Happy Nui Year

Today is the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year or Spring Festival as it is sometimes called. According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called the Nian. Nian would come on the first day of New Year to devour livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One time, people saw that the Nian was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nian was afraid of the color red. Hence, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian. From then on, the Nian never came to the village again.

I woke up as usual and Mummy bathed and changed me into my new clothes. After wishing Nai Nai and Ye Ye a Happy New Year, I was given ang pows from them. Nai Nai was suppose to make ginko nut and longan soup to start the new year with sweet blessings but she was apparently too busy the night before and forgot about it. Daddy decided to drink tea instead.

We started with 3rd grand aunty's house in Toa Payoh as she is the eldest and all the relatives will be there at some point in time during the day. When grand uncle (Nai Nai's youngest brother) saw me, he was very happy and asked to carry me. Apparently when Daddy was a baby, grand uncle had carried him and brought him around the kampong. It reminded him of the good ole days and he couldn't help telling everyone as he held on to me.

After Toa Payoh, we headed to Mummy's Tua Gu's place in Ang Mo Kio. Sadly Tua Lau Gu passed away just a couple of weeks ago. However, his dying wish was that we must still go to his house and celebrate Chinese New Year and be happy as a big extended family, so that was what we did. Everyone was there and we enjoyed each other's presence.