<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%"></TD><TD><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead vAlign=top><TD class=msgF width="1%" noWrap align=right>From: </TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>kojakbt89 <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>Feb-13 8:40 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"></TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>28571.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>Feb 13, 2010
Immigrants celebrate
Some 50,000 immigrants from different provinces in China now call Singapore home. How do they celebrate Chinese New Year here? Have they adapted to local customs or transplanted traditions from their homeland?
<!-- by line -->By Cai Haoxiang
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Ms Li Yanan (back row, fourth from left), with her staff and their families, watching CCTV's Spring Festival gala show last Chinese New Year's Eve at her flat in Tampines. -- PHOTO: COURTESY OF LI YANAN
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http://www.straitstimes.com/Insight/Story/STIStory_490060.html
JUST before the clock strikes 12 tonight, all eyes will be on a pile of more than 100 freshly cooked dumplings, or jiao zi, in the home of beauty and hair school owner Li Yanan.
As the Tiger year roars in amid the merry crackling sounds of an electronic firecracker, the guests - who include her 20 employees and their children - will reach out for the goodies spontaneously.
But they will not be wolfing them down. Instead they will chew slowly and carefully, for hidden within the fillings of selected dumplings are Singapore coins - 10 cents, 20 cents and a dollar.
Whoever bites into a coin will be greeted by a chorus of Gong Xi Fa Cai greetings from the happy, boisterous crowd. Whoever gets the dollar coin will be hailed as the luckiest.
Dumplings symbolise wealth as they resemble ancient Chinese gold ingots.
Strange as it may seem to Chinese Singaporeans, this is one Chinese New Year tradition that Ms Li, 40, has transplanted from her native city of Harbin, in wintry Heilongjiang province in north-east China, to sunny Singapore.
'Children, in order to find the coins, will eat as many as they can. Some people go through more than 10 dumplings without finding even one,' she says with a chuckle.
Ms Li came from China in 2002 and started her school, Sicta, in the Bugis district in 2003. She became a Singapore citizen in 2008.
Many of her employees, who train hairdressers and beauticians, are women from different parts of China - such as Guangzhou and Hunan provinces in the south and Liaoning province in the north-east.
'As they are here on their own and will be lonely during this period, I try to give them a feel of Singapore's festive atmosphere and get them to ru siang sui su (adapt to local customs and traditions),' she says in her crisp, clear Mandarin.
Since she started the school, the amiable woman with perfectly coiffured hair has been inviting her employees to her four-room HDB flat in Tampines every Chinese New Year's Eve.
They will go there in the morning to help prepare the food and decorate her home, pasting chun lian (Chinese couplets written on red paper) and setting up a figurine of Cai Shen Ye, the Chinese god of prosperity.
At six in the evening, the reunion dinner will begin with the typically Singapore Chinese tradition of tossing yu sheng, or raw fish salad, which is unheard of in China.
They will drink bai jiu, a potent Chinese rice wine, along with beer, wine and other types of liquor, and talk about the year that is about to end.
Some women will reminisce about how they celebrate the spring festival, or chun jie, back home, and share their feelings about the families they left behind.
Others will clear the air over misunderstandings of the past year to avoid any negative feelings from spilling over to the new year.
At 8pm, they will crowd around Ms Li's 42-inch television set to join hundreds of millions of Chinese all over China to observe a ubiquitous Chinese New Year tradition: watching China Central Television's (CCTV) annual Spring Festival gala show.
Since it was launched in 1982, the show has become China's undisputed No.1 media and social event.
It is a four-hour showcase of the best of Chinese talent, featuring an extravaganza of songs, dances and comedy skits. The show is deeply ingrained into Chinese society as an inseparable part of the Chinese New Year.
All over Singapore, many of the estimated 50,000 Chinese immigrants will gather to watch the show, streamed live on cable TV.
For Ms Li's gathering, the party has barely begun. The guests will eat gua zi (melon seeds) and peanuts while enjoying the show. People will start to sing and dance.
At 11pm, the group will start wrapping the dumplings. As the New Year approaches, the countdown begins: 'Five, four, three, two, one...'
At the stroke of midnight, someone will run to the electronic firecracker in the house and 'set' it off to ward off evil spirits. Then the dumplings are eaten and the coins coughed out. The party continues late into the night with mahjong games.
Ms Li's convivial get-together is an example of how new Chinese immigrants celebrate their New Year here. Far away from their families, they seek the familiarity of friends, bringing to mind the Chinese saying yuan qin bu ru jin lin (close neighbours are better than faraway relatives when help is needed).
Instead of ushering in the New Year with family members and relatives, they mark the occasion with colleagues, classmates, business contacts - and even their children's classmates, and school principals and teachers.
As Mr Tony Du, 54, president of new immigrant association Tian Fu Club, puts it: 'When I was in Sichuan, New Year celebrations revolved around the family. Now, my gathering is made up of friends from my various circles here. This is an effective form of integration.'
Lack of festive spirit
MANY new immigrants have adapted to Singaporean customs like yu sheng, local food and Chinatown visits.
But some cannot help feeling that the festival here somehow lacks the warmth and intensity found in China.
The cultural origins of the festival may be the same for Singapore and China with everyone wishing for prosperity but the ways of expressing the festival's philosophy differ, says Mr Zhu Ning, 45, owner of a company which provides cultural education for schools.
If the festivities appear lacking in spirit, he thinks it is largely because of the absence of firecrackers, which he argues are necessary to bring prosperity and chase away evil spirits.
Mr Zhu, who is from Jiangsu province, notes that there seems to be a richer gift-giving culture in China. People give one another cigarettes, alcohol, health supplements and large sums of money in red packets.
People also paste chun lian everywhere, even in bedrooms, but this does not seem to be the custom here, he notes.
When it comes to food, the Chinese go overboard, he relates.
In Singapore, there might be 10 to 12 courses in a typical restaurant meal. But in China, an 18-course meal is the minimum, with 30-course meals not out of the ordinary. 'The host will be embarrassed if people finish his food,' he says.
Business consultant Zhang Jizhong, 40, would love to recreate some of the Chinese New Year customs from his hometown in Singapore. But it is just not possible or practical.
Mr Zhang hails from Baotou city in Inner Mongolia where, every Chinese New Year's Eve, each family would build a coal or wood bonfire outside their home in a custom known as dui wang huo (making a roaring fire). The fire would burn for three days and nights.
Replicating this tradition here is out of the question as he lives in an HDB flat.
Just as inconceivable would be the New Year custom of riding a horse in a colourful costume to visit one family after another.
After bowing to his elders and being invited for drinks, Mr Zhang says, there will be songs, dances and horse races. Boiled mutton, or shou ba rou, an Inner Mongolian delicacy, will be served.
For some new immigrants, the memories of Chinese New Year spent in China are indelible.
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Immigrants celebrate
Some 50,000 immigrants from different provinces in China now call Singapore home. How do they celebrate Chinese New Year here? Have they adapted to local customs or transplanted traditions from their homeland?
<!-- by line -->By Cai Haoxiang
<!-- end by line -->
<!-- end left side bar -->
<!-- story content : start -->
http://www.straitstimes.com/Insight/Story/STIStory_490060.html
JUST before the clock strikes 12 tonight, all eyes will be on a pile of more than 100 freshly cooked dumplings, or jiao zi, in the home of beauty and hair school owner Li Yanan.
As the Tiger year roars in amid the merry crackling sounds of an electronic firecracker, the guests - who include her 20 employees and their children - will reach out for the goodies spontaneously.
But they will not be wolfing them down. Instead they will chew slowly and carefully, for hidden within the fillings of selected dumplings are Singapore coins - 10 cents, 20 cents and a dollar.
Whoever bites into a coin will be greeted by a chorus of Gong Xi Fa Cai greetings from the happy, boisterous crowd. Whoever gets the dollar coin will be hailed as the luckiest.
Dumplings symbolise wealth as they resemble ancient Chinese gold ingots.
Strange as it may seem to Chinese Singaporeans, this is one Chinese New Year tradition that Ms Li, 40, has transplanted from her native city of Harbin, in wintry Heilongjiang province in north-east China, to sunny Singapore.
'Children, in order to find the coins, will eat as many as they can. Some people go through more than 10 dumplings without finding even one,' she says with a chuckle.
Ms Li came from China in 2002 and started her school, Sicta, in the Bugis district in 2003. She became a Singapore citizen in 2008.
Many of her employees, who train hairdressers and beauticians, are women from different parts of China - such as Guangzhou and Hunan provinces in the south and Liaoning province in the north-east.
'As they are here on their own and will be lonely during this period, I try to give them a feel of Singapore's festive atmosphere and get them to ru siang sui su (adapt to local customs and traditions),' she says in her crisp, clear Mandarin.
Since she started the school, the amiable woman with perfectly coiffured hair has been inviting her employees to her four-room HDB flat in Tampines every Chinese New Year's Eve.
They will go there in the morning to help prepare the food and decorate her home, pasting chun lian (Chinese couplets written on red paper) and setting up a figurine of Cai Shen Ye, the Chinese god of prosperity.
At six in the evening, the reunion dinner will begin with the typically Singapore Chinese tradition of tossing yu sheng, or raw fish salad, which is unheard of in China.
They will drink bai jiu, a potent Chinese rice wine, along with beer, wine and other types of liquor, and talk about the year that is about to end.
Some women will reminisce about how they celebrate the spring festival, or chun jie, back home, and share their feelings about the families they left behind.
Others will clear the air over misunderstandings of the past year to avoid any negative feelings from spilling over to the new year.
At 8pm, they will crowd around Ms Li's 42-inch television set to join hundreds of millions of Chinese all over China to observe a ubiquitous Chinese New Year tradition: watching China Central Television's (CCTV) annual Spring Festival gala show.
Since it was launched in 1982, the show has become China's undisputed No.1 media and social event.
It is a four-hour showcase of the best of Chinese talent, featuring an extravaganza of songs, dances and comedy skits. The show is deeply ingrained into Chinese society as an inseparable part of the Chinese New Year.
All over Singapore, many of the estimated 50,000 Chinese immigrants will gather to watch the show, streamed live on cable TV.
For Ms Li's gathering, the party has barely begun. The guests will eat gua zi (melon seeds) and peanuts while enjoying the show. People will start to sing and dance.
At 11pm, the group will start wrapping the dumplings. As the New Year approaches, the countdown begins: 'Five, four, three, two, one...'
At the stroke of midnight, someone will run to the electronic firecracker in the house and 'set' it off to ward off evil spirits. Then the dumplings are eaten and the coins coughed out. The party continues late into the night with mahjong games.
Ms Li's convivial get-together is an example of how new Chinese immigrants celebrate their New Year here. Far away from their families, they seek the familiarity of friends, bringing to mind the Chinese saying yuan qin bu ru jin lin (close neighbours are better than faraway relatives when help is needed).
Instead of ushering in the New Year with family members and relatives, they mark the occasion with colleagues, classmates, business contacts - and even their children's classmates, and school principals and teachers.
As Mr Tony Du, 54, president of new immigrant association Tian Fu Club, puts it: 'When I was in Sichuan, New Year celebrations revolved around the family. Now, my gathering is made up of friends from my various circles here. This is an effective form of integration.'
Lack of festive spirit
MANY new immigrants have adapted to Singaporean customs like yu sheng, local food and Chinatown visits.
But some cannot help feeling that the festival here somehow lacks the warmth and intensity found in China.
The cultural origins of the festival may be the same for Singapore and China with everyone wishing for prosperity but the ways of expressing the festival's philosophy differ, says Mr Zhu Ning, 45, owner of a company which provides cultural education for schools.
If the festivities appear lacking in spirit, he thinks it is largely because of the absence of firecrackers, which he argues are necessary to bring prosperity and chase away evil spirits.
Mr Zhu, who is from Jiangsu province, notes that there seems to be a richer gift-giving culture in China. People give one another cigarettes, alcohol, health supplements and large sums of money in red packets.
People also paste chun lian everywhere, even in bedrooms, but this does not seem to be the custom here, he notes.
When it comes to food, the Chinese go overboard, he relates.
In Singapore, there might be 10 to 12 courses in a typical restaurant meal. But in China, an 18-course meal is the minimum, with 30-course meals not out of the ordinary. 'The host will be embarrassed if people finish his food,' he says.
Business consultant Zhang Jizhong, 40, would love to recreate some of the Chinese New Year customs from his hometown in Singapore. But it is just not possible or practical.
Mr Zhang hails from Baotou city in Inner Mongolia where, every Chinese New Year's Eve, each family would build a coal or wood bonfire outside their home in a custom known as dui wang huo (making a roaring fire). The fire would burn for three days and nights.
Replicating this tradition here is out of the question as he lives in an HDB flat.
Just as inconceivable would be the New Year custom of riding a horse in a colourful costume to visit one family after another.
After bowing to his elders and being invited for drinks, Mr Zhang says, there will be songs, dances and horse races. Boiled mutton, or shou ba rou, an Inner Mongolian delicacy, will be served.
For some new immigrants, the memories of Chinese New Year spent in China are indelible.
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