Features and blogging

Today (Feb 12) marks the lunar new year of the ox. By this time last week I’d already hung my red ribbon of lucky Chinese characters above the window in our front room. For a week I’ve been using Chinese New Year facts to introduce myself in networking meetings. I’ve piled a huge pyramid of oranges in the fruit bowl, I’ve a pineapple ready for an attempt at homemade tarts, and a Lo Hei salad on order for a ritual noodle toss. I’m all set – or I was.
Chinese New Year traditions are something we became accustomed to when we lived in Singapore. The interest runs in my husband’s side of the family, as his mother was Chinese Malay. But we don’t live in south east Asia any more and the distance is starting to show, even more so now we can’t travel or meet people in person. It’s all feeling a bit remote.
The other day I walked into the room where the banner is and tried to open our wooden blinds, but the dangling characters got in the way, so I considered taking the whole thing down. After all, no one else in our street has a big red banner hanging in the window. Not visibly, anyway.
There are no red lanterns hanging outside people’s doorways, no orange trees in condo gateways, no paper pineapples bobbing in the breeze. No public holiday plans to fly off and visit relatives, no need to listen to gong xi gong xi on repeat in every shop. For any of that I’d have to jump on the tube and head to Chinatown, and that’s not about to happen. We could build it into our weekend step-count but that’s a lot of steps just to see a lion dancing in the street. And if lots of us have the same idea then that’s a crowd and, well… plague etc.
Then I remembered a funny story from when I was working alone in our office on Singapore’s Orchard Road. I overheard the crash of a lion dance somewhere outside our door. Popping my head into the communal corridor door expecting to see a huge puppet dancing to the sound of drums, I instead found a group of workers dragging a massive metal filing cabinet down the hall.
My husband had a similar experience last year when he sold our huge metal barbecue and had to push it down the street to meet the buyer. He said: ‘It made such a din it sounded just like a lion dance. If I’d been in Singapore I’d have pulled quite a crowd.’
These comical references are important reminders of how major cultural events can stick around. The knee-jerk reactions remind us that we are, in fact, hardwired to recognise all those cultural nuances, and never forget them. The day we stop jumping at the sound of a clanging metal cabinet will be the day we’ve forgotten all about our life in south east Asia – never, basically.
Since the gloom of last week I’ve remembered all that, and changed tack. I bought in all my CNY stuff, accepted an invite for an online noodle night with friends in Singapore. I’ve another call with friends in the UK and yet another with a mixture of friends who live here and there. I’ve found some old hong baos (red packets) ready to fill with notes for our boy (how much will be in direct correlation to revision time).
It is entirely possible to celebrate CNY remotely no matter where we are. So the banner is staying up, and I might even get a bigger one and drape it over the front door.

Gong xi fa cai!