New Year (lunar) 2020

 

 

 

 

I'll be honest.

 

The Lunar New Year of 2020 was a more subdued for me this year.

 

It wasn't because there was anything horrible going on. It wasn't because there were incidents that rendered the festivities meaningless. And it certainly wasn't because I had no love for the festival itself.

 

If anything, I'm someone who loves the celebrations of Lunar New Year as much as I do Christmas (okay, maybe I love Christmas just a little bit more) 

 

But, call it roots, call it family togetherness, call it any excuse to have a holiday whatever, I'm Chinese, I'm thankful to be Chinese, and so be it I shall indulge in the fun of the Lunar New Year. 

 

Why miss the festival, I say, even though admittedly this year, there were, shall we say, more random thoughts running through the brain, there were quiet, flat-voiced discussions of the practical sort, and yes, there were a wee little bit of tears.

 

Yet, determined I was not to let the emotions overwhelm, absolute I was not to wallow my poor mind and heart in worrying misery, so off to the celebrations I went.

 

In fact the celebrations began a week or so prior where we decided to go for a buffet dinner that apparently was some sort of a Lunar New Year tasting menu. It was pretty good; on each table they had placed a tiny little money plant symbolising wishes of prosperity for their diners, and there was  a mocktail of pineapple juice and orange for everyone. There were the seafood offerings of raw oysters, prawns, those little lobster creatures that scare the heck out of me, and mussels shining beautifully under the light. There was also sashimi of salmon belly, salmon and tuna. On the cooked food side there was this huge fish steamed with some sort of mala chili, there were stewed vegetables (that I'm sure symbolize something but I don't know what), and there were shiitake mushrooms in a very nice, shiny sauce.

 

Then, of course, we had hotpots.

 

Two places- one at Isetan, where we got two kinds of soup (I got collagen) and several platters of beef, and several more platters of fish maw (which picture I didn't take); the other in Chinatown run by mainlanders who offered two different kinds of soup (collagen and herbal) and where we ordered three platters of beef, including wagyu that came beautifully arranged in a circle.

 

Lunar New Year is not without the small bites and the snacks, of course, and for this year I'm thankful to say that we had quite festive a collection of cookies and pineapple tarts, including a durian almond one, a butter pineapple tart, a butter pineapple ball, a margarine pineapple roll, peanut cakes, peanut cookies, and love letters of two kinds.

 

Little things can be so important, traditions especially, I tell you, because even if your mood is a little down, even if you're wondering what and why things have to happen, just pulling yourself together to go to Resorts World Sentosa (because it's a tradition you do year on year) for wife biscuits and baked char siew bao is enough a reminder that nothing's changed, that you're strong, and that you'll cross whatever comes your way.