CNY

Funny how in Singapore we tend to abbrv. everything, even our New Year. Dad was remarking on the strangeness of us calling it "Chinese New Year", when we are Chinese, anyway. and nowadays we just call it CNY.

Well it was rather fun jostling with the crowds - fun for a while, after the heat seeps in, you just want to run back to the air conditioned comfort of your vehicle. We jostled with bored Chinese Singaporeans and many American tourists at Chinatown yesterday, and jostled with many Banglas and Indians at Mustafa today. (Note: It is non-degratory to call them 'Banglas', we saw a Bangla Supermart... so that's what the store signboard says anyways. Check it out.) I ate 15 sotong balls on reunion dinner day (that's CNY eve) plus spent today playing card games wit my equally bored cousins. We played the all popular 'dai dee', fast-paced 'snap', and the elitist 'bridge'. Even tried Indian poker, but I forgot the rules.

And there's just so many things to do in the long holiday. Catch up on my reading - bought tons of books plus the ones still unread, watch all the pirated dvds I get my hands on, suntan, avoid the crowds... I appreciate this holiday even as the traditions here are fast dying off on the hands of a younger generation who listens, but do not want to hear. Unshockingly I cannot dechiper more than 50% of the CNY-sms greetings that are sent to me, neither can my siblings, all English-speaking slanging disinterested in Chinese people. I do appreciate the well-wishes greatly, though.

And even if we can read them, we barely grasp the meaning of the poetic four-worded phrases with skilled combinations of sound and meaning rolled into a worthy phrase. I thought that I would like to learn Hainanese, to speak with my father's relatives, nice people we haven't seen in ages because we are on the other side of the Causeway. One of my father's brother, 4th Uncle, who is a SBStransit bus driver (or, they call it bus captains now) gave us $50 each, which I imagine is not a paltry sum for him. He is going to retire next year, having already a sizeable house in Msia like one of our bungalows here, and his children are grown, independent.

I'm glad for my family this year, even though it seems that I am distant, and even seem uncomfortable with all the closeness, all the seemingly superficial talk about how nice so-and-so's new shoes/shirt/watch is, photos of so-and-so's lover, askings about who's studying in which school now or working where... Despite the language barrier, and the scheming ways some nosy aunties try to question about other's successes, what makes a Chinese family really special is the way we gather, year after year, on this special festival.