Another Low-Key CNY

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Wishing all a Happy & Prosperous (& Safe & Healthy – times have changed, COVID changed EVERYTHING) New Year of the Ox!

Today is Hokkien New Year – or Pai Thni Kong as we call it back in Malaysia. It’s something like a thanksgiving for the Hokkiens (people of Fujian descent who speak the Min Nan dialect in South East Asia). It used to be our grandest festival of the year for our family when I was a kid. I didn’t really know which god we prayed to (and does it matter), only that he’s known as Thni Kong (literally, God of Heaven). There’re no idols in our house, and we prayed only once per year (yeah, no kidding, we weren’t a particularly pious lot) on Pai Thni Kong. That’s the only time in the year, when an altar would be set up facing the outside, with lots of food offerings and joss sticks (incense). And of course, sugarcane on both entrance gate posts of our house, firecrackers and lots of joss paper (spirit money) folded into shapes of gold ingots for offering. Joss paper origami was one my favourite pastimes every New Year (we kids would compete with each other to fold the most ‘gold’).

The last we celebrated was I think 1987. That’s the year granddad passed away, which barred the family from celebrating for the next 3 years. In those 3 years, the majority of our family converted to Christianity (thanks to my dad, he had always been Christian, since before I was born anyway). I only found out that Thni Kong is the Jade Emperor, in my errr… mid-40’s I think, thru Google, what else …

Here’s what we did this New Year in photos (yeah, some current photos for a change). Would never have guessed that this year’s New Year would be quieter than last year, but it is! Here goes!


Cheers! – New Year breakfast at our balcony – Notice the hookah? That’s one of the parts of Arabia we adopted…




Reunion Dinner 2021 – Anu strikes again. ALL THIS for our tiny family of 4?!? Honey, you said you’d cook less? …She can’t help it, it’s festival mah… She loves festivals!




Some photos from the outside – DragonMart CNY 2021

I might as well throw in some CNY photos of last year…


Dubai Festival City, CNY 2020


A ‘Chinese’ dance and acrobatic performance CNY 2020 …Wait! Hmmm… they don’t look Chinese! Only wearing Chinese costumes, must be Russian. The organizers must have been unable to organize any Chinese performers last CNY, as it was at the peak of China’s COVID lockdown last year. That’s just my guess – Town Square Nshama Dubai, CNY 2020




City Walk Dubai, CNY 2020


Anu, CNY 2020, Burjuman


Jayden met his assistant teacher of his old school (Newlands School), Ms Balisado (left) from the Philippines, Burjuman, Dubai


Burjuman 2020 - Gong Xi Fa Cai!