A Belated Happy Chinese New Year

Gung Hei Fat Choi!

This is, uhm, two weeks late. But squeezing in time for pain-in-the-ass picture-loading with Blogger's Picasa, away from my freelancing project [currently re-engineering some marketing brochures for an engineering firm] proved to be difficult between all the festivities and eating.

It's been a looong dozen years since I last spent New Year's at home, in Hong Kong. Needless to say, I had lots of fun reliving childhood memories, and exploring new "traditions". (Plus I got to wear my Shanghai Tang, which was only worn once on the eve of the '97 Handover.)

Some favorite things I loved as a kid, and still do wholeheartedly, as an oversized kidult:

- the flowers!
The peach blossom tree at home are as big as I remember it to be, unlike all the other things which seem to shrink as you grow bigger and taller. And the white and yellow Sui Sin narcissus!! I love breathing in big wafts of its intoxicating perfume. The floors of the New Year Flower Market in Victoria Park were covered with pots of them Sui Sin [meaning "water fairy"] bulbs, and the place smelled like a perfumerie. *warm & fuzzy feelings of blessedness*

the peach blossum tree at home...


and new year flowers at my doorstep
- red pockets
Money - always handy, always good. and I got a quarter of my meagre previous monthly wage in just 1 day, doing absolutely NOTHING. How can you not love red pockets? It's probably the only incentive to stay single forever and ever. =)

- grandma's turnip rice pudding
Of all New Year eats, this is my favourite. Savory with chewy bits of cha siu [roasted pork], dried shrimp, peanuts, spring onions, mushrooms and all, my gran makes the best (ie. most loaded with chewy bits) "lor bak go". I can't say the same about her other cooking, but this stuff if total comfort food.

- the New Year's fireworks
Sure, HK now do firework displays just about every Friday during the tourist high seasons. But none can beat the New Year's version. The biggest and the best, and I can see it clearly in the comfort of my home.




New discoveries as an ABC (American Born Chinese) tourist:

Since my grandparents were devoted Christians, we never did anything wacky like going to all the different Buddhist and Taoist temples for New Year's wishes. So 12 years later, my parents and I were gawking and picture taking, (as tourists do) at all the local traditions other normal HKers do.

- the Wishing Tree
My first time in 24 years of HK residency. I figured I have to try it once, after watching an infinite number of saccharine-overdosed, TV-hunk-and-belle couples throwing bundles of orange + paper onto the ill-fated tree. [My mother: That tree must be thinking, "Why throw stuff at me out of all the trees in HK?"] Local folk wisdom has it that your wishes would come true if your orange-attached bundles hangs onto its branches; the higher the branch, the more likely your wishes would exceed your expectations (or something like that.)


No mid-air orange projectiles caught on film, unfortunately. I'm lucky to be still alive after the visit. Every now and then, some poor soul would get hit with an orange that either wildly missed the tree, or was thrown by some malcoordinated person who has no idea how to aim.


Gazillions of people paying their annual pilgrimage; my first sighting of good-luck windmills
Luckily for me, I managed to throw my orange attached wishes on to its branch, a few days before the government "shut down" the tree after a branch broke from excessive orange-loading...


so many wishes, so little space.... "'K, I'll only wish for a real job."


mission accomplished; hence my "cooked dog head" [sap sok gou tou = grinning like a maniac] face.

-Che Kung Temple
Another one of those things I only read or heard about, but never witnessed for myself. Like all Chinese temples on holidays, it was packed, roudy and filled with near-hysterical worshippers.



incense trafficking


smoke gets into your eyes
Feelin' unlucky? Give the fan three spins, and apparently, your luck will be turned too.
the entrance to the lucky windmill fair


Windmills... all colours,

shapes and sizes,

everywhere and anywhere.