Though there was school on Friday, attendance [...]]]>

Did you enjoy your Chinese New Year holidays? Well, the Chinese here have been merry-making the past week. With the first day of Chinese New Year falling on a Wednesday, it meant that the rest of the week till Sunday was a super-long weekend for much of Singapore’s population.

Though there was school on Friday, attendance was less than half in many classes, whether they be in the primary, secondary or junior college levels.

It is said that the Chinese have a propensity for gambling. Chinese New Year is that festive season when everyone, whether gambler or non-gambler, partakes in a tradition that transcends generations. Children and adults put moral rulebooks at the back of their minds as they gamely sit in a circle on the floor of the living room, indulging in games of Blackjack or some other games. 

That’s when the gambling streak in everyone shows up, albeit for a fortnight till Chap Goh Meh*. That’s also when parents tolerate gambling among their young. In fact, many parents, grandparents, and their children join the gambling sessions that go on in almost every Chinese household across the island, and the world.

With the current TOTO jackpot standing at S$3,888,000, long queues have begun forming at the local betting outlets in town. The annual TOTO Hongbao draw on Thursday, 17 Feb 2005, with its jackpot prize of S$10 million, has resulted in queues at betting outlets snaking out of the outlets into the surrounding areas.
What am I saying? That we are a nation of gamblers? No. Not that, certainly. It’s just that we, Chinese, are in a celebratory spirit during the Chinese New Year. It’s that time of the year when tradition takes hold and we all put aside our anti-gambling principles and indulge in merry-making to our hearts’ content.

Once the fifteen days of the Chinese New Year are over, we will return to our old reserved, closeted selves. So, in the meantime, we are all just having fun! 

Chap Goh Meh falls on 23 Feb 2005. That means another weekend of gaming sessions for many, many Singaporeans. Most Chinese will not want to be left out of the fun, for it will mean waiting till the next Chinese New Year before they can let go of their self-imposed moral restraints.

In a rat-race society such as ours, being able to set ourselves free of our inhibitions, albeit for two weeks, does wonders for our stressed-out minds. Don’t you agree?

* 15th day of Chinese New Year

Yes! Giant, Shop-N-Save and G’Value are offering a free tray of fresh eggs today and tomorrow for the first 100* customers each day spending S$30 and above in a single receipt.

A line in red reads, “Hurry, [...]]]>

The advertisement in The Straits Times today reads:
“Today & Tomorrow only, 7 & 8 Feb – Free Fresh Eggs 30′s”

Yes! Giant, Shop-N-Save and G’Value are offering a free tray of fresh eggs today and tomorrow for the first 100* customers each day spending S$30 and above in a single receipt.

A line in red reads, “Hurry, When It’s Gone! It’s Gone.”

Giving away free eggs is a good way of rewarding the customer for his patronage. The tray of eggs featured in the advertisement jolted my memory. I found myself staring blankly at it, for in an instant, my mind had been transported back to the Singapore of the early 70′s. 

I remember I was in secondary school then, and living in a three-room flat in Toa Payoh. Back then, with every new Chinese New Year, each household, whether in an HDB flat or a private residence, would receive free eggs. Some received a tray, others were given more trays of eggs. It was the pig farmers’ way of thanking the households for contributing swill to the pigs the farmers were rearing. 

You see, each day, my mother would pour the leftover food into a small bin which she would then leave outside the flat, in the common corridor, for the pig farmers to collect. It was the same thing happening with every household in our block, and in other blocks in the neighbourhood.

At the end of each year, usually just before Chinese New Year, the farmers would pile tray upon tray of eggs in the lift landings and then go from flat to flat to distribute the trays of eggs to the flat occupants. Some received two trays. My family was given one. The number of trays of eggs given depended on the amount of swill contributed during the previous year. We received less because ours was a small family and had not much swill for the farmer to collect each day.

There are no farmers going around HDB flats nowadays to distribute free fresh eggs to HDB dwellers. This is because the pig farming industry was phased out of Singapore in the 70′s. The only thing left are my memories of the whole affair. In fact, I had plain forgotten about the whole thing, till, that is, I saw the advertisement in today’s newspaper.

I am sharing this with you so you have an idea of what people did at home way back in the 70′s. In case you are wondering how it is possible for pig farmers then to have such big farms to consume the amount of swill dished out by so many HDB estates such as Yishun, Bedok, Tampines and Ang Mo Kio, let me tell you this – such estates were not even built then. There were only two HDB towns then -Queenstown first, and Toa Payoh later. If memory serves me right, the next HDB town built was Bedok in the late 70′s, followed by Ang Mo Kio.

But, it’s all history now. Memories of the old ways come back when the mind is jolted. It is times like this that I yearn for the old days, of a time when I was much younger. Can we turn back the clock? Obviously no. But, we can have a good time reminiscing the past. And this advertisement did something that money cannot buy – it brought me back to the past, albeit in my mind.

I look at the advertisement again and read aloud the line in red:
“Hurry, When It’s Gone! It’s Gone.”

It’s true. When that time has gone, it has gone, never to come back, except in our reflections.

So what is the message I have in mind for this new Year of the Rooster?

It is this:
Live each new day to the fullest, for it will never return. What you do today decides whether it is good memories or bad nightmares you store in your mind’s bank for you to conjure up in your twilight years.

Have a good day!

*500 for Giant

Of course, I [...]]]>

When I was young, I used to look forward eagerly to each coming Chinese New Year. For with each new year, I got new things, such as clothes and shoes, and ang pows. I also looked forward to getting older so that I could go out to work and earn lots of money.

Of course, I did enjoy myself as a kid. I got to let off firecrackers. I was quite proud of myself for having the courage to hold a single firecracker between my thumb and index finger and then lighting the fuse. When the firecracker went off, my fingers smarted, but it was fun.

Kids nowadays don’t get such fun anymore! Yes! Chinese New Year isn’t quite the same anymore. In the 70′s, we kids had more fun then, what with firecrackers and the makeshift gaming stalls set up next to blocks of HDB flats.

But our ang pows then contained lesser money in them. Each typical ang pow contained S$1.10 then. Sometimes, my favourite aunt would give me a cool six dollars! Boy! I sure did look forward to visiting her place every Chinese New Year.

Nowadays, when Chinese New Year comes along, I have got used to a new habit – counting how many more Chinese New Years I have left before I depart from this good earth.

I don’t mean to spoil your new year mood when I say such things. Somehow, I have come to view each coming new year as one less available to me in the years ahead. I think this sort of thinking may be good in a way – it makes me think how precious life really is. It makes me wake up – albeit once a year for I will forget these thoughts till the next Chinese New Year comes around again – and get into the mood to want to make full use of every day that comes along.

Perhaps, all of us who are in our 40s or older should acquire this habit – making sure we live each day to the fullest. I am sure we don’t want to wait till the day some doctor pronounces to us that we are suffering from some incurable disease and have months to live before we decide to live life fully. That would indeed be too late!!

Have a happy Chinese New Year!

Over in Chinatown, festive decorations adorn the streets of South Bridge Road. Soon, new year stalls [...]]]>

Chinese New Year cards are on sale now! A sea of red has invaded many neighbourhood shops here as new year ornaments go on display everywhere. These sights conjure up the Chinese New Year mood in the Chinese in Singapore.

Over in Chinatown, festive decorations adorn the streets of South Bridge Road. Soon, new year stalls will open in the lanes of Chinatown and many of us will make the yearly ‘pilgrimage’ to Chinatown to take in the sights and sounds as we browse around the stalls for new year goodies on sale.

With such activities abuzz everywhere on the island, it is hard not to get into the lunar new year spirits. My wife, for one, has started playing new year songs, available on VCD, on our TV screen over the weekend.

For me, Chinese New Year has not been the same since the letting off of firecrackers was banned in 1972 when I turned 14. Yes! I have to admit I do sorely miss these little things. But, hey, Chingay 2002 starts off with the letting off of firecrackers! Even though we can’t play with firecrackers, at least, we can see and hear them go into action. Not only that, we can also watch the big-headed dolls of the 60s make a comeback in the show.

Come 12 Feb 2002, the Snake year will go backstage for a 12-year rest period as the Chinese among us usher in the Year Of The Horse. It’s been a year of bad news for many of us, not only here in Singapore, but also all around the world. Who will ever forget the 911 tragedy in New York and Washington?

That calamity continues to infect us as business suffers and we have to rein in our expenditure in anticipation of tougher times ahead. Tough times or not, the married adults among the Chinese will have to dish out Ang Pow packets for the youngsters. It’s not a lunar new year without partaking in the giving and receiving of such gifts. In these bad times, some people will take the chance to skip town to avoid having to spend money on Ang Pows, but let’s just hope it’s only a minority doing so, for Chinese New Year is a time of giving, and of receiving. And it comes along only once a year – make the youngsters happy!