CNY Fowl Play

Ah, Chinese New Year. You can smell it (and the incense) around you.
It's that time of the year... when the Chinese people do strange things. When we :

- Flock to Chinatown, to squeeze through throngs of sweaty visitors, submit ourselves to being jostled and jabbed by anonymous elbows, and haggle loudly with street vendors. Just to 'soak in the festive spirit'
- Queue for hours just to buy a packet of grilled meat
- Flood the streets with loud drumbeats and dancing dragons or lions
- Blast songs containing variations of 'gong xi!' and 'dong chiang!' (ARGH! Enough already...)
- Hang bright and gaudy decorations all over buildings, and pictures of the animal symbol for the year (this year's being the chicken)
- Deck ourselves in bright colourful clothes, and storm one anothers' homes with cries of 'Gong Xi Fa Cai!' (Good fortune to you)
- Smile at relatives or family friends whom we rarely met, in the hope of getting a red money packet
- Cringe and smile politely when they ask when we'll get attached/ married/ pregnant
- Pay through our nose to share a meal at a Chinese restaurant, where prices are doubled or tripled during this season
- Stock up on tins of traditional cookies and snacks... only to stuff them into the bags (and mouths) of visiting relatives and friends when we realise we've bought too much...
- Feast on lots of 'heaty' foods, so end up with sore throats and runny noses,
- Prepare a large family reunion dinner (like my family), and end up with a week's supply of leftovers. Whoever said that you can never have enough of a good thing? *groan*
- Repeat the whole drama the following year.

But I wouldn't have it any other way :)
It's all done in the name of tradition, and forms an integral part of our cultural identity.

I'll get to help my mum prepare the reunion feast, catch up with extended family and friends, chat and laugh with my cousins (and listen to their NS tales), visit my grandmother, politely decline when my godmother swamps us with cookies and cakes, compare red packets with Jer, feast on the festive goodies, stay up late watching silly comedies, sleep in, and spend quality time with my immediate family. Luckily, I'm not married and haven't started working yet, so I'm spared from having to distribute red packets to others :)

And in spite of the bird-flu in Vietnam and Cambodia, poultry here is supposedly free from the virus. Which means, we'll be welcoming the year of the Chicken with a meal of roast chicken (and I can't help but remember Rob and his chicken-flu vaccines :) However, there are some traditions I wouldn't adhere to too strictly.
I'm now sitting at my computer, while slowly demolishing our stock of 'Kuei Bankit' cookies (even before the relatives arrive).
I'll be reading LOTR tomorrow while waiting for the extended family to arrive (which supposedly symbolises having to read a lot for the rest of the year).
I won't be wearing any bright chilli-red clothes tomorrow, I'll be wearing something white (which according to physics, also contains red light :)
And I'll be celebrating my birthday as well, so I'll have no choice but to use a knife to cut the cake :)

But that doesn't bother me too much at the moment. Right now, I'm just looking forward to tonight's family meal.

Happy Chinese New Year Everyone !