Happy Chinese New Year!!

Its the time of the year again and everyone is on a festive mood, especially theChinese people all around the world. Although I grew up in Brunei, I still follow the traditional Chinese customs and one of them is celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Legend has it that, the Chinese people follow the 12 Animal Signs and every year the animal zodiacs rotate around. This year is the year of the rabbit. However, its traditions are too old to be traced! Basically the Chinese New Year celebrations lasts for 15 days, and usually, the most important days are the Chinese New Year eve, the first few days of Chinese New Year and not to forget, the 15th day i.e. last day of Chinese New Year Celebration.

Today is the Chinese New Year Eve, where most chinese families and their relatives gather around and have a so called 'Renunion Dinner'. On this day, in my case, all my aunties and uncles and relatives gather at my grandparents house for a good and wonderful renunion dinner. At this point, usually, there'll be lots of food being served including REAL Abalone, pork legs, sea cucumber, chicken, duck, Mixed Vegetables, homemade soup and so on. Likewise for my family, my grandmother usually cooks all these wonderful dishes for us to eat during our renunion dinner!

During this festive celebration, we must not forget all the diifferent chinese snacks that goes along with this Chinese New Year Celebration! In Brunei, we are a bit localised with the Brunei culture and during this festive season, we always have a fusion between traditional chinese foods and snacks with local delights! Here are some pictures of the food and snacks we serve during Chinese New Year:

 Renunion DInner                               Different types of biscuits

 Abalone!                                   Nutella Cake(tapak kuda)

  Nyonya layer cake             Assorted local cakes(kek roll)

 

Local cakes (layered cake)

                                                     New Year Rice Cake

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 Typical chinese New Year Snacks, including melon seeds, red pocket candies, etc.

As I have mentioned, in Brunei we usually make everything a bit localised, thus the need to go around people's houses and wishing them a happy Chinese New Year. This in chinese is called 'Pai Nian', of which is in actual fact, similar to other Chinese people around the globe, typically the Asians i.e. Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc.

Furthermore, during the New Year, like any other Chinese New Year Celebrations in any parts of the world, we, the 'un-married ones' get 'Ang Pao or Hong Bao' which means Red Packets, usually from older generations or the married ones! As for myself, I always get those lovely red packets during the eve and it is always one packet each from each of my relatives and married cousins!! ;)) In addition to that, during out visits to other people's houses, we still get red packets from them if they are married or that they are from an older generation! That makes the Chinese New Year celebration an awesome one, especially for the young ones including myself! =D

One element of Chinese New Year that most Chinese people will NEVER miss!! That is GAMBLING!!! There are many different types of Chinese New Year games, that people will definitely play, including the famous Mahjong, Jin Rummy (cards and tiles), and a whole lot of different card games.

  Mahjong                                                     Jin Rami Tiles

Finally, I hope that everyone will have a good Chinese New Year celebration and everyone will be prosperous, healthy, and lucky this whole year round! :))

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!! GONG XI FA CHAI!!! :))

恭喜发财，身体健康, 万事如意, 一帆風順,  紅包拿來!!!!

Till Next Time! ;)

Samantha
UEA International Ambassador Brunei