Wow my very first ang pow!

A friend of my mum asked her to visit during Chinese New Year. Hence mum asked me to join along. With the day free, I decided to join in too. It was an interesting experience for me, as this was actually my first time visiting a Chinese house during the lunar new year.

This year is the year of the rat. Momentarily I remember the tale about the Zodiac origins of how the rat tricked the ox to finish the race first.

When we arrived, Iris, one of mum’s friends told us that it was a custom to give a pair of mandarin oranges to the oldest member of the house. Oranges symbolises gold as the word orange sounds like gold, in Chinese.

My venusaur protecting my gold

Inside, it was very lively with the chatter of the other visitors already inside. There were a plentiful of food and drinks. I looked around and there were a number of decorations such as calligraphy in bright red parchments. These were pasted on the walls and the doors. These was supposed to bring in wealth and luck.

And that was when the granny handed me the ang pow – little red packets with money inside. Ang pows are given from the married to the unmarried people. I’m not too sure why though. But being given the red packet made me surprisingly happy. I felt like a kid again during hari raya, being given our own green packets 🙂

After spending a lovely time snacking and talking with mum’s friends, we made our move. Interestingly enough, the host took out a box of oranges and asked us to take a pair. She said, “You’ve given us gold, so we are repaying you back with gold”

Those gold are going to go into my stomach 😀

Happy Chinese New Year everyone. Enjoy the wonderful weekends 🙂

You may be interested in :

• Hungry Ghost Festival
• Chinese Lion Dance
• Chingay Parade in Jurong