MIDDLEBURGH

Kung Hei Fat Choi

The activity in the supermarkets peaked frenetically on New Year’s Eve as people shopped for the traditional last meal of year when all family gather. It was like the rush at the last minute to buy the Christmas turkey . Chinese New Year decorations had proliferated every, and flowers and cakes to take when visiting were mandatory on every arm.

This year I was invited to a friend's where the daughter in laws had cooked (in the cramped kitchen)

• steamed chicken (more on this later)
• mushroom with dried scallops and pork (not a kosher household)
• crab
• steamed garupa (is a fish - ra prerequisite for good fortune)
• prawns and spring onions
• pork with roast crackling (this was bought in - no oven!!)
• and of course steamed rice

It is said that you cannot have a Hong Kong banquet or party without chicken (think of Christmas without a turkey!!). Traditionally most chickens are imported from the mainland; sold live and killed on demand at the Wet Markets. However this year because of H5N1 virus (bird flu) there have been restrictions on the number of birds imported from china and a requirement that they be vaccinated.

Just before new year the government announced that the import quota was temporarily suspended in order to keep the price down during the holidays. The following day one of the two major supermarket chains pointed out that although the quota had been suspended, there was provision for transport to bring them across the border: so it seem that chicken will be cheap next week !!

There are a number of traditions associated with Chinese new year which are worth mentioning

• Unmarried children are given "red pockets" by grandparents; parents; aunts; uncles; married friends etc in lieu of a present, These are small envelopes referred to as Lai See containing money; It is also an opportunity to question unmarried women about their prospects: (ie to see what the exposure is for next year in order to make budgetary provision).A couple of years ago when the recession was biting by popular demand the monetary authority increased the number of 10HK$ notes (the smallest demonition paper) in circulation because the poor could not afford 20HK$ lai see for small children

• Wishing trees: this are a cross between Christmas trees and new year resolutions; You attach a wish to the branches and walk around tree (making supplication to the god s?) eg for good health; money romance whatever. There are some famous all year wishing trees in some of the temples. (for emergencies).

• Flowers and plants are very popular for new year particularly small potted kumquat/tangerine trees . The problem this year is that fire ants have been recently been discover in Chinese nurseries and subsequently infestations in Kowloon and the New Territories. So in addition to controlling illegal immigrants and chickens the authorities are now trying to keep out ants. It has been said that some wag in china thought that HK authorities were overdoing it since clearly the ants were obviously patriotic – they are after all red !!

• House sweeping: You must not sweep the house on new years day in case you sweep out the good luck which I find an interesting justification for not tidying up the day after. However these things are not taken lightly – a friend of mine was quite surprised to see a street cleaner working on New Years Day but this is post SARS and HK has tightened up on hygiene in public places.

• Lion dancers: there are of course the traditional lion dancers associated with all festivals and I heard the lion dancers early in the morning but didn't go down to photograph them: They were very noisy - I think to scare away demons/monsters to ensure a good year. They weren’t as noisy as the container ship which had earlier blasted its siren off at some local boats (presumable in the way) as it barreled out to sea this morning down the Lamma channel.

Having seen some/all family the night before it traditional to revisit them/rest of family the following morning (like boxing day in UK) for example over Yum Cha (lunch time dim sum - eating is culturally very important for the Chinese). Lots of people dressed up "in Sunday best" for occasion.

After lunch people go shopping; visit cinema; art museums or go to watch football (just like UK). This year, with the exception of Renaldo, the Brazilian team were in town to play Hong Kong. To put this in context Brazil ranks number 1 ; Hong Kong ranks Number 154.

Not surprisingly the score was 7:1 to visitors. The locals got frustrated and committed some silly fouls giving a way free kicks and a penalty. However Lee Sze-Ming put away an unexpected but good goal at end of match.

I have to say I don't enthuse over the standard of Hong Kong soccer and follow the fortunes of Schenzhen Jianlibao (who admittedly are not quite Arsenal)

Posted at 2/11/2005 03:40:00 pm by David Middleburgh   Permalink

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