Chinese New Year visits resumed
Since father left us four years ago, we have not visited our relatives during Chinese New Year. This year, my brother and I resumed those visits and it was good catching up with them. (My sister, as a married daughter, does not join us, but instead would visit her husband’s family.)
When we were growing up, the family medicine shop was only closed on the first day of Chinese New Year, which meant father had just that one day “annual leave” out of 365 days all year (or 366 during a leap year). As he was the youngest son in his family, it was his duty to visit his older brothers and sisters during Chinese New Year. This meant we spent his one day “annual leave” in the car travelling from one house to another. And since he only had that one free day, we also visited his younger sister. The order of visits would be from the eldest to the youngest. We didn’t mind; the visits meant we would be given ang pows from our uncles and aunties.
Since father left us, we hadn’t done the Chinese New Year visits because my brother wanted to spend as much time with mother as he could, even if it meant not visiting our uncles and aunties. This year, I decided we should; I mean, it’s been four years.
We did the visits over two days, so that we could still spend time with mother. On Chinese New Year’s Eve, we visited father’s second brother in Ampang, and his youngest sister somewhere near Batu Caves.
I took the way I was familiar with, which took us through town and allowed me to point out familiar landmarks from our childhood to my brother. He didn’t remember too many of them – he couldn’t even recognise the stretch of Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman in front of the former Klinik Tan Chee Khoon (now Tunes Hotel), and this was in our very own neighbourhood – and he kept commenting how things have changed.
We had lunch at our second uncle’s house before driving on in the direction of Batu Caves to visit our youngest aunt. As soon as we arrived, we were invited to lunch but declined since we’d already eaten.
After those two visits, we went home to pick up the dinner prepared for mother, and went on to the nursing home for her reunion dinner. Later, we went back to have our own reunion dinner, just the two of us, cuz we’re a small family.
The next day, the first day of Chinese New Year, we went to visit mother over lunch and had our own lunch before driving over to our third aunt’s house in Taman Tun Dr Ismail. We’d actually seen her two evenings before as we’d joined her and her family for an early reunion dinner at a seafood restaurant nearby.
There was just one more uncle to visit, but before that, we made an unscheduled stop at cousin Ronnie’s house in Damansara Jaya. Everyone at third aunt’s house was going over there and we were invited along, so we went, too.
Then, the last house to visit this Chinese New Year – our fourth uncle’s in Damansara Utama – before returning to spend the evening with mother.
At every house, we met up with cousins my brother had not seen for a while. All in, it was a great time. And instead of receiving ang pows, we gave to our various uncles and aunts, as a gesture of our respect for them.
