Preparations for Chinese New Year

When we were kids, my friends, siblings & I, looked forward to Chinese New Year to come around.

Chinese New Year equals a seemingly endless availability of sweets, aerated water, feasts of good food, new sets of clothes/shoes and "ang pow".

As soon as the celebration of "Tong" (solstice festival), which falls on the 22rd of December, was over, Mother & Choy Cheh (Mother's female slave**) would embark on a long (well over a month) hectic string of activities:-spring-cleaning, re-painting of the house, getting the handy-man to do repairs, preparation of goodies , sewing of new curtains & new clothes.

The altars were cleaned, re-painted and redecorated with "hong" (a long strand of red cotton) & "kam fah" (2 golden, leaf - shaped objects inserted into the "hong" on either side of the altars)

On New Year Eve, both of them woke up earlier than usual. Their flurry of activities included a trip to the market, then the preparation of a big feast to be offered first to the dieties, then to the ancestors tablets, before the family sat down for the lunch.

After lunch was the washing/cleaning & cutting of the ingredients of a vegetarian meal. the meal was to be cooked before midnight. Then came dinner. Afte dinner was the final cleaning & sweeping of the whole house; followed by the hiding of the brooms.

Sweeping during Chinese New Year period was a no, no. It is believed that sweeping the floor or even the sight of a broom would caused the family's good fortune to be swept out of the doors. So, no sweeping for 15 days! (Chinese New Year period stretched over 15 days then, but in line with the current 2 days of official holidays for Chinese New Year, this practice is observed only for 2 days now.)

After dinner, the vegetarian food was cooked. At the auspicious time, in accordance to the Almanac, the food was part of the spread to welcome the Kitchen God back into the family. Apparently, he has left our home for his yearly trip to heaven. The journey was made to see the Heavenly Jade King to submit an annual report on the doings of the family members. Prior to sending him off, Mother had rubbed his mouth with honey, to ensure that he said sweet words about all of us!!

In the small hours of the morning, another auspicious moment occured. That was when the Fortune God travelled along a predestinated direction. Mother would put lay out the offering of vegetarian food, lighted joss sticks, red candles and burned joss paper to pray to him to bless the family with good fortune for the year.

Simultaneously, Choy Cheh helped with offering to the dieties and the ancestors at the altars.

Then they both cleared up before putting "ang pows" under our pillows and exchanged good wishes.

They would catch a couple of hours sleep before waking up welcome the New Year and yet another busy day.