THIS IS MY LIFE - 9

9 - CHINESE NEW YEAR
When I was growing up in the 50s in The Army Children’s Home in Singapore, those of us who had relatives could go home for Chinese New Year. My sister and I went back to Ku Ma wherever she was working, but we usually stayed with the Chow family. (Mrs. Chow was Pui Sim’s godmother whose family moved to Kuala Lumpur during the war.) They were very kind to us, always bought us each a pair of shoes every New Year. We were also taken out visiting and received angpows (red packets with money, often coins in those days) from their relatives and friends!

When Mother was alive, my sister and I always gave all our angpows to her for recycling because she had to reciprocate. When Ku Ma became our guardian we did the same.

This festival is sometimes called the Lunar New Year which is more accurate. It is referred to as Chinese New Year in Singapore because it is celebrated by the majority of people who are Han Chinese. In China it is called the Spring festival observed by the other oriental races like the Japanese and Koreans too.

I signed my candidate papers in August and sat for my Senior Cambridge exams in December 1953. I should be looking for a job to help out with the family budget. However, The Army’s Training College opened in January the next year. Soon it was Chinese New Year and the college was closed for the usual two days.

Being brought up by missionary officers in charge of the Children’s Home I was not familiar with my obligations as a young adult during the Lunar New Year. The Lord was good in that the first cook in the college, Madam Poon Wai Ying, was a mature woman who advised me what to do. As I was going to my Ku Ma I should buy something for the reunion dinner. I had no money, having spent what I had on getting my outfit for college. However, I had a little plain gold ring. She pawned it for $6.00 and bought some Chinese sausages and mandarin oranges for me to take home. (By the way, I did not have the means to redeem my ring.) It was the only Chinese New Year I was able to stay with Ku Ma, because she had rented a room to stay with my sister. By the time the next Lunar New Year came round I was commissioned to Kuching in Sarawak. It was a pity she did not live long enough for us to show some appreciation for all she did for us in the 12 years she was our guardian.

In October 1954 I was commissioned to Kuching, Sarawak which together with Sabah and Singapore joined Malaya to form Malaysia in l965. So for the first 14 years of my officership Chinese New Year was celebrated in Malaysia very much like in Singapore.

In January 1983 my husband and I were appointed to Hong Kong where the Lunar New Year was celebrated on a bigger scale, with dinners, dinners and more dinners in restaurants, grand displays of lion dances and fireworks. The children enjoyed two weeks school holidays. Our appointment lasted more than 7 and a half years, before we received another to the Philippines for 3 years, followed by 4 in London.

In the Philippines, this festival was not marked as a public holiday. Neither was it in England. In Manila we had only one fellow reinforcement officer, Captain Edwards, whom we invited to share our reunion dinner. I should say “end of the year” dinner. After she returned to the States we had Captain Gillian Downer from UK to join us in service. She too was our guest for one end of the year meal. In London we had other Chinese friends who were serving away from home or visiting during that time of the year, to celebrate our end of the year meal. There were also times when we introduced this custom to some English friends by having them home for a steamboat meal.

One year Major Mrs. Blundell who had served in Hong Kong in bygone years, invited me to speak in a Home League meeting about the observance of the Chinese New Year. I spoke about the various customs of Singapore and Hong Kong in the observance of this festival. For the firing of crackers I had some balloons blown up and tied into a bunch. At the appropriate moment I pricked them one by one with a pin to burst them, making a terrible noise. At the end of the meeting each attendee received an angpow of chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil! It was the year of the Pig, and one very clever lady had baked little buns in the shape of piglets with a delicious meal cooked by the Home League ladies. It was fun! However one lady told me it was a different Home League Meeting!!