Chinese New Year in Kuala Lumpur!

Dearest Friends,

I am so happy to be writing to you as it has been such a LONG time since I last sent you an update, and I have lots of stories to share!!

But I must tell you that this past week and the week before, I have been missing home a little bit. It was family day long-weekend and Reading Week at Western so my brother was at home with my parents doing fun things with them like watching movies, eating cookies that Marissa made, driving around in an Audi because Jalesh got the car rear-ended...good job Jalesh... and I was so missing! On top of that, can you believe that I am actually missing the snow, ESPECIALLY when y’all take pretty pictures of snow covering things/snow falling in pretty places (like Montreal) and then instagram them. You may look at my instagram feed and get a little jealsies, but I’m feeling the same way looking at yours!

Anyway, this week I wanted to tell you about what it’s like to experience Chinese New Year in the land of the Chinese people...(ok it’s not China but there are nuff Chinese people here too). First of all, I don’t know if I mentioned this but it is the year of the snake which is MY YEAR! So it’s really cool that it is my year the year that I am in ASIA!

So as I told you before, Kuala Lumpur was totally painted red. There were red Chinese lanterns hanging from every mall and every other house, and red lights up all around the city. Even whilst in Penang, there were rid lights and lanterns EVERYWHERE. Boxes of mandarin oranges and yummy shortbread cookies appeared in our office kitchen every day and everyone was abuzz with Chinese New Year plans.

I, too, had plans for Chinese New Year, but much simpler plans than everyone else. Since we got an EXTRA long weekend (Sat, Sun, Mon & Tues), non-Chinese people travel to some lovely Asian island while Chinese people travel back to their home towns. The thing is, because everyone is traveling, it’s not the cheapest time for booking flights and many hostels and hotels are fully booked. This was okay for me though, because I wanted to stay in KL and experience Chinese New Year from the perspective of a family celebrating! My co-worker, Lin, invited me to her family’s Chinese New Year open house, where all of her family gets together to eat, drink and gamble!

I think you can guess whose house this is....

So on Monday around noon, we walked over to Lin’s house and shortly after, Lion dancers showed up at Lin’s front gates. Her family lit dozens and dozens of fire crackers and the Lion dance group played drums and cymbals as they lions danced through Lin’s house, blessing it with wishes for prosperity (just fyi, I am not an expert in Chinese traditional practices/culture... and most things are done for prosperity so this MOSTLY a guess....). The Lion dance was a loud and elaborate spectacle and really interesting to watch because each lion is controlled by two individuals who have to be extremely coordinated to make the lion dance. The lion also goes around ‘eating’ things like heads of lettuce and pineapples so I literally have no idea how the dancers managed to hold them inside the lion with them while manipulating the lion its self.

ROAAAAR

wraw. 

After the lion dance, we enjoyed a massive meal with Lin’s family and friends. One of the things that they do before they eat is bring out a huge plate with noodle-type-things and raw seafood. Then, everyone is instructed to put their chopsticks into the huge plate, all at the same time, and try to lift and mix the noodles as high as possible. The higher you lift the noodles, and the more messy you make it, (you guessed it) the more prosperous you will be.

Noodles & Prosperity!

After stuffing ourselves with Nasi Lemak, fried chicken and tiramisu just DRIPPING in rum, we tried to gamble with Lin’s friends. Notice how I said ‘tried’. The game was blackjack, and at our table, the minimum bet was 5 RM (this is $1.66). So I happily put in my 5 RM and within 2 seconds, the money was taken from me because someone else WON something. I didn’t even look at my cards. I had noo idea what had just happened. I was UBER confused and decided that gambling was NAAAATTTT my thing. After this, I decided it would be wise to watch (why I didn’t think of doing this before I played, I do not know). I soon figured out that they were playing blackjack with about 15 additional rules such as if you can hit 7 times and still be under 21, you win 3 times your bet. If you draw a 15, you have to double your bet, kill your cards and pick up 2 more sets of two, increasing your chances of getting 21.

intense FOCUS.

NOW DO YOU SEE WHY I WAS SO CONFUSED? After learning the rules.... I still didn’t play but helped by co-worker win some $$ and overall, it was lots of fun.

After some gambling, I thanked Lin and her mother for a wonderful day and headed out to see one of the largest Chinese Buddhist temples in KL called the Thean Huo Temple, to see everything that happens on Chinese New Year and to see all the pretty red lanterns.

This temple was beautiful! There were thousands of red lanterns, tons of stalls with shiny golden pinwheels and lots of people praying and collecting their fortunes at the temple. 

Thean Huo Temple - Bangsar, KL

I also got my fortune! What you do is grab a bunch of plastic sticks. You pull them into the air and then drop them into a metal cylinder. All the sticks will sink to the bottom but one will stay above the rest. This stick as a number on it so you match the number to the numbered fortunes, and that there, is your fortune! What was my fortune?? THAT’S A SECRET.

I absolutely loved seeing people dressed in red and white, lighting their incense, praying to their ancestors and deceased relatives and getting their fortunes. It was like my Religions of East Asia class coming to life!

All in all, it was a lovely Chinese New Year. I got to experience it from the perspective of a family that celebrates and parties, from the religious perspective, and from the perspective of someone who doesn’t celebrate and lies in her bed at night listening to firecrackers go off for 14 days straight :-P.

But seriously – love that my Asian adventure is finally giving me some cultural experiences! The saddest thing though, is that all my pictures are TRAPPED on my camera until further notice because I didn’t bring the TRANSFER WIRE WITH ME. But I am soon taking a trip to Singapore, at which point I will obtain the technology I need and you will be inundated with my photos.

More about this past week’s trip to Ipoh later!  MUCH LOVE!