There is one full day left before the start of Lunar New Year in Hong Kong. I’m not sure that is enough time for me. I want to clean the house some more before it becomes bad luck to sweep the floors. I want to clean Goldie’s mom’s house some more, that’s even more fun! I want to get a haircut because I really need it and it’s also bad luck to cut hair after the beginning of the new year. I want to buy flowers at the night market, but you have to go at 2am for the really good deals and we’re going to Macau early the next morning. And I don’t even know if I’m ready to go to Macau!
If you remember, last New Year’s was the first time I met Goldie’s parents. That was probably more stressful than this year’s trip to Macau, but I also had spent a few months preparing and thinking about it beforehand. This New Year has kinda snuck up on me. Just a couple weeks ago, Goldie’s parents started talking about going to Macau where some of the extended family lives. Of course, I kept my mouth shut and didn’t make any assumptions. When Goldie said “We’re going to Macau,” I had to ask if that “we” was inclusive or not. Her response was pretty blunt, “Well, of course, we’re are not going to leave you here alone!” That was a nice warm and fuzzy moment. And so I forgot about the details of *why* we’re going to Macau for the next couple of weeks.
Tonight Goldie’s father came over for dinner at our flat. Although the three of us often eat together in the neighborhood, this was the first time we entertained someone at home! Goldie cooked up a delicious meal and I got stuck in traffic on the way home. But the timing worked out well enough. We had just enough space on our small folding table to have a meal for three. But if we didn’t have the step ladder, we wouldn’t had have enough seats! Yeah, our house is still pretty humble.
Anyways, it was fun to have someone over for dinner. Plus, we just got our New Year’s decorations put up. Goldie bought a paper kumquat tree just for me (because the real ones are a little too big for the house). And she wrote couplets for the door: (translation) “May you achieve all your hearts’ wishes” and “May you have the spirit of the dragon and horse (good health)” Most people nowadays just buy these lucky phrases on red paper at the supermarket. They are mass-produced and a little gaudy in my opinion, some even have Hello Kitty or Mickey Mouse all over them. I wanted to get hand-made ones in the very traditional sense of just calligraphy on red paper. So Goldie herself made beautiful ones for our humble abode.
Anyways, during dinner we got on the logistics of getting to Macau. I soon realized that I don’t even know what people I will be meeting there. After dinner, I brought this up to Goldie and she started listing to me the different relatives while I tried to remember all the forms of address. (For my friends out there who don’t know: Chinese kinship terms are incredibly rich! Each person basically gets a unique address based on whether they are related by blood, male or female, older or younger, maternal or paternal, etc.) By the time I asked Goldie, “So what are we going to say to them? What’s our story going to be?” she got a look of dread. Suddenly, she realized that we are about to meet several members of the extended family and have no answer to the first of the many inevitable questions that will come out: “How did you two meet?” We tried to start working out a story, but Goldie got overwhelmed by it and fell asleep. So now I’m working on formulating our story. I got 24 hours to come up with something easy enough for me to explain in Cantonese and informative enough so they won’t keep asking for more details.
We also have the interesting complication that we’ve already told Goldie’s mom one version of the “story.” In fact, it’s a pretty funny story. Last year, at New Year’s Eve dinner, Goldie’s mom asked me the million dollar question. Goldie knew trouble was brewing and immediately said “At work,” got up from the table, and went to the kitchen. Her intention was to end the conversation right there, but it didn’t work. I was alone and Goldie’s mom was looking at me confused, “Work?” Well you all know I can’t tell a lie, so I just mustered up my courage and said (in Mandarin), “We met on the Internet.” I cringed and waited for the next set of questions, but her mom’s face just became more confused. Here, I must interject some linguistic explanations so you can appreciate what came next. In Mandarin, the word “Internet” is pronounced as “wang shang” but in Cantonese it would be “mong seung.” It’s similar but still pretty different. It doesn’t help that Cantonese has other words that sound much closer to “wang” and usually speakers can’t hear the difference between “sh” and “s”. When Goldie came back out (hoping that this discussion was long over already), her mom turned to her and asked “Where is Yellow Mountain (wong san)? When did you go there?” Somehow, Goldie managed to ignore these questions and the conversation eventually changed topics. But to this day, Goldie and I don’t know if her mother is still wondering where Yellow Mountain is. Anyways, this makes for a great Chinese joke…but it’s not all laughs. I’m seriously worried there is going to be a lot of questions this Sunday that will make me fidget and blush uncontrollably. I’m the world’s worst liar. And I won’t be able to just pretend I don’t understand any Cantonese, because a number of relatives can speak some English according to Goldie.
But I still wouldn’t trade anything for having her family treat me so well. I know these sometime awkward moments are really wonderful blessings. In Hong Kong, it’s not uncommon at all that being gay is grounds for being completely disowned from the family. Knowing this, I expected Goldie and I would be keeping pretty low profile in Hong Kong and around her parents. When I first met Goldie’s parents, I never expected that I would get homemade Sunday dinners, standing invitation to family celebrations, lectures about how to properly make money from English tutoring, admonishments to keep my back straight or else end up like those old ladies on the street, and more. And according to the “official records,” I’m just Goldie’s good friend. It still makes me scratch my head sometimes because I don’t quite know all the implicit conditions of this social contract we have. But regardless, it’s working. I feel like I have a second family here in Hong Kong. And that’s a damn nice thing, because it’s so easy to feel like an outsider here.
So I’m enjoying the holiday season all over again. The markets on the street below my house have converted as much space as possible to the auspicious flowers and plants for New Year’s like kumquat trees, yellow gourds, orchids, and narcissus. The residential buildings are all decked out and you can see many people coming home with big bags. The stores are selling special gift boxes which includes the classic gift of Ferro Rocher chocolates and novelty gift packs like Oreo cookies. I’ve been trying to do the math to figure out which Ferro Rocher gift pack is the best deal. I’ve determined that the stores are pretty crafty…buying the biggest one won’t be the cheapest. Right, there are also fruit baskets, XO sauce, etc. if you don’t like chocolate that much.
Another very interesting thing about Chinese New Year’s is that it is celebrated differently all around greater China. Earlier today, my Taiwanese classmate was explaining why her family is going to make her wait in the airport an extra two hours. Her flight to Taiwan leaves 11:30pm New Year’s Eve from Hong Kong. But in Taiwan many families will countdown to midnight so they can give blessings to the god that watches over the family. According to tradition, every year the god goes back to heaven to report on the family. So the family makes sure to pray and give offerings of candy so the god will say sweet things about them. Anyways, her family has to finish the ceremony before they can pick her up from the airport. So she’ll be spending some extra time waiting for them. Our classmate from Beijing was taken a little aback by this tradition and considered it a “feudal society superstition.” Yes, that’s a set phrase in Mandarin. I think it’s safe to say this viewpoint comes from mainland’s recent history (including the Cultural Revolution) and the resulting “new culture.” But also, we marveled over the fact that north and south China are remarkably different in spiritual beliefs. In southern provinces and most notably Hong Kong/Taiwan, most homes and businesses have an altar to give offerings to the gods. But I rarely saw this in Chengdu and even less so in Beijing.
Nevertheless, it seems there is one thing that is pretty universal in New Year’s: fish. There is a well known phrase “May every year have abundance” that is sounds identical (or nearly so) to “May every year have fish.” These types of homophones are the root of many traditions in Chinese culture. It’s the reason why 4 is an unlucky number (sounds like death) and people eat a type of seaweed that is hard to digest (sounds like the phrase for getting rich). And it so happens that the phonology of Chinese (the sounds of Chinese — what I’m researching) leads to a lot of homophones. So I know no matter what happens, I should be eating some fish on Sunday.
