Growing up Chinese-American, Lunar New Year was always my favorite holiday. I have fond memories of receiving red envelopes, spending time with family, and watching lion dances in the confetti-lined streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. So naturally, I was beyond excited to kick off my semester abroad at the National University of Singapore by celebrating Lunar New Year in Asia for the first time.
Lunar New Year is a joyous time for many Asian cultures. In the Chinese-majority city of Singapore, Chinese New Year is one of the
country’s few public holidays and a cornerstone of its multicultural tradition. If you want to understand the joyous, energetic, and frenzied excitement of Chinese New Year in Singapore, look no further than Singapore’s shopping malls.
For the entire month of January, shopping malls in Singapore set up temporary Chinese New Year markets. Stalls line up along the middle of the mall, with vendors selling every variety of souvenirs and snacks you can imagine. Every few steps, passersby are convinced to try a sample—New Year cookies, sunflower seeds, fruit-flavored jellies, and much more. Other stands sell flowers, decorations, and even jewelry. The market bustles with conversation—which new outfits to wear, who from the family is flying in, and where stores will be open for last-minute shopping.
Weaving in between holiday market crowds, I learned bits and pieces about how Chinese New Year is celebrated in Singapore. Many of the traditions were familiar, such as gathering at families' houses, exchanging red envelopes, and watching lion dances. Some were new, such as the practice of making and exchanging Chinese New Year cookies and the Prosperity Toss (lo hei, as it is more commonly known).
For example, I learned that many popular New Year cookies in Singapore are of Peranakan origin, a community that traces its roots to the first waves of Southern Chinese settlers to maritime Southeast Asia. This means that many of
the treats I was trying, like pineapple tarts and Kueh Bangkit, a small biscuit made from sago starch, are almost exclusively exchanged among the Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaysia.
Similarly, lo hei is almost exclusively practiced in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Introduced by Cantonese and Teochew immigrants from China in the 1930s, it is a tradition where everyone gathers around a large platter of ingredients—usually raw fish, cabbage, radishes, noodle crisps, and sauce—and tosses it together while exclaiming new year’s wishes. It represents gaining fortune in the new year and it typically kicks off a feast of other Chinese New Year foods. Both are traditions I practiced in my Chinese Malaysian-American home in the United States, but ones I didn’t realize were part of a broader culture and a broader diasporic Chinese identity.
Among the highly international student body at the National University of Singapore, I have met other ethnically Chinese students from the United States, as well as from Singapore, Australia, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, and mainland China. Spending the holidays among this community was a reminder that there are many diverse ways to celebrate Chinese New Year, just as there are many ways to be Chinese. At the same time, it showed me that Chinese culture can connect even the most distant of places; while I missed being home for Chinese New Year, the pineapple tarts I’m exchanging with new friends in Singapore taste just like the ones my mom makes back in New York.
Lunar New Year was a magical time of year to experience diverse expressions of joy, hope, and cultural pride in Singapore. What a way to kick off the semester abroad!
Tappy Lung
GW Exchange - National University of Singapore
Spring 2023
Elliott School of International Affairs
International Affairs and Political Communication Major