Happy Chinese New Year to all Chinese, part Chinese, half Chinese, quarter Chinese, 10c Chinese, short Chinese, long Chinese , whatever Chinese and whoever celebrating it.

Unfortunately I got nothing to say except for the above wish.

Ok, that’s not true, I got some more to say.
I’m sure some of you notice I got some Chinese blood in me by my look. Big round face, flat nose, big teeth, glass etc.
Yep, I got a few percent Chinese from my Dad’s side. Mind you though, don’t say I’m Chinese in front of me. I hate that alot, I hate whenever people mistaken me as a Chinese girl.
No, I got nothing against Chinese, just that I don’t regard myself as one because I was born in Myanmar and I take pride in being a Burmese.

Well, to think of it, I’m not even a half Burmese. My dad being a 90% Chinese + 10% Shan and my mom being 25% Rakhine (Yakhine)+ 75% Burmese, makes me hmmmm…I don’t know…40%? 25%? Burmese blood in me.

But Yakhine and Shan are counted as one of the 8 major native races of Burma so yah…I count myself as Burmese (as countryman of Burma) but closer toward Rakhine.

One slack thing about being a mix blood is that, you don’t know which side you exactly belong to. Especially in my family, my father is half Chinese but he doesn’t know a single thing about Chinese. I mean he knows Chinese and their culture for sure but I mean in a way that he can’t speak or write or understand anything Chinese. So he can’t say he is Chinese except that he looks like one. That’s the main reason I don’t take myself as a part Chinese. I don’t know how to speak/write Chinese. I don’t belong to that race because I know nothing about them. I don’t know what’s the main significant of this new year celebration and stuffs.

Every year we celebrate do prayers at home. My father being the eldest in his family, he has to carry on the tradition to do the prayers. That’s what my grand mother says but she also doesn’t know how to speak/write/understand Chinese. They just passing along the traditions cos’ they are the eldest in the family and that’s what they are told to do so.

Every year we have a bit of fight regarding Chinese New Year celebration, me and my father (rather with granny). My grandmother says since I’m the eldest in the family, I’ll have to carry on this tradition when I have my own family. I give her a big “No”. I told them since I don’t know a thing about Chinese and I’m no Mahayana Buddhist or Tao Buddhism, I won’t do those Chinese stuffs. I’m 100% Theravada Buddhism so I don’t worship/pray for the deaths. Plus I’ll only do/follow things that I understand the proper significant of. Interesting enough, my dad doesn’t force me or say anything on this.

Anyway today yesterday my mom prepared some meals and we had a nice little feast for Chinese New Year. As usual fried noodles, fried vermicelli with veges, some chicken, pork, fish, prawn and a good soup are the must dishes for us. There are some Chinese sweets too but we forgot to buy “TiKwe” (the brownish chewy sweet thing) this year. Do you know you have to kinda invite your death ancestors forehand (say a day before or so) with proper date and time to visit the house. Kinda freaky huh LOL. And the food…you gotta have whole meat, whole chicken, whole pork kind of thing. I guess, after all those are for deaths/ghosts/whatever and they eat big meat rite? It’s just stupid and I don’t understand it at all. Then you light the candles and scented sticks to say prayers like, may all those deaths look after the family health, wealth, the children education, bless us all blar blar blar. And you hold those scented sticks, bend back and forth three, four times then let the death eat till the candles finished. The people can eat after that, but I can’t wait till the candles finish so I grab some food and dine together with the deaths My granny doesn’t approve of that but hey a gal gotta do what she gotta do when she’s hungry.

When the meal finished, we have to burn some gold papers, silver papers, fake money and stuffs. You make little toys out of those papers. Like a boat or a plane or whatever, we don’t know how to make nice stuffs so only boats we made…they look rather like canoe to me. Anyway I hope my death ancestors enjoy sailing around. :p

Ok, now the whole time I’ve been fooling around with things but my sister is really into it. She do prayers properly, she prepare food and wait till the proper time to eat and help making paper toys and burning them. Gosh I sometime don’t understand her, she’s very cheeky in most of the stuffs but quite religious and follows whatever the father does, after all she’s the dad’s fav gal. My brother and I don’t care much about those, I guess she should be the one who carry on the tradition and not the eldest, Me. :p

Anyway, my apologies to all the Chinese if I offend the traditions in some ways. I don’t understand the proper ways so please do ignore this foolish girl. But hey I love the foods, Chinese foods are always my favorites and I enjoy every single one of them. Deep respect for all the great chefs.

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

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