The CNY Cycle

Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Despite having reality staring straight at your face, you can’t help but wanting a CNY that was in the past. Oh well, waking up early in the morning feeling grumpy, unsatisfied because you’re deprived of sleep and long drives to everywhere to visit everyone is the thing of the past now. Now, CNY is very much different, more or less the way I wanted it when I was young. No more waking up early and certainly no more driving around the entire island trying to visit everyone while the radio is playing CNY songs that you don’t understand. I think as you get older, CNY becomes simpler and then it fluctuates up and down.

For instance, when you’re young, CNY is all about visiting strangers relatives, reunion dinners and of course the fireworks. When you get around 20+, it takes a different swing. The visiting stops as your grandparents have moved on. Reunion dinners seem more like a get-together and fireworks these days are oblivious (legally, at least). It’s what I call the “Role-Changing Period” when parents eventually will be the grandparents that your kids will hate to wake up early for (not that they don’t like them, its just the waking up early bit). And when your parent’s time is up, that will be that period when CNY will be simple before eventually you would the reason why kids wake up early in grumpy moods to receive money :)

I think fireworks are legal again. If I’m mistaken, at least they’re not illegal anymore. Or so it seems.