A Different Chinese New Year

For the first time in my life, I had a very different Chinese New Year. Though it may be similar to yours but it was a very unusual experience to me.

My father is a Malaysian while my mother is a Singaporean. Every year, I spent my Chinese New Year in a town in Malaysia. My father always drove the car for about 3 hours before we reached the town. The town was old. It was not very modern I must say but it was not that bad. It had a few shopping malls, restaurants and houses but nothing like Singapore. Everything was layback. People walked slowly here to there. I wonder if they had a destination in mind to walk to. The roads are less noisy. There is a constant flow of cars but still the numbers were few. The town population is alright for it size and it was not so congested in shopping malls. Restaurants which are few are usually not crowded. There were no cinemas no theme parks, no tall industrial buildings or any tall buildings actually. The town does not have any tourist attractions maybe the rubber plantation. Oh I almost forgot, many of the residents there get their income from the rubber plantation. There were little factories so most people or families owned a plantation. Everything was slow, to the shopping counters to the speed people walked compared to Singaporeans.

I found spending Chinese New Year there pretty boring. Of course we get to meet our relatives there but still with almost nothing to do there except visiting others for 3 days, it would get boring. There was not much to watch on television. The channels were very limited and usually in a dialect or Chinese. We just meet relatives and eat dinner. That was just basically what we did there.

This year was entirely different. I spent my Chinese New Year in Singapore! My father had to go overseas for this week so we were not able to return to Malaysia. This is a whole new experience for me. Finally, I get to spend the holidays in my own country.

For once, I experienced the mad rush during Chinese New year. I went to Cold Storage the other day. I was amazed. The queue was so long. There were at least ten people in the queue. Everyone was buying huge loads of stuff, especially rice. I never knew people actually stocked up rice for Chinese New Year. Almost every other cart had a bag of rice or 2.In Malaysia, we did not actually buy anything to stock up because we spent our time in our grandmothers place where everything was usually bought. I did not know there was such superstition of having the rice bin to be filled to the maximum or more to live through the New Year. I was surprised to hear this from my mother who was also stocking up rice. I think it took at least half an hour to clear the counter.

Also, I was surprise that so many stores were closed on Chinese New Year. In Malaysia, actually not many stores closed except for small ones. Maybe if so many stores closed during the holiday, the people of the town cannot get necessities to last the week. It is a very small town. When I went into the shopping mall, it was somehow darker than usual. Many stores were not open so it was not light up. My mother wanted to buy some stationaries but big stationary store were closed. We wanted to buy some shampoo but the stores were closed. It was frustrating. Perhaps, we were not used to buying stuff as early as we were always overseas during Chinese New Year.

During the night of Chinese New Year, we went out to eat. Many restaurants were closed. Only some eateries like Mac Donald’s were open. We went to Mac Donald’s to eat but were horrified. I cannot describe the queue in there. It was packed. The place was especially noisy. It was very difficult to find a site as many people were there scouting for seats. It took quite a while to find a sit and not to say queuing for the food. The staff could not keep up with the increasing number of customers. I have never experienced this in Malaysia. People usually ate at home, therefore restaurants were not crowded. Some of them were open but it was not crowded. Malaysians perhaps prefer to cook and eat at home with all their family members.

One more foreign experience was that during Chinese New Year, the roads were especially empty. MY parent’s car travelled on the highway and not a single car was in sight until like 30 seconds later. It was like a ghost road. I have never seen this is Singapore before was the roads were always congested. The roads of the Malaysia town were always quiet with very few cars. It was common there but not in Singapore. My siblings were asking “Where are the cars" and “Did we go to a wrong route “We were surprised by this rare sight.

I realised that in different countries or places, not only were lifestyles different but also the festive mood. In Singapore, I felt for once, that is was Chinese New Year. At least there were many sights of people preparing for it. It was hectic. In Malaysia it was different. Everything was much slower in the town. There was no rush. It was very peaceful although it was Chinese New Year. For once, I was able to experience a unique Chinese New Year. I would probably return to Malaysia every other Chinese New Year.