pussy willows
Originally uploaded by johanna

5 days away from Chinese New Year.

Technically i haven't celebrated chinese new year for a while. i've missed out on 5 years of goodies, angbaos, obscure relatives i only see once a year, new clothes, kumquats and the colour red.

but living with a roommate from china, and a CBC who's used to the chinese new year festivities has meant that the kitchen table is for once cluttered with new year snacks instead of chocolate chip cookies. as i sit and watch, there's an air of excitement, of anticipation that underlies their speech. their words come out in excited puffs as they ponder on how to colour the place red and make a rented room familiar.

and i try to participate in my broken mandarin. i talk about the jumbled remnants of the past. i'm at a loss when we talk about specific new year flowers, partly because every flower in mandarin is just 'hua' to me. i know no other term. my lack of a green thumb extends to my linguistic abilities in english. i don't know the english equivalent, to me it's a red flower, with uh petals, and it's small....
you know? that one lah,

but i do remember and remininsce. i remember being woken up early in the morning and getting hurried by my parents to get showered and dressed. i remember sleeping in the car as we departed from our home early in the morning and made our way to our various relatives' houses. it was always ee-poh's house first. that was my favourite stop. she was always brisk and businesslike with me. kiss on the cheek first, sit beside her, be interrogated about grades and school and also about how old i was. and then her version of chinese new year goodies: curry puffs, spicy sardine sandwiches, coffee, keropok, love letters, etc.

it would roughly be like that for the rest of the day. stopping by each relative's house, our visits never lasting over an hour because there were always more people to see (and more angbaos to collect). it would be a whirlwind trip around singapore, and a mental memory test as you had to recall all the correct titles to call your relatives. 2nd great aunt, 3rd great aunt, da sao, dua kor, dua bei.

but the last stop was always gee-ee's house. and the afternoon would be spent by my parents playing mahjong. whilst i played with my aunt's dog until he got bored with me and i was left to watch holiday movies on tv or fall asleep on the couch.

and we would finally return home in the evening. ready to retire for the night, only to repeat the day's events the next day.

there was a vibrancy in that season. something that i guess i do miss since my februaries these days are pretty cold and quiet.


sidenote:
oh, and my aunt would typically find that the heads of her pussy willow would be plucked off because for some reason as a kid i liked the furry little podlike things and couldnt help trying to collect them for myself