[This is a long overdue post]

Almost two weeks has passed since the world celebrated Chinese New Year to welcome the Year of the Horse.  A year purported to bring about fast victories, unexpected adventure, and surprising romance. It is high energy and production is rewarded. It is a year to take a leap and fly. Quoted from an online source, it will be an excellent year for travel, and the more far away and off the beaten path the better.

Like every other year, we don’t celebrate Chinese New Year in our household and unlike our neighbouring countries, Thailand does not accord long public holidays over this period, too. Not every company is closed and some do remain opened as Chinese New year is considered as an additional public holiday granted by the companies at their own discretion.

Thus, it is easily missed as celebrations are not big like those being celebrated in Singapore like I remember it. The festivities are mostly concentrated in Chinatown and individual homes who celebrated New Year in a more symbolical way especially so for the Thai-Chinese with Chinese ancestral descent.

Even Spud’s school stayed open, but they had a theme where every student was required to wear red that day and because I had an off day, I decided o stick around for a couple of hours to watch the kids at play.

I remember that I used to get ang-paos (red packets filled with money in even numbers or “8” as a symbol of luck) whenever I visited a friend’s home. Tradition calls that as long as one is not married, one is entitled to get an ang-pao, no doubt, an occasion I had immensely enjoyed in my younger days.  These days, I have to be the one to give…although my kids would likely to be the ones getting their red-packets if we were to do our round of visiting our Chinese friends.

Chinese New Year is still symbolical and a very good friend of mine made sure that we did not forget it by sending over new clothes for the kids to mark this celebratory occasion. Squirt received a cool Chinese New Year outfit and I was only too happy to let him wear it on the first day of new year. With a smile on his face on the realization that he has a new outfit to wear, I thought he looked quite cute in it.

Like every other year, my wish for the new year has also been more symbolical more than anything. This year, however, my wish is more heart-felt with a sense of urgency for a smoother journey to an uncharted, yet ambitious success in my new career, a happy and healthy family life, good health and well-being and above all, wishing for all goodness all around because this time, my wish is not just for me, but stemmed from only one inherent desire in which I truly, really and genuinely want to help in whichever way I possibly can.

  Gong Xi Fa Cai!