The year of the Tiger

According to the Chinese’s Lunar calendar, 2010 is the year of the Tiger. It’s a festival that celebrate throughout the world, or where ever Chinese present. It’s now become quite a common festive in Australia with the increase of people from Chinese origin. I could notice Chinese New Year greeting everywhere at the Airport and many places of interest since end of January.

I transit in KL for some shopping before heading home to Kuching, many shopping malls and even the streets are decorated with red lanterns, paper cuttings and ornaments that symbolises all the best wishes for the coming years. But in general, you almost can only see one color (from my pictures attached here), which are all in the different shade of red, the signature colour for Chinese New Year. 

As for my home, It’d been a must for me to put up a pair of calligraphy works, with poetic pairs of sentence of good words. It’d been a practice for dated back to the the Zhou’s Dynasty in China. We’d also bought a new pair of lanterns for the front entrance.

Chinese had given filial piety the greatest importance towards their daily life, family reunion on festive season is a must. Prayer and food are offered to ancestors on the eve, as well as the first day of New Year. It’s also a practice to be vegetarian on that day, it’s believe to enable blessing from the sprits of decease ancestors.

The eve peaks the festive mood every year, as it’s the time when everyone eagerly awaits for the arrival of the new year. Though it’s forbids by law, but fire-crackers and fireworks are still commonly seen around Kuching. It peaks near mid-night on new years eve, it’s like a war of lights and noises, that leave a great mess of red paper flacks everywhere. Though, it’s Fun!

Similar to Christmas, festive is always celebrate with lots of good food. There’s three parts of the Chinese New Year Foodie: First is the reunion feast with the family, when all the good food are served. A whole fish is always present on the table, which symbolises abundant of wealth, as the name “Yu”(Fish) rhymes with “余”which means “wealth remains from the past year”. Leek are served on the table, because of it’s name “Shuan” in mandarin, means lots of wealth in counting.

Catching up with the extended family, friends and the love one is a must. Open houses is a common practice in Malaysian Chinese Family. Speciality sweets, cookies and cakes are served to the visiting guests, neighbour and friends. I’d help mum and sis to make this soft cookies, called “Kueh Momo”, that melts its in your mouth without needs bite on it. A lot of sugary picked plums or berry are served, as it symbolises the sweetness in the year to come. As influence by the locals, Malaysian Chinese served “Keropok Udang” (Prawn Crakers) together with “Acar” (Picked and Sweeten Vege) to the guests. The famous waffle crisps called “Love Letter” or “Kueh Sepit” are often handmade by the grandma to be served to guests.

Another must mention signature dish would be “Yu Shang” (Raw Fish Salad). Chinese have it on the 7th day of the New Year, to celebrate the “Human Day” (According to Chinese belief, man-kind was made on the 7th day). The dish had 7 ingredients that made of serrated vegies, slices raw fish, crack peanuts and etc. It’s then stir up high by everyone with their chop sticks on around table, cheering “Lou Hei! Lou Hei! (means you’d get better fortune in wealth for the coming year). It’s sweet and sour in taste as the salad sauce was made out of soy and plum sauce, a very refreshing dish. I had it twice this year…yap, I’ll have abundant wealth toe gather for this year now.

Chinese New Year, or rather call the Spring Festival are a time for readjusting your steps in life, and welcome the new forces of nature resumed. It’s also a time for family and friends to reunite and reconnects, before the reality of day-to-day life kicks in again to get everyone busy about their own life.Lastly, if you’re from Asian Ethnic that you do celebrate  Lunar New Year, I wish you “Gong Xi Fa Cai 恭喜發財” (Prosper in wealth) and “Wan Shi Ru Yi 萬事如意”(All things comes in your will). May the year of tiger bring you lots of luck and happiness.