Chinese New Year or Spring Festival
The 2006 Chinese New Year will fall on 29 January (Sunday). It will be the Year of the Dog.
In modern times, it is a multi-faith festival for all the Chinese in the sense that it is celebrated by Chinese Atheists, Buddhists, Christians, Confucianists, Free Thinkers, Muslims and Taoists.
Of course, non-Chinese are also welcome to join in as the Chinese culture has always been inclusive. My brother-in-law Rajah, for example, has been spending Chinese New Year with my family for the last 20 years or so since he first married my youngest sister.
In the early 70s, the first guests to visit us on the first day of the Chinese New Year were always Encik Hashim and his family. The late Encik Hashim was a petty clerk in a local government deparment, daily customer of my father's coffeeshop (always kopi-susu kau-kau, roti bakar kaya and dua batang rokok 555) and also secret supporter for Seenivasagam brothers' opposition People's Progressive Party (PPP).
I left for Australia on Qantas Airways on the eve of the 1982 Chinese New Year simply because on that day, the airfare was cheap and affordable. I spent my Chinese New Years of 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986 in Melbourne with my Chinese Malaysian, Vietnamese and Australian friends.
Our family's Chinese New Year in 1994 was also brightened up by the presence, in the reunion dinner on the eve, of Uncle Huang and his family from China. Uncle Huang, a former chemistry graduate from the Soviet Union in the 1950s and retired chemical engineer from Guangxi, married an aunt of mine in China. They visited Malaysia that year to thank our family's care for my aunt's mother during those not-so-good years over there.
While I was still the Kampar MP, I began to tour the various parts of my constituency from the fourth day on to greet everybody xin nian jin bu (wish you progress in the new year). The happiest stop would always be Mambang Diawan New Village - the second largest new village in Malaysia - where the working class youths in my age range who came back from Kuala Lumpur, Johor Baru and Singapore would gather en masse once a year to make the ex-tin mining area colourful, lively and full of metropolitan funs.
But nobody could beat this taiko or tailo in terms of beer-drinking. I never gamble.
On the nineth day, the Orang Asli community in the Kampar-Tapah area would also invite me to join them for their new year-like festival. There are a few Chinese youths in Kampar who married Orang Asli women. But, before that, on the evening of the eighth day, I usually attended the Hokkien celeberation of the Chinese New Year in the nearby Jeram New Village where there is a Hokkien minority amid the Cantonese-Hakka majority.
Even after 1995, I would still stop at Mambang Diawan or Malim Nawar for a few hours on my journey back from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur after the fourth or fifth days.
Chinese New Year Songs
http://china.tyfo.com/int/art/festival/spring%20festival/music.htm
Legend of Chinese New Year
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC040593/newyear/legend.htm
In modern times, it is a multi-faith festival for all the Chinese in the sense that it is celebrated by Chinese Atheists, Buddhists, Christians, Confucianists, Free Thinkers, Muslims and Taoists.
Of course, non-Chinese are also welcome to join in as the Chinese culture has always been inclusive. My brother-in-law Rajah, for example, has been spending Chinese New Year with my family for the last 20 years or so since he first married my youngest sister.
In the early 70s, the first guests to visit us on the first day of the Chinese New Year were always Encik Hashim and his family. The late Encik Hashim was a petty clerk in a local government deparment, daily customer of my father's coffeeshop (always kopi-susu kau-kau, roti bakar kaya and dua batang rokok 555) and also secret supporter for Seenivasagam brothers' opposition People's Progressive Party (PPP).
I left for Australia on Qantas Airways on the eve of the 1982 Chinese New Year simply because on that day, the airfare was cheap and affordable. I spent my Chinese New Years of 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986 in Melbourne with my Chinese Malaysian, Vietnamese and Australian friends.
Our family's Chinese New Year in 1994 was also brightened up by the presence, in the reunion dinner on the eve, of Uncle Huang and his family from China. Uncle Huang, a former chemistry graduate from the Soviet Union in the 1950s and retired chemical engineer from Guangxi, married an aunt of mine in China. They visited Malaysia that year to thank our family's care for my aunt's mother during those not-so-good years over there.
While I was still the Kampar MP, I began to tour the various parts of my constituency from the fourth day on to greet everybody xin nian jin bu (wish you progress in the new year). The happiest stop would always be Mambang Diawan New Village - the second largest new village in Malaysia - where the working class youths in my age range who came back from Kuala Lumpur, Johor Baru and Singapore would gather en masse once a year to make the ex-tin mining area colourful, lively and full of metropolitan funs.
But nobody could beat this taiko or tailo in terms of beer-drinking. I never gamble.
On the nineth day, the Orang Asli community in the Kampar-Tapah area would also invite me to join them for their new year-like festival. There are a few Chinese youths in Kampar who married Orang Asli women. But, before that, on the evening of the eighth day, I usually attended the Hokkien celeberation of the Chinese New Year in the nearby Jeram New Village where there is a Hokkien minority amid the Cantonese-Hakka majority.
Even after 1995, I would still stop at Mambang Diawan or Malim Nawar for a few hours on my journey back from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur after the fourth or fifth days.
Chinese New Year Songs
http://china.tyfo.com/int/art/festival/spring%20festival/music.htm
Legend of Chinese New Year
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC040593/newyear/legend.htm
posted by James Wong Wing-On at 9:53 PM
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