Four important days

We’re coming up on four days that will be important to different people for different reasons. Two of these days are festive, two are solemn.

Of the four, Saturday Feb. 14 – Valentine’s Day – is the most democratic, for anyone and everyone can celebrate love, regardless of age, nationality, religious belief, sexual orientation or financial capability. Call me a grinch or a grouch or variations thereof but I’ve always regarded this supposed red-letter day as a commercial creation, a ploy to get gullible consumers to splurge on what business establishments tell you are musts – the traditional flowers and chocolates, jewelry if you’re a big spender or want/need to impress, a fancy dinner with candlelight and roses and an apres dinner show with big names stars, even gifts for the one who has everything.

There is, however, the less expensive tryst at a motel (with special Valentine’s promos) or a stroll along the baywalk at sunset before dinner at Aristocrat – I guess I’m dating myself here; di na uso ’yan, I’m told. I have to be updated on what the millennials and Gen Zers and Gen Alphas do for Valentine’s – or do they even bother beyond sending emojis, a most economical and practical way to mark the day?

Feb. 17 is the start of Ramadan, the ninth and holiest month in the Islamic calendar. The observance of Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam and is a time of fasting – no food or drink from sunup to sundown – and prayer and worship, leading to reflection and service to community through acts of kindness and charity.

It is the month the Quran is believed to have been revealed to the prophet Mohammad. It starts with the new moon and ends with the sighting of the crescent moon or the next new moon, this year estimated to be on March 19. Ramadan ends with Eid’l Fitr (Festival of Breaking the Fast), a two-day celebration of festive meals, communal prayer and gift-giving.

Th next day, Feb. 18, is Ash Wednesday, the start of the Christian season of Lent, representing the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert, fasting and praying, three times resisting temptation by Satan. After these 40 days, Jesus began his public ministry. As in Ramadan, Lent is a time of fasting and prayer. Lent culminates on Holy Week, specifically on Easter Sunday, Christ’s resurrection, which this year falls on April 5. This, too, is a time of joy – He is risen! – following the somber remembrance of Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday.

Feb. 17 is the first day of the lunar new year. For millions – over a billion, actually – of Chinese all over the world, this is THE most important day of the year. Also called the Spring Festival, it is traditionally a time for family reunions, feasts and festivities. In mainland China, it is the time of the great migration, as people who had gone to cities or other provinces for study or work make their way back to their hometowns, crowding train and bus stations, seaports and airports.

Lately it has become a time for holiday travel, since it is a long non-working holiday – this year a nine-day break, from Feb. 15 to 23. It is thus hoped that the newly-implemented 14-day visa-free entry for Chinese nationals will lure some of them to holiday in our country.

Being the resident Chinese, I get to take Feb. 16 – new year’s eve – off, because I have to prepare our family’s new year’s eve meal. Actually, preparations began the other week, with an inventory of what ingredients will be needed, scouting out the Sunday market and letting my sukis know what I’ll be ordering.

The menu on our table is fairly traditional, following what my grandmother and mother used to do but, I admit, with a shortcut or two, a substitution or two, considering limitations in availability of ingredients as well as limitations in my skills with the wok.

Like Valentine’s, there are special Chinese New Year promos in restaurants and hotels. I couldn’t miss sampling last week the Conrad Hotel’s China Blue lunar new year offering, hoping to get some ideas to up my culinary repertoire. Chef Khor as expected did not disappoint.

Yee Sang or the Prosperity Toss, practised in Hong Kong (its origins are Cantonese, the term translating to “raw fish”), Singapore and Malaysia, has of late gained popularity hereabouts. Raw seafood (usually salmon, for its reddish hue, sometimes jellyfish), shredded vegetables and fruits, some crunch (peanuts or crackers), dressing (usually plum sauce) and condiments are arranged on a platter and everyone gathers around with chopsticks to toss – the higher, the better, the more prosperous. Kids of course thoroughly enjoy making a mess, thus Yee Sang has become a requisite activity in many family celebrations here. Chef Khor’s version took Yee Sang to another level, with not just salmon but also lobster balls and crab claws and a passion fruit dressing. Our tossing was tame and confined to the table since of course we were going to eat all those delicious elements.

We don’t do Yee Sang at home; there’s no time or energy for the after-toss clean-up as we’re too busy getting dinner ready. I’ve marshalled my nieces to do kitchen duty, portioning our family prosperity soup and plating the dishes, as I’ll be manning two woks on two gas burners and steaming my groupers.

Rather than swerte, it’s family tradition that the dishes signify, and the gathering around our almost 60-year-old dining table is a celebration of family and love, of friendship and community and, above all, of thankfulness for grace received.