My imaginative Chinese New Year's Eve

Chinese New Year’s Eve
I was fully awakened from my afternoon nap by the icy water hitting on my back that gave me a chilly sensation. For my culture, traditional Chinese culture, it is a tradition to rinse ourselves with water that is soaked with pomelo leaves on the day before Chinese New Year. By rinsing ourselves with the water soaked with pomelo leaves, it is believed that we would wash away all “bad things” or bad luck that we had in the previous year and step into the new year with good luck and prosperity. As I was shivering in the freezing shower, the familiar tone of the most important lady in my life, my mother, was heard again through the bathroom door. Once again, I was ordered to rush my shower as we were racing against time. The most important period of time on the day before Chinese New Year was the reunion dinner which is held annually in my father’s eldest brother’s four storey town house. This is an annual event where all of my family’s relatives, from close and far away, meet up and dine together. My uncle’s house is about 30 minutes away by car. The time for the reunion dinner would usually be set at half past six when the sun would look like a reddish mandarin. However, we Malaysians seemed to be living in a time lag of half an hour. Everyone was expected to be late as the time lag lived on for a year after another. This time lag that Malaysians had lived in is not something that we are proud of. Therefore, when the reunion dinner was set to be at half past six, we would be expecting the feast to only begin at seven with the approval of the god of rain.
Years after years, my family had always been the last to arrive in my uncle’s house for the reunion dinner. The member in my family with the highest authority, my father was always be able give the perfect, flawless excuses for being late. A wise man once said “practice makes perfect”. I think my dad would be a good example in depicting that. As we knocked violently at my uncle’s solid wooden door as if we were running out of air, my aunt would always be the one who opens the door and welcomes us with her big wide smile and the most popular greeting during Chinese New Year, “Gong Hei Fatt Choy” which means congratulations and be prosperous in Cantonese. My grandmother is an immigrant from Hong Kong many years ago. She is the reason that we are all Cantonese speakers in the family. However, my grandfather is a lineage of the Hakka clan. Thus, most of our relatives are Hakka speakers too. I do not speak Hakka, but I do understand a tiny bit here and there. Most of the time I would be guessing what those powerful tones of Hakka phrases mean. The tone of the Hakka language is always heavy which sometimes I would even perceive the tone of the language to be rude.
The first thing that caught my sight when we stepped into the house was the big red lantern hung on the ceiling of the living room. It was incredibly beautiful with every single detail of the dragon that was painted on the lantern seemed to be as real as the legendary dragon could be. Two Red, rectangular papers filled with such artistic strokes of Chinese calligraphy were on the wall of the dining area. Chinese calligraphy is an oriental art originated from China. I find Chinese calligraphy is such a wonderful art that I would spend hours admiring one’s piece of Chinese calligraphy. The Chinese calligraphy during Chinese New Year always carries good meaning in it that originated from Chinese literature. The scent of incense was all over the place. It is a tradition for Chinese to burn incense as a mean of worshipping our god. A whole steamed chicken and crispy roast pork were placed on the table as offerings to god. The next and also the most important thing that caught my attention was the dining table. It was the smallest dining table that I have ever seen as it was filled with a record breaking number of dishes that made the table looked tiny. It felt like I was the Emperor of China for a moment, looking at the variety and quantity of food arranged on the dining table. Fish, chicken, pork and shrimp are some of the basic requirement in a reunion dinner. The irresistible scent of the wonderful dishes placed on the dining table made everyone drooling like hungry lions that had starved for weeks. Chatters and laughs was all around the dining table as everyone was dining and as well as catching up with one another. Later in the night, the laughing and chattering became louder and louder as everyone was warmed up by the old aged whisky that had been kept for years just for the night. Indeed, everyone ate like they have not been eating for weeks as the feast ended in about an hour.
After stuffing our stomach full with all the mouth watering dishes, my cousins and I went out to the backyard for some illegal business. By that, I meant lighting up firecrackers that are illegal in the country as they are known to be dangerous and could severely hurt a person. I always admire the ability of my cousins in obtaining these prohibited items in the country as one could be fined or even jailed for this illegal trading. Firecrackers had always been the best part of Chinese New Year’s Eve. A wise man once said “Never judge a book by its cover”. The cheap-looking firecrackers are often the best ones. A good firecracker should be deafening loud and blinding colorful. There is some history behind the tradition of playing with firecrackers during Chinese New Year.