A New Year, With Love
It’s been Chinese New Year weekend… filled with never-ending add-ons of did-I-mention food?
It’s been Chinese New Year weekend. For many of us, it is often filled with an abundance of food, meeting with family members, countless conversations, jokes, cheating on diets, and never-ending add-ons of did-I-mention food?
I was away from home the last two years, due to needing to complete my studies abroad (plus, the prices for flight tickets were ridiculous).
This year, I’m pretty grateful to say that I’m back home — that I’m able to have the people I love to be close by.
My aunt wore a shirt for day 1 of Chinese New Year that had a cartoon caricature of a cat’s turned back. She explained the significance of why she chose that particular shirt and it’s meaning to her. She shared cheerfully, “the cat’s back is turned, so that the rat can have its year!” To explain this in context, 2020 is the year of the Rat according to the Zodiac signs. When we get so busy and caught up by our daily lives, we don’t often question or really think of why we do things. We rank it normal for someone to be sporting a red shirt, as it’s in line with the superstitions of old. We don’t think so much of why people may be doing things, and what it means to them.
There’s always joy in small things. We talk a lot about success, making a name for ourselves, a conventionally steady and acceptable job, big money. We don’t verbalise as much about how we enjoy car ride conversations with our cousins, playing card games over and over because no one seems to be able to win, talking about life and how far we’ve come.
Let’s learn to appreciate these little things more.
There may be many things in our lives that are still unsolved, uncertain, and scary. But these little things gives us the push to continue one step at a time, and to live day-by-day.
