Traditions

When I was young ( oh very much young), we marked the passing of the year by festivals. It was a long wait from festival to festival - from Chinese New Year, then the Chang (Dumpling) Festival, followed by Moon Cake Festival and then Mid-Winter Festival. ( Even Hari Raya and the Puasa month was much anticipated) Each festival has its own kind of food and special celebrations that goes with it. There would be a flurry of preparations - the cooking and the comings and goings of neighbours as each family would bring over their special kuehs and biscuits. Chinese New Year was highlighted by the angpows and firecrackers. (we used to throw them at each others' feet - as a dare). Chang comes in different flavours. Mooncake festival was celebrated with lots of lanterns - followed by lantern procession round the village and then there would be a tea party outside - just to enjoy the moon. Mid-Winter was the round balls in sweet syrup. All of us had to participate in the rolling of the glutinous rice balls. Sometimes we were naughty and make them square - and receive earful of scoldings from grandma.

I remember one beautiful custom that we practiced. The Coming Of Age at 15 years. When each child reached 15 years, my mother would give the special child a new set of pajamas to sleep in. The next morning, the lucky boy/girl was given a flower bath or face wash. After that, the special child would be served a special breakfast - consisting of something sweet, something sour, something hard, something soft etc like rice cakes (kao), sesame candy, peanut brittle, red dates, melon candy and some other sour and bitter stuff. All these food have some significance and symbolic. I watched the whole procedure when my 2nd sister , Alicia turned 15 and I couldn't wait for my turn - you were treated like a queen for a day!!

Alas, in today's society, much of the traditions and cultural practices have been discarded. I wish I had the foresight to practice the coming of age ritual - just for fun. Anyway, I did try to cultivate our own family tradition. One of them is Christmas - every year, it has been a tradition for the children to decorate the tree. Wonder they could do it this year. Then of course, the Christmas dinner and the church service and carols. For Chinese New Year, it was Paul who faithfully scout around to get me the best branch to decorate the plum flowers. We would have friends over to share the New Year lunch. When the children were young, we did have lantern procession with the neighbourhood kids in Taman Kim Leng. Rolling and eating the glutinous rice balls was a practice I did try to preserve.

Of course we had other rituals - the nightly story-telling and the prayer sessions as the children gathered around us each night - until they refuse to pray !! But it was good - we treasure each moment with the children. I hope when they set up their own families, they would create meaningful traditions for their families too.