My earliest memories of the Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year) are from the early 1980s.

As a non-Christian then, CNY was the memorable holiday. Christmas, in comparison, was just another holiday when we have more cartoons to watch. But CNY was different!

This was the only season when we had new clothes and toys. These were the only two days in the year when everything in the country stood still. Woe to you if you didn’t prepare beforehand since no supermarket, coffeeshop or restaurant would be open. 7-Eleven didn’t exist then.

CNY was also the highlight of the year for me because this was the only festival when my father would come home from work in Papua New Guinea.

Our family would first gather for our reunion dinner the night before the first day of the New Year. The next day we would head up to Kulai, Malaysia to visit my father’s relatives.

It was great fun catching up with my cousins playing games, firecrackers (yes, it was legal in Johor then) and enjoying all the delicious food made by Auntie, from her wonderful niang dou fu to her yummy nian gao and prawn crackers – all homemade.

As children, we also anticipated eagerly the hongbaos we would receive, some of which will be lost at the “children’s gambling den”.

A different sort of CNY 

Fast forward four decades later. What has changed? I now have more relatives to visit in Johor, having married Rina who was raised in Batu Pahat.

On the Kulai front, many of my cousins have migrated to the US. Firecrackers are no longer the popular thing among the Gen Z kids, who now have their mobile devices.

So many of my uncles and aunties have aged, and, sadly, not a few have passed on, including my parents.

Sometimes one may need to navigate some religious sensitivities, “but all these pale in comparison to the love that we can share with one another”, says the author.

More significantly, I have now become a Christian – a theologian and a church elder to add. So, how has CNY changed for me personally?

Over the last two decades, I have taken up my father’s mantle of visiting my Kulai relatives. It has been a pleasure getting to know them better and their now bigger extended family.

CNY gatherings are now a time of discovering more stories about my father and grandparents: How my father, out of his love for my sick aunt, carried her to the hospital. How, most intriguingly, my grandmother and same aunt was once kidnapped! How my aunt, to her horror, had a close encounter with a tiger while working in the rubber plantation. How my uncle respected my father and ended up joining him to work in Papua New Guinea.

I also found out more about Malaysia’s history – how my uncles and aunties had to live in guarded villages during the Malaysian Konfrontasi (1960s).

More recently, our relatives, in both Kulai and Batu Pahat, have also allowed us to pray for them. It is such a pleasure to begin sharing and embodying, albeit in a small way, Christ’s love to them. 

In short, CNY has now become an occasion for us to deepen our relationships with our extended families and to demonstrate Christ’s love to them in myriad ways – whether by praying for them, listening to their stories, or just caring for their well-being. I am sure that my relatives appreciate that too.

Surely, such love between our family members is where our Confucian and Christian values overlap greatly, and it is an area we can grow more in, as Christ’s Spirit leads us.

Yes, sometimes we still have to navigate some religious sensitivities, but all these pale in comparison to the love that we can share with one another.

The Apostle Paul describes Christians as “an epistle of Christ… written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God” on ‘tablets of our hearts’.” 2 Corinthians 3:2-3.

Indeed, we are all “ambassadors of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:20), called by God to exemplify and embody His love and goodness to whoever we encounter.

My prayer for us all this CNY is that we will take our role as Christ’s ambassadors seriously. That we hold up Christ’s love to our families and friends so that they will be attracted also into Him.

So, for those who can listen, let us listen more. For those who can’t, let us pray and intercede for them – for their well-being, for mending of broken relationships, and for coming to know Christ.

For those who don’t have families in Singapore, you can still play your part by extending hospitality to those living alone – migrants – in our country.

Surely the Christ who loves us will honour such acts of love, and work marvellously in the lives of our friends and loved ones. 

Blessed Chinese New Year!

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