Gong Hei Fatt Choy!

In all 10 years of my official schooling life,
the popular question on chu san (day 3) of the lunar new year,
as if it was a protocol,
was: "so how was your cny break?"

cny breaks have meant one thing to me for as long as I can remember: visiting.
Now now, one mustn't be fooled by the seemingly simply concept of "visiting."
Visiting in the normal context, is ofcourse, a fairly simple affair.
Visiting in cny is a different story altogther.

You'll know what I mean if you had 10 maternal uncles and aunties, 1 maternal grandmother, paternal grandparents, 1 paternal grandfather's elder brother (and his family), 2 paternal grandmother's elder sisters (and their family), 3 paternal uncle and aunties all to visit in the 30 hours-or-so, waking moments in day 1 & 2 of chinese new year.
Throw in a couple of family's friends that too require visiting, and that's a fine visiting list you have.

What little I gather from the occasional chatter about cny routines tells me that in modern times, the typical Sinagporean Chinese family simply gathers at a reputable restaurant for a hearty, pompous and rowdy session of loh hei (throwing food as high in the air as you can) and that was that.

Ours is a close-knitted family, proud of and steep in the traditional chinese culture.
All around, there's an unspoken, yet mutually understood and upheld covenant that despite the inconveniences, each family endeavours to, as much as possible, visit every other family in the household.
And it's a beautiful thing.
Sure sometimes the sun gets unbearably hot and more often than not, the journey is long and slow because of traffic jams along the way
but I enjoy it.
We enjoy it.

It's not just the ang paos, or the free-flow ba kua, f&n orange and countless other new year goodies that greet us wherever we go.
For us cousins especially, it's fun to hop around each family's car, joining so and so cousin in their family car on the way to great uncle's house, and then another few cousins in another family's car on the way to second uncle's.
Wherever we go, uncles play mahjong and sing karaoke, aunties watch tv, karaoke and talk about the latest cinammon flavoured kueh lapis recipe; while the "children" play cards, board games, go for a swim, form football teams and have soccer "tournaments," or simply pig out on the lip-smacking home-made delicacies that adorn every table.
The party usually drags on past midnight, or even past one; where everyone bids everyone else goodnight, a very happy new year once again, before finally giving themselves up to dreamland on the way home.

When I was younger, I used to think it was the ang bao that made me look forward to each cny break.
Maybe it was the good food.
Or perhaps the absence of school.
More and more, however, I discover the true joy that lies beneath the mystery of cny's appeal is in fact, my family.
I love the time we spend together,
the healthy hubbub that fills up every crook and cranny - the presence of love and family that warms each sheep in the flock.

And I realised,
while idling on the couch in 4th uncle's living room, and watching each family stream in with chinese oranges and red packets and big smiles, making the place steadily noisier
I realised that that was probably why we keep doing it year after year.
Because we love it.
We love the feeling of family.

This Chinese New Year,
I wish everyone good health and a happy family.
To my family especially:
health, happiness and in the times to come, more happy
visitings