Ann Hui Ching
In a typical chu yi, my family would brave hours in traffic standstill at the border to travel from Singapore to Malaysia. First, we would have tuan yuan fun with my father’s 8 siblings and their families in Batu Pahat, a rapidly urbanising coastal town in Johore, the southernmost and largest state of Malaysia, where my father grew up. The next morning, we would once again brave the jams, along the smoothly paved highways parting through rolling hills of palm trees in grids up to Kuala Lumpur, the nation’s capital, where my mother grew up and fire crackers, illegal in Singapore, often jolt me up from sleep. For a trip enacted for kinship, this northward migration is not pleasant. Yet, not being able to perform this obligation this year, still feels wrong.
This year, I spent my Chinese new year (as it is colloquially referred to in Singapore) instead, oddly, mostly with my father. In joyless Singaporean fashion, I have medical school finals the week after chu yi, while my brother, an events manager, is too busy helping other people celebrate instead. Worst, my popo, my only remaining grandparent, contracted COVID-19 from a hospital admission related to her underlying cardiac failure. My mother made the journey we would have usually made as family, this time instead on a 30minute long flight. Thankfully, my popo has recovered well.
My family is not alone. There are almost 1 million Malaysians in Singapore, which has a population of 5 million. This figure excludes families like mine, who have given up Malaysian passports the colour of oxidised blood to become citizens of Singapore, a country of economic opportunity, our passports still red, just fresher.
Ann Hui Ching is a penultimate year medical student at the National University of Singapore, and an aspiring reconstructive surgeon-writer. She was a visiting student at Yale College in 2018. Previously, she won the Singapore Young Photographer Award (2017) and the Royal Commonwealth Society Photographic Awards (2011). She is the host of Third Spacing(@thirdspacing), a podcast that aims to connect social issues to the practice of medicine.
In perhaps the epitome of the Singaporean self-inflicted workaholism, final exams are only a week after chu yi. It might be Chinese New Year, but one still has to work through at least part of it.
Since my family usually does the visiting, instead of being visited, we are sorely inexperienced in putting up CNY decorations. Though, the Fu, printed on a paper shopping bag, should probably be flipped over, to represent wealth that has arrived.
My father does not usually cook in the family, but this year, without my mother’s labour, he figures a way out to cook a hotpot dinner. It is somewhat eclectic, with Ikea meatballs. But as my father explains, the meatballs represent 地, or earth, the fish represent 海, or sea, while the chicken wings represent the sky, 天. Miraculously, not only was the hotpot dinner edible, it was delicious.
My father tried his hand at baking fish, with durian, a pungent fruit native to South East Asia, the next day. Here, he’s a good sport in posing. Fishes at Chinese New Year, often reminds me of how long it took primary school aged me to be able to write 年年有余, a phrase meaning hoping there is excess every year, instead of 年年有鱼, which means there are fishes every year.
For lunch on chu er, we have yusheng, a South Chinese dish with raw fish, alongside 7 different condiments, which is supposed to represent, and be said along the 7 different wishes for the year. This yusheng was bought from Don Don Donki, a popular Japanese supermarket chain.
As with many other national dishes, there is pointless, but entertaining, dispute as to whether yusheng originates from Malaysia or Singapore.
My brother puts up a light display on a public housing wall in my neighbourhood. This year, according to the law, large gatherings are not allowed, and no more than 8 can meet in a private resident at a time.
My father’s younger sister has also moved to Singapore. This year, according to tradition where the younger siblings visit the family of older siblings, her family visits mine.
My father makes a WeChat call to his distant cousin in Chao Zhou. Up till this call, I hadn’t realised I still had family in China.
My grandmother is not known for her affection, but this year after sustaining and recovering from multiple hospital admissions for heart failure and fractures, she shapes her fingers into a heart. Though, from my WhatsApp screen, it looks more like a mandarin orange.