With Chinese New Year within sight, let’s look back in awe and relive our memories that we had back in the days!
With how times are changing, eventually traditions will change as well and it looks like things have already started to adapt in time.
Remember when you used to eat the Chinese reunion dinner back at someone’s home?
Nowadays you’d just be eating it at a restaurant most of the time.
Remember when you used to light those paper lanterns and hang out beneath the stars?
Now you’d be using plastic toy lanterns!
Remember when the city streets would be empty as everyone would “balik kampung”?
The streets in town are not as empty, aren’t they?
So, what changed?
Well, with modernization people tend to be more forgetful of the old ways, although not necessarily a bad thing as to live is to adapt and to adapt is to change, right?
But does that mean that Chinese New Year back then was better? Or is it does it still have the same festivities now as it did back then?
I personally think that Chinese New Year’s meaning aren’t forgotten but merely adapted to fit into this day and age as people live busy lives trying to make it out there, and for those that stay in the city? What if it’s because they no longer have anyone to go home to?
So before we reminisce about the “good ol’ days”, take a step back and evaluate what’s really different with the present day Chinese New Year as compared to say, 10 years ago?
Not much. You still eat reunion dinners, you still meet up with the family, you still get ang paus, you still wish each other blessings and although some customs may have been pushed aside, that doesn’t mean that they’re forgotten.
Happy Chinese New Year, now go spend some time with your family.
Header source from here.
