Year of the Big Meow

I was home for the Lunar New Year, pretty much to spend my time resting as much as possible before returning to the rat race at the city. Life is a little more relaxed here with the hustle and bustle nowhere near as bad the hectic 24/7 life at KL. It's never too busy here and never too laidback either with things to do at all times, depending on whaty you fancy.

The journey back was pretty uneventful except for the issue of flight status updates at the airport which was malfunctioning, causing people to stand in front digital boards wondering why are the check-in counters open yet even when it's less than an hour and a half to departure. Thankfully the helpful people at the information counter relayed to me the correct gates to check in. Met an old classmate who took the same flight whom were as groggy as I was that morning thanks to the lack of sleep - I was at the airport at a little past 4.30 am.

It took quite some willpower not to bark at the check-in officers at the gate when they had to put on a show speaking to one another when queried about the problem with updates, correcting one another on the number of times they called support. I couldn't care less about how many times they bugged the people manning the digital boards, a simple "We're sorry about the inconvenience. The technical crew is working on it" is more than sufficient compared to " we've called them ten times yeah? No idea what happened there, it's still going on after we called them ten times".

Who's keeping score?

Life has gotten a little more busy of late with the festivities et al, the number of people in town seemed to rise dramatically compared to just a year ago. You have traffic jams now in town, though not as amazing as the ones on the Federal Highway every evening. Business and commerce is bustling with shoppers everywhere buying everything, pretty much to prepare for the upcoming celebrations.
 
I was out in town with Bro to shop for clothing and my instinct to wait until I was home paid off - every single year I went for clothes shopping in Miri because I happen to prefer the kind of cuts and designs available and get this, the sales would often render expensive brands to less than three digits in pricetag - something I don't see very often in KL considering the price war is supposed to be a lot fiercer there. Perhaps it's because I didn't go out often enough there, but I have been out for window-shopping during sales before and heck, what we have in Miri ain't chopped liver. Furthermore I don't have to fight for walking and breathing space although the number of shoppers has increased and a lot of the designs are nice enough to suit my tastes.

My cousin made an observation which I was about to talk to him about regarding the city apart from the increasing number of people - the sudden spike in the number of attractive women wondering about the place in just a single year. To quote his comment, it was as if they all took a study trip to KL or Taiwan on grooming and came back just in time for the New Year. I suppose many came back from KL or Singapore for the celebrations but that doesn't quite explain the ones taking care of shops.

If there's anything that doesn't change, the guys with spiky, ruffled hairs ala Cloud Strife are still around even if it makes them look no different to one another. A bit of highlight here and there, they still don't look any unique to the other guys who just passed by. I suppose no one is immune to cultural influence - I tried to copy Clark Datchler's prep hairstyle, while Bro did the Vanilla Ice eons ago. Nowadays to us, anything practical and easy to take care is the best.

The old barber's shop that I frequent throughout my life relocated again, now at the corner next to the old bazaar. They had six chairs now instead of four with all of it fully occupied when I dropped by, perhaps from the influx of people wanting to have their hair cut before the New Year or simply because business was getting better. I only recognised one of them now, the plump man who has been there for as long as I've had my hair cut, while the rest were people I didn't know with one youngish fella with them.

Apart from a few visits to the houses of I have not been to for ages - we spent the last few New Years away from town - it's pretty uneventful here nowadays. My parents are a little older now that they only visited close relatives & friends whilst skipping houses of others. It's also pretty hot, a big change from the flood infested of the year before, so not many of us are that enthusiastic about going out to visit houses. Gone were the days when we went from house to house in consecutive days (and raking up red packets).

It's the price we pay for a town's maturisation into a city I suppose. The busier it is the less for people to meet up unless at work, things slowly become a little more impersonal with the number of unrecognised faces increasing daily so we stick more with the ones with identify the most with.

As I type this a second lion dance troupe is making its round in the neighbourhood, the first one waking me up at the 'ungodly' hours of 8.30 am with their ching-chang and drum beats right downstairs. The family no longer appreciates lion dances like we used to - my parents probably can't tolerate the loud noise whilst I've grown cynical about 'blessings' from paper mache lion heads. I guess it's a matter of perspective now - what was fun back then isn't much so nowadays.

Undeniably, superstition plays a big part in what was supposed to simply be the ushering of the new lunar calendar year. "Do not sweep the floor during CNY or you'll sweep away all the fortunes", heard of this one before? My family has never believed in all that, I've always wondered how did things like these become as ingrained in tradition as it is in superstition. Take for instance the term 'guo nian' and firecrackers; legend has it that a monster named Nian terrorised a village in China during ancient times and were chased away by the loud noises made from explosives and clanging of metal pots & pans - how many people still believe in that nowadays?

To me the tradition to usher in the first day of New Year with firecrackers has the same logic of claps or cheers during any occassion - it's a declaration of happiness, a celebration, approval. Now that makes sense, 'Nian' however, doesn't.

I had a small chat with some colleagues in the office many weeks ago about the word 福 being suspended downwards at some houses as a symbolism of the pouring of fortune from the heavens. I asked the origin of this practice and predictably nobody gave me any good reasons except that one won't know unless they try it and it costs nothing to have it put upside down - people do so because it is a symbolism. I then ventured to the idea of turning the word gold 金, money 钱 or even health 康 the same way, but was told that people don't do so because it's not a tradition.

Tradition.

I often wonder who sets these traditions as acceptable or not anyway? Why would a reversely suspended word gold not mean the same as suspended word fortune? Why won't it be intepreted as 'downturn of fortune' instead of pouring fortune?

Well, to quote Mom, it's fine to believe in the influence of the stars and cosmos in our lives, as long as it doesn't blind you from what is true. What is true, you might ask? It can mean many things, from one's principle, to science to religion. It's ok to suspend the word fortune upside down but it's wrong to think that will be the key to success or lack of.

Whatever it is, I'll still enjoy watching people blasting fireworks of multicolours up in the sky on the midnight of new year's eve or buy pork jerky to munch on, but they will be nothing else to me but things for celebration instead the celebration itself.

Happy Year of the Tiger 2010.