Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year: the year of the monkey. If you were born in 1910, 1922, 1934, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992 or 2004 it’s going to be a auspicious year for you, or so I’ve been told.
I was told this and many other pieces of Chinese wisdom and traditions by my mum when I was growing up in Ireland as a child.
Born in 1980 in Dublin to immigrant Chinese parents I was always curious about my heritage and culture. My mother and father, who met here in Ireland, came to the country in the 1970s when there were poor economic prospects in Hong Kong. Their reasons were not dissimilar from those of many young Irish adults, including myself, who travelled abroad to find work when the recession hit here in 2008.
I managed to get work in New York, Australia, China and eventually back here in Ireland in 2011.
My parents arrived in a foreign land not knowing anyone, with very little to their name and a dream, like any migrant’s, to build a better future. They also brought a memory bank of Chinese traditions and culture.
Early memories
My first memory of Chinese New Year was when I was about four. I came downstairs to find our small three-bedroom house that we lived in with my aunt’s family (there was nine of us altogether) decorated with red ribbons and homemade upside down signs for the word “prosperity” in Chinese. There were odd coloured sweets in octagon shaped bowls. And satsumas, a lot of satsumas.
I asked my mum if it was a Chinese version of Christmas, since we didn’t have a Christmas tree when everyone else had (turns out we just couldn’t afford one at the time; we made up for it in later years).
My mother smiled and told me “no, this is one of the most important times of the year for Chinese people”. She explained it was a time to celebrate with family, to respect my elders and honour my ancestors. This didn’t mean much to me as a four-year-old. But when she told me every child got a present during Chinese New Year, that stuck.
Traditions
The present was money in a little red envelope, known as a “lai see” or “hongbao”. The rule is that if you are unmarried, a married person gives you a red envelope, as long as you wish them happy new year: “Gong Hay Fat Choy” in Cantonese or “Gong Xi Fa Cai” in Mandarin (it translates as wishing a person prosperity). The red envelope is believed to bring you luck.
I remember seeing very happy children in Hong Kong during Chinese New Year, and it didn’t take me long to realise that, as long as you were courteous and wished your elders a happy new year they would reward your good manners with a red envelope even if they were just acquaintances.
Other traditions include the “family feast” on the eve of the New Year, when the family gathers and eats a big meal together. There is always a fish dish and there should never be an uneven number of dishes.
A few days before Chinese New Year we would always be told to clean the house, I always thought as a child that this was just an excuse for my aunt and my mother to make my cousins and me clean every nook but the cleaning symbolises “out with the old and in with the new”.
It is also traditional to bathe with pomelo leaves and ginger the night before New Year, to cleanse away bad luck and ward off evil spirits.
Missing home
As I grew older I realised that even though mum tried her hardest to recreate celebrations and traditions with us here, it was nowhere close to how they marked the New Year from her home. She was not just missing the firecrackers and revelry but also one of the key aspects of Chinese New Year: family. She missed her mother.
I remember her saying time and again: “No one really wants to leave their home unless they have to” – a point that rings true for almost every migrant.
To support her I suggested – some 10 years ago – that we all go back to Hong Kong to celebrate Chinese New Year with my granny. It was nothing short of spectacular: the dragon boats, the firecrackers, the mass movement of commuters visiting relatives, the smell of delicious traditional Chinese food, the giggling children with their “lai sees”, the incense burning outside temples and homes.
But most notable were the warmth and positivity of everyone looking forward to a new beginning.
When we returned from that trip I insisted that we should do more for Chinese New Year in Dublin. Mum had worked her way from a dish-washer when she first arrived, to owning a chip van in the 1980s, to a restaurant in the 1990s, so we decided the best way to celebrate the occasion was to throw a banquet in our restaurant Victoria in Monkstown – for our customers and our family.
I’m proud to report that, a decade later, we’re still hosting the 10-course Chinese New Year event. This year it’s in aid of Focus Ireland and has already sold out. I’m also delighted to see that the Chinese New Year Festival in Dublin has grown over time, with the support of Dublin City Council.
Most of all I’m happy that I get to be home to ring in the New Year with the people I love. Gung Hay Fat Choy!
Hazel Chu, an Irish-born Chinese woman living in Dublin, is head of communications in Diageo. @hazechu
