Kung Hei Fat Choi

Last night, which was the lunar or Chinese new year’s eve, I was on board the USS Blue Ridge docked in General Santos City, the third and final stop in the Philippines (Manila and Cebu were the other ports of call) for the command ship of the U.S. Seventh Fleet (among the fleet’s 21 vessels is the fabled aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk). Instead of nian gao (sticky rice cake, a.k.a. tikoy) there was roast beef, a decidedly un-Chinese way of spending what is perhaps the most important occasion in the Chinese roster of festivals.

That was the first new year’s eve I’ve spent away from home, and it was possible only because both my parents have passed on. When they were alive, and especially when my grandmother was alive, the lunar new year’s eve is a time when everyone gathered around the family hearth—no ifs or buts. There was food a-plenty on the family dining table, the result of a week’s preparation. We got new clothes, and money of course, always crisp new bills from my grandmother, which we kids got to hold on to for about 10 seconds before they were whisked off to the locked drawer and the bank the next day (I still maintain the savings account I had as a kid, although the money-gifts have long been spent).

When I was growing up this was a purely family occasion; these days it’s become an industry, highly commercialized, much like Valentine’s (the mother of all commercial holidays) and Halloween and Mother’s Day and yes, Christmas. Everyone’s giving or asking for tikoy, but the biggest thing has become the good luck/good fortune industry. Lucky colors, lucky symbols, lucky foods, lucky rituals...it seems to be getting more bizarre every year. I am very often asked, "Di ba sa mga Instik bawal ang...." something or other, usually something totally ridiculous or irrelevant. I’ve got news for you: most of it is probably made up by some smart guy who realizes there’s money to be made off gullible souls, because it seems like there’s one born every minute. While feng shui and geomancy and studying the stars are at heart serious pursuits that the Chinese have been undertaking for millenia, to have it distilled into the color and print of your dress (polka dots are still prescribed, despite the fact that smart alecks insist rectangles are better, representing bills rather than coins) is a bit flaky.

For all of you who have, for the past so many years, been following our annual zodiac reading (and for those of you who called complaining about why it didn’t come out in the past week’s issue), we are happy to have it this week (it starts on the following page). These readings are not based on star or crystal ball gazing but on research and study. But still I would offer the caveat that it should be read in the spirit of entering a new year—with anticipation, with hope, with new resolve to do better, be better.

I’m gathering my family—including some relations visiting from the U.S.—tonight for the first dinner of the new year, and from my family hearth to yours, a very happy new year... xin nian quai leh!