CNY Celebration: The First Day

Song of the day:

Buckcherry
“Sorry”

“Most importantly, the first day of Chinese New Year is a time when families visit the oldest and most senior members of their extended family, usually their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents.

Some families may invite a lion dance troupe as a symbolic ritual to usher in the Lunar New Year as well as to evict bad spirits from the premises. Members of the family who are married also give red packets containing cash to junior members of the family, mostly children and teenagers.

While fireworks and firecrackers are traditionally very popular, some regions have banned them due to concerns over fire hazards, which have resulted in increased number of fires around New Years and challenged municipal fire departments' work capacity. For this reason, various city governments (e.g., Hong Kong, and Beijing, for a number of years) issued bans over fireworks and firecrackers in certain premises of the city. As a substitute, large-scale fireworks have been launched by governments in cities like Hong Kong to offer citizens the experience.”

That’s what wikipedia says about the first day of Chinese New Year.

Well, my version is almost similar, and I’ve already told you about the firecrackers part.

Basically, the first day of my CNY celebration was in Johor Bahru and thus it tends to be a bit boring.

Why?

Easy. Many Chinese in Johor Bahru are basically not from Johor Bahru.

Most of my friends aren’t even in J.B. for CNY celebrations.

So there were only a few things that can be done:

Eat, drink, watch TV, gamble, and of course, play mahjong *Evil Grin*

Fortunately, I’ve a guest on the first day of CNY.

Thanx to Jin Chong for remembering me! :D

He visited me and we chatted and watched a few Hong Kong movies while checking out for timeslots for movies in cinemas.

To bad I can’t go in the last minute as I had to go to the temple to pray.

Temple trip = must go for me.

And that was around 8 something at night.

The temple is still so beautiful and sophisticated, and is definitely a place where peace really exists.

I pray for basically everyone whom I really cherish such as my family, my godsister (Tong), my friends and of course me.

I just really wish from KuanYin Goddess that my problems such as hair loss and constipation would be better in the new year.

Well, after that, it’s the infamous “Lye Family Mahjong Battle”.

We played mahjong before and after we went to temple for prayers and the scoreline was basically as follows (subject to changes):

Dad won 8 games; Kelvin and Lanvin won 6 games; and Benjamin (my cousin) won 3 games.

Take a look at how the “Lye Family Mahjong Battle” went.



Oh well, that’s about it.

I know it might not be as interesting as it should be, but hey.. at least there was peace and harmony. :D

Next up, CNY Celebration: The 2nd Day with picture galore. :D

Previous: CNY Celebration: The Beginning