Batgung - Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year features

batgungAdmin — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 01:24:31 +0000

Since Chinese New Year is nearly upon us, here are some quick links to few CNY-related Batgung articles. You can learn how to handle giving out red pockets, here and here; and see what kinds of activities and special events are on tap here. MrB ruminates upon a particular CNY favorite here.

Happy CNY!

Chinese New Year activities in Hong Kong

Mr Tall — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:00:00 +0000

Another Chinese New Year has come around in Hong Kong, and it’s left me yet again with some mixed feelings. In that spirit, I’ve assembled a ‘thumbs-up/thumbs-down’ list of Hong Kong Chinese New Year stuff.

The flower markets. Perhaps the single most famous attraction in HK at CNY are its massive ‘Lunar New Year Fairs’, which everyone calls ‘flower markets’. The main event is held in Victoria Park in Causeway Bay, but there are about a dozen smaller flower markets scattered around the rest of Hong Kong. You can find a list of where they’ve been held in recent years at this Wikipedia page. All CNY flower markets will have hundreds of stalls selling fresh flowers, of course, but also lots of other CNY knick-knacks, foods, and so forth. I’m not a huge fan of the flower markets myself – I find them simply too crowded and claustrophobic – but obviously many other people think they’re great. If you’re looking to mainline your CNY holiday spirit, a flower market is definitely the way to go.

The fireworks. Hong Kong puts on a huge, 20-25 minute-long fireworks extravaganza on the evening of the second day of every CNY. They shot out right over the harbor, and if the weather’s reasonably clear it’s quite a sight (unfortunately many years it’s misty at CNY, so the effects are muted a bit). If you try to go up to the harborfront to see the show, you’ll definitely run into huge crowds, but I would recommend giving it a go if you’re new to Hong Kong. If you have a flat or office with a harbor view, or connections to someone who does, all the better!

The temples. If you’re interested in Chinese traditional religion, or are simply up for quite a spectacle, CNY is an excellent time to visit one of Hong Kong’s many Taoist or Buddhist temples. They are heaving with people looking to prepare themselves for the new year’s events and eventualities.

The CNY parade in Tsim Sha Tsui. I’ve never been to this myself, but I’ve seen highlights on TV, of course. This year’s parade clips featured a series of gyrating young females in a variety of no-doubt wholly authentic, but never the less skimpy, national styles of dress. I started thinking the whole event was crying out for a determined, extensive Batgung investigation next year. But then I talked to one of my colleagues, who has tried to see the parade both of the past couple years. She said people start lining up ridiculously early to try to get a view, so it’s nearly impossible to find a space on the street from which one can actually see anything. Both years she and her family left out of frustration and boredom long before the parade had ended.

The food. Oddly enough, given Hong Kong's well-deserved reputation as a gourmand's paradise, I find that Chinese New Year in Hong Kong is just not a great time for eating. For one thing, several of the traditional CNY dishes, such as the turnip and taro cakes (i.e. lou baat gou and lin gou, respectively) get pretty tiresome after just a couple servings, and if you're on the family-visitation circuit like me, you see them plenty. Also, since most families are busy moving around trying to carry out their official CNY visits (i.e. bai lin) mealtimes are often a bit chaotic, and you end up eating catch-as-catch-can. The only really good, serious meal is the CNY's eve dinner.

Visiting Hong Kong during CNY as a tourist. In the past, when asked if CNY was a good time to come to Hong Kong as a tourist, I’d answer with a fairly emphatic ‘No!’ Shops and restaurants were closed for at least three solid days, and the city felt strange and empty – everybody was illegally parked out in the public housing estates visiting Grandma (see above).

Well, these days nearly everybody’s still out in the estates during the CNY holidays, but quite a few people (unfortunately for them, perhaps) are stuck at work. The number of restaurants and shops that now open right off on the first day of the new year is quite amazing compared to the complete shutdown of just a decade or so ago. The common explanation for this is that the Asian financial crisis/overall HK economic meltdown of the late '90s/early 00's motivated many restaurant and shop owners to try to boost revenues through the reckless, desperate act of staying open for 364 or 365 days a year, instead of just 363. The bad economic times might indeed have been a catalyst, but I suspect there may have been quite a reservoir of pent-up demand, too. If you've done the rounds of bai lin to relatives’ overcrowded homes year after year, the prospect of getting out to a decent restaurant by dinnertime sounds like a kind of salvation. In any event, given the combination of at least decent things to do, and the more general availability of the usual services and amenities Hong Kong has to offer, CNY now seems like a quite interesting time to show up and have a look.

If you're interested in reading more about one of Hong Kong's CNY customs -- giving out red pockets -- you can do so here and here.

Chinese New Year decorations

batgungAdmin — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 13:31:01 +0000

More red pocket fun

Mr Tall — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 03:11:40 +0000

As I wrote in my previous article on giving red pockets, the Chinese New Year (hereafter 'CNY') lai see custom is great in some ways, but a bit of a socio-cultural minefield in others. Even after getting through 16 CNY's in Hong Kong, 11 of them in which I've been married and therefore responsible for giving out red pockets, there are still dilemmas to be confronted, and lessons to be learned. So here are three more . . .

The Denomination Designation Dilemma
Once you actually get down to stuffing your red pockets in preparation for CNY, you must confront a fundamental problem. You'll likely want to give different people different amounts in their red pockets, i.e. close family members and friends will rate more than the standard minimum of HKD20 you give to acquaintances, infrequently-encountered service personnel, and so on. To keep straight how much you're giving to whom, you'll likely decide to use different kinds of red pockets so you don't have to peek inside them all the time to see how much they contain as you're giving them out (bad form, that!). Given my rather literal and limited brain, this means I find it easier to put small bills in small, dull red pockets, and big bills in large, splashy ones. This works fine most of the time.

The problems start when you're at a large family gathering, and several other families are present. Yes, you're going to give out red pockets to all the kids/unmarrieds there, but some you have designated for rather substantial sums, while others fall back into the great $20 mass. And once you start giving out pockets, you've got to go around the room and finish the task -- it's not kosher at all to give some kids their pockets, while others stand there with starving puppy eyes.

But kids are (generally) not idiots, and their little brains are just as literal as mine: as you hand out your size-sorted pockets, the ones getting the pathetic little $20 numbers are likely to start whimpering, or blurt out 'Uncle gave me a little red pocket but he gave Cousin a big one!", or something even more disquieting.

So what do you do? I've seen people try to get around this problem by just using the same type of pocket for everybody. I've also seen these same people get ready to hand out the pockets, get a stricken look on their faces, then retreat to a bedroom to sort one-by-one through all their red pockets to re-establish how much is in each!

You might also try reverse psychology, i.e. putting the big cash in dowdy little pockets, and using veritable billboards of holiday good cheer for your HKD20s. Two problems here: First, are you going to be cool enough, in the heat of the moment, to trust yourself to implement this strategy flawlessly? I know I'm far too likely to revert to the obvious when the pressure's on. Second, assuming you do get it right, just think of what you're doing to all those kids who run home, open the huge red pockets they've been obsessing about all day, only to find limp $20 notes. I'm choking up right now feeling their pain.

You can also just brazen through the whole thing, and unapologetically give some kids nicer pockets than others. In the long run, I think this is the best bet: Children, an announcement: The world is not fair. The end.

The Myrmidons Multiplication Muddle
Here's something you'll notice within the first two or three days of CNY: your building's doorman/doorlady, and many of the other service people in your life, will suddenly change. You'll see lots of fresh, smiling new faces! Yes, some of them are no doubt filling in for regulars who are taking leave, but let's face it: most are rotating around to absorb the greatest possible number of red pockets. The solution here is easy: for Mrs Tall and me, if we haven't seen you in your post before, tough luck. It's just a smile and a 'Gung Hei Fat Choi' for you!

The Colleague's-Kid Conundrum
Here's a good one. One of your co-workers (almost always a see lai [i.e. a housewifey type]) decides, spontaneously of course, to bring her kids to the office, since they just happen to be on CNY holiday from school anyway, and of course since visiting Mommy's workplace -- and going around the whole office to blurt out 'Happy New Year" to every single one of Mommy's coworkers -- is such an enlightening and inspiring experience. Why, it's almost an internship, isn't it?

Whew, let me cool off for a minute.

Of course, this lai see-solicitation ploy is perfectly transparent to everyone involved, including the poor child. But there's no wiggle room here at all, really: you must hand over a pocket to maintain both good form and office peace. The good news is that since you're at work you're obligated to give only one pocket, and it most definitely can be one of those dull little ones.

So Happy New Year, everybody! And the best news is that in just a few days we can forget all about red pockets -- for another year, at least.

In the market at Chinese New Year

mrb — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:02:33 +0000

It's New Year's Eve, and all the preparations and tidying are in full swing. The street markets are busy selling flowers, and the red decorations to bring good fortune.

The veggie stalls are also busy, and you may have seen longer than normal Chinese cabbages for sale. MrsB tells me that if you follow the traditional approach, you shouldn't buy food in the first two weeks of the New Year. Hence the big cabbages, which last well. (And you thought you got sick of turkey after Christmas!)

Some stalls sell bundles of waxy green leaves. Those aren't for cooking, but for washing yourself with this evening.

There are also stalls selling brightly coloured rice-flour balls. They are red in colour, and covered in sesame seeds, and look quite appealing. At least I thought so the first year I was here. I bought one, and as I was about to bite it I thought I caught a snigger from a passer-by. I nearly broke my teeth trying to bite it! Older and wiser, I now recognise they can be very tasty - but only after they've been cooked...

Happy holidays,

MrB

Red pocket fun

Mr Tall — Fri, 15 Feb 2002 05:12:33 +0000

Chinese New Year is generally a time for rejoicing -- in three days of holiday from work, in the killer squid-and-pork, home-village-style dish my mother-in-law always makes, in seeing some of my favorite in-laws and in not seeing some not-so-favorite ones, and so on.

But there is a CNY problem that threatens to overshadow all of its joys: the dread red pockets, the scourge of the married man in a Chinese city.

Red pockets, for the uninitiated, are in one sense very simple. They're little crimson envelopes. The basic rules for their use are as follows. Red pockets are stuffed with money. Married people give them to unmarried people, especially children. They're to be handed out in the first 15 days of a new year.

Okay, that wasn't so bad -- it sounds just about like giving Christmas gifts, doesn't it? And the red pocket system has a certain clarity and directness that's actually quite refreshing. No sweaty hours spent ransacking shopping malls looking for 'perfect' gifts -- you just sit down for a few minutes on New Year's Eve and decide how much each person you'll be giving a red pocket to is worth to you.

Ah, if only it were really that simple. There are several unfortunate complications to red pocket disbursement:

1 You have to give them to lots of children you don't know.

2 You're supposed to give them to your adult friends and relatives who aren't married.

3 You may need to give them to your colleagues.

4 You really must give them to the service people in your life.

We'll just have a little look at each of these problem areas in turn.

The first problem with red pockets is that they're not just for your own offspring and your nephews and nieces and such -- you're more or less culturally bound to give them to any child who's shameless enough to waltz up to you and bawl out 'Kung Hei Fat Choy', i.e. 'Happy New Year'. In all honesty, this isn't likely to happen as you walk down the street. It will happen sooner or later, however, when you go visiting relatives, as I do with Mrs Tall. When you're at Uncle and Aunty Chan's flat, you're of course delighted to give their sprogs some fat red pockets. But just as you're about to leave, some relatives from the other side of the family -- i.e. the married-in side, who you literally have never laid eyes on before, and most likely never will again -- arrive with their five-strong spawn contingent. Well, it would be churlish to just blow past them with a shout of 'Happy New Year, almost-random strangers!'. No, you must dish out pockets to each and every youngster smirking at his good fortune.

Next we've got the problem of red pockets and grown-ups. The issue here is not really the money involved, since the amounts of these red pockets are usually small, but rather the implications of the act of red pocket-giving itself. This act draws attention to the fact that the giver is married, and the taker is not. In some situations this is no problem, but in others it can be more than a little uncomfortable.

Giving red pockets to colleagues combines problems 1 and 2: it can be both expensive and uncomfortable. If you're a manager or supervisor, you may well feel obligated to give quite substantial sums to those whom you supervise or even just outrank. And it's often hard in practice to decide how far your circle of disbursements should go: do you give to only the unmarrieds? If so, do you really remember who they are? Or do you give to everybody, and end up looking as if you're trying to be a big shot like the head of your department? Hmmmm. Many a potential headache here.

Finally, your eyes and memory must be finely-honed to overcome problem 4, giving red pockets to service people. For example, you must give your residential building's watchmen red pockets. You'll know this even if you're a newcomer to Hong Kong, since this is the one time of year you'll witness them actually looking at you and trying to smile. The problem is that since they've been glowering at the racing form every other time you've walked by, you can't remember what they actually look like. You've got to take an accurate mental picture of each one as you hand over the red pocket, and then make sure you don't leave any of them out, or you'll need to worry about Mr Unappreciated taking revenge in the coming year by issuing detailed burglary guides with your flat highlighted in fluorescent pink.

And this is only the beginning. I haven't even touched on the art and science of deciding who gets how much, and how to organize an array of red pockets with differing amounts in them, and how to avoid giving a $200 red pocket to a $20 recipient. That's all going to have to wait until next year!