A New Year to remember

I love those days — those growing up days — when every little extra thing in life was such a bonus.

The noodle soup with barbecued pork was like the treat of a lifetime.

We had to earn it by coming out top in class. My younger brother had the pleasure of having it at the end of every school term. After his indulgence, he never failed to display his satisfied look and a smile of total contentment, strolling home from the noodle shop, in full knowledge that we were watching, filled with envy.

I never topped my class, so for me, the pleasure eluded me almost entirely throughout my childhood, save on some god-sent occasions when I got sick, had measles or something. When that happened, mother would give me a treat upon my recovery. I fully enjoyed that, not at all embarrassed and almost felt it was a lot easier getting sick than coming out top in class.

We lived at Siniawan, a little riverside bazaar, about 15 miles from Kuching. It was a peaceful, quiet life — school, play, fishing and swimming at the river, a bit of mischief here and there, and always, watching in fear, the funeral processions that made their way amidst the two rows of shophouses. Occasionally, the travelling movie operator would come by, and mother would buy one ticket and smuggled some of us smaller ones into the makeshift theatre, usually a classroom in the school. That was a great adventure.

Best time

But the best time of my life was Chinese New Year. It was every kid’s happiest moment and a time of great expectations. When it came, it was pure, simple joy. It would start with the arrival of Dongzhi or the winter solstice festival around Christmas. Mother used to say Dongzhi is bigger than the New Year.

According to her, it’s the day we must eat the tangyuan or glutinous red and white rice balls and add one year to our age. It also signifies unity and togetherness in the family. I loved those tangyuan even though they were just plain rice balls boiled in water, usually flavoured with pandan leaves, and sweetened with sugar, but it was very smooth and special — not something you eat everyday, and it also meant new year was very near.

About three weeks after Dongzhi, we are into the final phase of the countdown to Chinese New Year. It was seven days to the New Year, to be exact, and it’s auspicious because you have entered the realm of New Year.

It was around this time that mother and the older sisters would be making the glutinous rice cakes or nian gao. In our dialect its called tiam pan or sweet (tiam) cake (pan). That really brings out the New Year mood and it’s this time that all the superstitions make their presence felt, starting with the glutinous rice cake, which is the sacred cake of the New Year.

Using a traditional stone grinder, glutinous rice, soaked in water, was poured into the grinder and ground into a watery but thick rice paste, which was collected in a cloth sack, and then pressed to squeeze out the water.

Sugar was added to the now hardened glutinous rice dough and kneaded until it was soft and sticky. It was then poured into different square or rectangular trays and placed in a big wok. Using firewood, it was steamed for up to 10 hours. After the fire had died out, the remaining red hot charcoal would keep the nian gao warm overnight, so by morning it would have a golden brown colour.

It must be golden brown otherwise it means bad luck. I remember mother was devastated one year her nian gao turned out whitish which meant that bad luck would befall our family.

It was the belief that the nian gao was very sensitive to unsolicited visitors during its making. Pregnant women were not welcome; so were visitors who spread bad news or simply asked about the nian gao.

I remember a woman from the neighbourhood who was forever pregnant. She would diligently come by every year and asked my mother: “How is the sweet cake coming along?”

Mother was visibly distressed and, without any doubt, sister hated her. It was also during this time that we had to watch our language. Any swear words or foul language were struck out of our vocabulary. As a bazaar kid,

I was quite capable of swearing and cursing but during this time, I spoke decent hakka or mandarin.

Words with unlucky connotations such as death or bleeding, were consciously expunged. Words like “broken” had to be avoided, so if someone accidentally broke a glass or plate into many pieces, it must be alluded to something good, like, having 1,000 sons, and 10,000 grandsons.

Grown-ups would avoid confrontational language or getting into a fight because only a harmonious home environment could attract good luck and good fortune. I particularly liked it because elders would avoid scolding us kids, so we did get away with a few naughty tricks.

In full swing

The New Year mood went into top gear with the making of vegetable dumplings or as the hakkas call them, choi pan, and peanut dumplings, a few days before New Year’s Eve.

Vegetable dumplings were usually stuffed with chives or suan (leek), bean curd, minced meat, and dried prawn, if we had any. We devoured these as they were being taken out of the wok, steaming hot. We flipped the burning hot dumplings from one palm to the other to cool them but they were still steaming hot when we shoved them into our mouths with gasps of delight.

For us kids who didn’t really have a lot of treats all year round, this was worth the heat. This was one of the most delightful moments of childhood. One of my younger brothers, at the tender age of eight, could eat 17 of these choi pan in one sitting. I remember it so well because mother would tell everyone about it, and even added proudly that his little tummy swelled.

There were no prawn crackers, no cookies, no butter cakes or cheese cakes but in later years, my sisters learned to make western cakes, simple ones made of eggs, sugar and flour, which were mixed in a bucket and beaten manually with a metal coil until the whole thing became a golden paste.

This was poured into a set of moulds of fish or fruit and baked over charcoal fire. When they were done, they were picked out of the hot and steaming mould with sharpened wooden spikes. The sweet fragrance of baked egg and sugar and flour was irresistible. It was my first taste of baked, western cake. I thought they were really something.

All these activities built up the momentum which led, invariably to New Year’s Eve. On that day, mother would have the older girls take the younger ones somewhere so she could cook the whole day without being disturbed.

And she did cook non-stop. And what an array of dishes she produced! There was father’s favourite soup of bamboo shoot cooked with very fatty pork and bones. These shoots were from China (we still have them today) and needed to be soaked and boiled for days to soften them. It was a must (still is) because it is called ‘min soon’. ‘Min’ in Chinese means bright and ‘soon’ rhymes with another character which means smooth sailing.

Another must was the fish, usually steamed fresh water, or pond fish. This was cooked last while we were eating and served steaming hot. Fish is ‘yu’ in Chinese and it rhymes with another word which means in excess, implying there is abundance of food and wealth and it will be a year of plenty.

There was also the usual boiled chicken, the stewed duck which was an all time favourite, and the pork leg and mixed vegetables. The mixed vegetables consisted of items that had good connotations and gave us positive expectations. The suan or leek rhymed with calculating, denoting and having plenty of money to count.

That was a must. But my favourite was taufoo stuffed with minced meat, and flavoured with suan (leek) and salted fish, and deep fried. Dipped in a sauce of preserved soya bean, cut garlic and ground chili, it was one of the best things I had. It has remained one of my favourites.

Biggest meal

New Year’s Eve dinner was the family’s biggest meal of the year. All at once, all that we had craved so much and waited for appeared before us, and as mother believed, New Year’s Eve dinner must reflect total abundance.

The whole table must be covered with dishes with no empty space. There must be left-over after the dinner, signifying a plentiful year ahead. And it must be taken early. So it was 4pm when we sat down to enjoy the best meal of the year. It was nice. You felt that life was good, eating so early and relaxing, and having plenty of time to play with friends and let off firecrackers.

It was also after the New Year’s Eve dinner that parents gave the children angpows or little red packets. Inside was a small fortune for us. It amounted to one dollar 10 cents. Never mind if the $1.1 signified first in everything, especially in our studies or going one up, breaking barriers, or over the top. But for us kids whose pocket money was mostly five cents a day or nothing, we thought we had struck it rich.

Then came the most dramatic moment we had been waiting for. Fighting off sleep, we saw our father taking out a long string of huge firecrackers and with the help of eldest brother, hung it on a long bamboo pole tied to the front post of our shophouse. We waited.

At first, there were intermittent firing but as it drew closer to the time, the explosions steadily gathered momentum. Then, as if by prior agreement, all at once, huge, deafening blasts went off in unison. Soon, the whole bazaar was engulfed in flying sparks, billowing smoke and thunderous explosions.

We felt the vibrations on our feet. The air was thick with the wonderful smell of gunpowder and in the midst of all this, I saw my father, cigarette in one hand, firecrackers in the other, lighting, throwing them, packets after packets after packets. Just when he thought he had outdone everyone else, someone fired another barrage. He immediately called out to my eldest brother: “Ongpong, bring one more box!”

The New Year Eve’s intense and powerful firecrackers display lit up the New Year. It lifted the mood. It was the climax of the New Year. For me and for many of my contemporaries, it was the indispensable catalyst that had made our Chinese New Year what it had been and what we so want it to be. Simply, the firecrackers gave us the New Year atmosphere, the umph. Without them, not only has the New Year lost its sound and glitter but also its soul, and with it, a big part of our cultural heritage.

Good feeling

As we opened our door on New Year’s day, what greeted us was a sea of red — the shreds of red paper from hundreds of firecrackers fired the night before. The smell of the explosives was still present but above all, it was the redness, spread out on the porch, giving you a sense of well-being, of good feeling, of joy.

We spent the New Year Day feeling fresh, wearing new clothes, new shoes and having the shiniest hair, but food was an anti-climax as we had to go vegetarian the whole day — a tradition we had to follow. It was frustrating seeing the left over meats kept in baskets hung high up from the ceiling, unreachable to us.

They were kept thus to prevent ants from reaching them, not just the kids as there was no refrigerator then. But an exciting substitute was the aerated soft drink, usually orange or soda bearing the Ho Chong Teng or Southern brands which we drank the whole day. And we had the baked egg cakes, the peanut dumplings, the nian gao and mandarin oranges. Besides we were busy experimenting with fire crackers, testing the theory of rocket propulsion by planting the firecracker in the ground, covering it with an empty condense milk tin and lighting it through a tiny hole, sending it rocketing skyward.

A lion dance troupe brought more cheers and excitement. They usually had a green lion head with a wide mouth and very white teeth. They also had multi-coloured mane and we would try to pluck a flock of the lion’s mane from around its neck as it was supposed to bring good luck. The lion troupe could do all kinds of acrobatic acts like climbing a pole to claim the angpow hung high from the first floor of the shophouse. The kungfu display was fascinating. Everyone from the neighbourhood would crowd around our place to see.

Then some old gentlemen came along with strips of red paper bearing calligraphic inscriptions of good fortune like 10,000 taels of gold, endless prosperity and such like, gingerly pasting them on your wall, and receiving a 20 cent angpow!

Those were the days. They were the better days but they came to pass. Things were not so good for many years after that. There were times when we didn’t have new clothes for Chinese New Year, nor a table full of sumptuous dishes, nor the happy, cheerful laughter of mother and father, nor the thrill and spill of the midnight firecrackers. But for the few good years that we had had, for the few irreplaceably wonderful new years of simple, pure joy which I held very dear to my heart, I thank my parents and my wonderful siblings for what they have given me.

I am deeply grateful and I feel truly blessed that I have something from my childhood which I will remember, and remember happily.