firecrackers . The whole area seemed like a war zone . And you know what ? In a small town like that there is nothing the police could do to stop people from lighting them up . There were too few of them .

Too loud for comfort .....

I felt we were practically thumbing up our noses at them. If the police are to really enforce the rulings , the small police cell would be packed . And they can't arrest only one person from each household .....they have to arrest all .....as everybody is guilty ...and that includes households that have great grand parents , grandparents , father , mother ....grandchildren , great grandchildren ...aunties ...uncles .....

New Year's morning ...everyone had on new clothes ...red color.

Very early in the morning of the chinese new year , the children would be most excited . They greet their grandmother and received their ang pows .....money put in red small envelopes .

Getting the money makes the children happy . Everybody is on their best behavior . My children would be very rich on Chinese new year day ...as they received money from us , their aunties and uncles .

As usual the family photo . Multi racial and multi faith .
We co- exist together .

In the distance I could hear the lion dance . There would be a stream of visitors to the house . Mostly , my mother in law's relatives and their families ; who are either melanau - christians or melanau - muslims . There is indeed an air of warmth in the air ...of rekindling family ties and friendships . A time too for my children to meet and get to know their relatives .Indeed the new year celebration has been simplified ...very Malaysian ..........

Schools would be closed for a week and most shops too . I have not seen one that is closed for two weeks because nobody or businesses could take time off for that long .After a few days ........it is time to be back home .


Till then , good luck to you ..........stay safe .....and take care on the roads .