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Hokkien New Year

I know, it’s getting confusing. First there’s the Chinese New Year, which some also dubbed Lunar New Year and Spring Festival, which falls on the same day as the Vietnamese New Year (“Tet”). Then, separately, the ethnic group known as the Hokkiens (or Fujians) celebrate their particular new year on the 9th day of Chinese New Year in a ceremony that’s known as Bai Ti Gong. That’s literally “Praying to the Heavenly God”, and it occurs on his birthday.

Hokkien New Year

Hokkien New Year

My family mostly identifies ourselves as Hokkiens, following matrilineal practice passed down by my (paternal) great-grandmother. Funny that, considering my great-grandfather was actually Henghua yet pretty much nobody in the family speaks this dialect at all following the passing of my grandfather. Notwithstanding, both ethnic groups originated from the same region in China. I suspect there’s a lot more to know about family history if I am to really dig into it, but to keep things simple, I’m first and foremost a Hokkien, with a touch of Peranakan from Penang.

And so, for as long as I can recall, we always celebrate the birthday of the Heavenly God (except three years of mourning period following a death in the family) and it is deemed as important as the regular Chinese New Year. We would have spent all day on the eve of the celebration making all kind of preparation, including origami of joss papers into specific shapes of ingots, buying fruits plus a pair of sugar cane sticks as well as different “cakes”, cooking glutinous rice plate and preparing a multitude of dishes, and the pièce de résistance of the altar is a whole roasted pig.

Hokkien New Year

Hokkien New Year

Hokkien New Year

Hokkien New Year

As our family had just came out from the official mourning period, my grandmother decided celebrate the Hokkien New Year in a simpler and smaller scale. This year, we did not set up a full altar place at home and instead, we went over to a relative’s home and made our offerings together with theirs. Not only that, the components also altered slightly. Gone are all meat offerings and only fruits and cakes were presented on the altar.

Food offerings aside, there are also paper offerings, mostly consisted of joss paper in specific origami forms and also printed “robe” and “crown” for the Heavenly God. Nowadays, you could pretty much buy everything ready-made, and gone are the days where the entirely family sit together to fold the joss papers while chatting merrily to one another. While I am not a fan of burning paper offerings, I see how important the custom can be to hold families and communities together.

Hokkien New Year

Hokkien New Year

Hokkien New Year

I was hoping to document the celebration this year but the bad blogger in me forgot to tuck in a spare battery for my camera when we left our home to go to our relative’s. I managed to snap only a handful of shots before the camera gave up on me, and anything that I got on my phone was dark and blurry, given we started our prayer at midnight. Oh well…

My relatives also rounded up the prayer with blasts of firecrackers and fireworks. These pyrotechnic shows are technically illegal but if only you’ve seen the amount of fireworks I’ve observed since the eve of Chinese New Year… and I’ve been reliably informed that this level is actually a reduced one in comparison to previous years!



Category: Culture

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4 scribbles & notes

  1. med says:

    Best part is always the FOOD and of course the crazy fireworks which will be on almost the whole night ;)

    • Lil says:

      The fireworks were crazy! It used not to be like that, but of course my comparison has a 6-7 years gap :p

  2. Bee Ean says:

    Yes, I love to celebrate this event.
    Btw, thanks again for the raclette cheese, my family loved them.

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