My happy Chinese Year

Like every other year since young, my family and I made our traditional visit to my relatives in Johore Bahru (JB), Malaysia. My uncle had passed away, but his wife still continued to host our annual gathering with my mum’s 6 siblings and their families. Four of my uncles and aunties are living in JB, Muar and Port Dickson. My mum and her 2 sisters married and have been staying in Singapore.

Upon arrival, we exchanged our mandarin oranges with one another family’s representatives, and gave and received each other’s Chinese New Year’s greetings and blessings such as 新年快乐, 万事如意, 身体健康, 学业进步 /步步高升, 青春永驻. We had such fun brushing up our Mandarin with our Malaysian counterparts whose Chinese is more fluent than us. And of course, the ang baos! Having one child has just an obvious disadvantage – I always “lu-gee” (give more than receive) when it comes to this! LOL.

My son and my nephew had a ball of a time playing outside the house, enjoying the space and freedom that is hard to come by in Singapore. There is no need to worry about making too much noise, no need to worry about knocking into people etc., no need to worry about the auntie living downstairs. LOL.

At the end of the day before we left, we took a photograph of those who wore red that day. This is such an auspicious photograph!

I was truly amazed that THERE WAS NO JAM AT THE CUSTOMS!!! This was mainly due to the long weekends which extended until Tuesday. Yahoo! It really made the trip even more pleasant without the usual 2+hour jam.

Christina Victor
Finance & Administration Manager, Trybe