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2月23日 Chinese New Year Celebration -- A PoemThe breeze is carrying a message, A message that you and I have been waiting for to hear again, A message that will unite you and I, A message of happiness and joy. The streets in the town are slowly changing, Slowly changing into new faces, New faces that are so red, So red that they look cheerfully happy and blessed. The plane is flying across continents, The train is speeding through countries, The bus is crossing over cities, And they meet at one agreed destination. The house is not quiet anymore, There are whispering and talking everywhere, There are giggling and laughing everywhere, The house is not empty anymore. The cheers echo through the air, And the breeze is carrying a message, A message saying you and I have reunited, A message of happiness and joy. No matter how far or unknown...Chinese New Year brings to mind lots of food, relatives, ang pows, merry-making, and gambling sessions. Oh and of course, lots of sweating and eating like a pig (It is the year of the pig, after all. Excuse the lame joke :P). A part of me has always dreaded the thought of Chinese New Year. Sure, ang pows were great, but the thought of going through the yearly act of paying respect to my elders and endless scrutiny from uncles and aunties would make me cringe inwardly. I’m sure all of us know an aunt or uncle who has the knack for comparing something with their children in the most insensitive way possible. “Where you working now? My xx son/daughter is now working in xx, earning RMxx a month. They just bought a new xx car and condo. How about you? Last year how many months bonus?”. *speechless*. These aunts and uncles will then proceed to fire a volley of other questions at you, mostly having to do with either height or weight: “Wahhh, so tall already ah?” “Wahhh, big boy already ah. Handsome already wor”, keke, its really what they said k! *blush* And if I am not mistaken, guys stop growing in height at the age of 21. So like as if I've grown taller compared to last year lah.. geez.. This year, however, the annual round of one-sided interrogation has evolved to make room for one new question that has been particularly aimed at yours truly: “SO YOU GOT GIRLFRIEND OR NOT?? Big boy already, sure got one la!” (To which I would smile and reply, “Uh huh..”) Hmmm. I seem to have come of age in my relatives’ eyes, which is a good sign. Perhaps its a default question that comes when they know that you are already working. Duh, don't they know that we can start to pak tor while still studying too? :P Prosperous! I am becoming prosperous, in more than one sense of the word. After a three-day-long visitation marathon both in KL and Malacca, and many “Hello aunty/uncle, Happy Chinese New Year, I have amassed a decent amount of financial prosperity. Furthermore, I have been living on a steady stream of mandarin oranges, leung yuk, tapioca chips, pineapple tarts, and cookies for the past three days. After all, it’s only polite to eat whatever is offered to you. (And my body loves me for the prosperity I am putting into it, since I don't seem to put on much weight no matter how much I eat). But perhaps one of the things I have especially become prosperous in this year is in my understanding and appreciation of family ties. This year especially my family and I visited more relatives than usual. And although it was draggy and boring at times, something was different this year. Perhaps I’m growing up (tee hee) but I’ve developed an appreciation for the strangers I call my extended family. (With sixteen siblings on my mom’s side and five on my dad’s, when I say strangers I mean strangers. I’ve lost count of how many cousins I have, how many are married, how many are overseas and so on. I’ve even lost count of how many nephews and nieces I have, because of both sides of the family cousins keep getting married and popping kids!) I got the opportunity to see one of my newest nephews and he’s simply so adorable! I also got the opportunity to see two cousins (currently studying in Singapore but back for the new year) I haven’t seen in ages and one I don’t think I’ve ever seen in my life. She was, I discovered, my mom’s bridesmaid and stays in London with her British-born-Chinese husband. I don’t know exactly what she’s doing but it’s something in the field of medicine (my mom would always tell us that she cuts up bodies for a living). I never knew I had such a cool cousin! Then there are my uncle and aunties. Although some of the things they talked about leaned towards boring, much of it was actually interesting. So this is what heritage is all about The more relatives we visited, the more I started to feel, strangely, something I’d never felt before - pride in my heritage. I DO have an interesting family. How could I not have seen that before? How many people have so many married cousins that they can’t count their nephews and nieces on two hands? How many people have a cousin who claims he’s as manly as Mel Gibson (that’s his latest - last year he claimed he was too good for Malaysian Idol that’s why they didn’t accept him but offered him a contract elsewhere)? How many people have an uncle who’s been knighted by Queen Elizabeth, How many people have cousins living all over the world, from England to South Africa to who knows where? Listening to my parents catching up and reminiscing about the “good old days”, laughing at golden memories, and agreeing with my aunts and uncles on “how fast time flies” has only made me more fond of this thing called family. From the cousin who “cuts people up for a living” to the cousin studying in Cambridge to the young, married cousin whose husband looks like a VCD/DVD seller, to the one who claims he’s like Mel Gibson to even the fierce, scary aunties and uncles and the bimbo, anorexic-like cousins, I’ve come to realize that all these different individuals represent where I come from. From the small town aunts and uncles to the relatives living in England to the ones in Australia, from the taxi driver to the doctor to the businessman to the chef, they all represent family, no matter how far they may be or how little I may know them. They represent my heritage. And it is in coming to terms with my heritage that I can learn to appreciate who I am and where I come from. |
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