Of New Year and Full Fledged Adulthood

Today is the 3rd day of Chinese New Year, the first New Year I celebrate as a "full fledged" adult. I often wonder why do the olden Chinese tradition consider a married person a full fledged adult rather than someone who reaches the age of 18 or 21.

The 2008 Chinese New Year evening sky taken from my in-laws premises. Can you see the robin on the antenna?

I wonder if this has to do with expectation of pro-creation and setting up of a family in a conservative agricultural Confusius based society. Under the Confusius teaching, the family forms the core unit of a functioning society and disharmony in a family will likewise contribute to disorder in the society. So how do a family start in the olden days if not by being married? Without marriage, an adult cannot fulfill its function hence the recognition of being full fledged only comes with the priviledge of bearing the responsibility of starting, nurturing, caring and growing a family. Nevermind the concept of adoption, single parenthood or live-in couples having kids. These are not Confusius idea of an ideal family unit.

As part of the duty and "joy" of being a full fledged adult, I have the "priviledge" of handing out red packets/angpows filled with money. Not only that, being the first year both of us appear before our relatives and friends as a married couple, we are somehow "reminded" on the importance of both of us giving out red packets. Normally, it is usually a couple giving 1 red packet to the young, non-full fledged adults and elderly.

According to my dad, the reunion table has to be filled with dishes to indicate that it has been a fruitful year and we should strive to have more next year. Nevermind if we can't finish it, we must be seen to have lots of blessing. For five small eaters, this is a lot. Oh yeah, we have abalone soup as well...:)

It is a norm for the Chinese to have prawns and fish. Prawns in Cantonese are pronounced as "Har" which sounds like laughter while fish is pronounced as "Yee" which is often associated with this famous Chinese saying of "Nien Nien Yau Yee" or may every year you have surpluses.

Surprisingly, I find joy in giving despite my fears of burning a hole in my pocket. Hence, to lessen my fears, I have reminded my fellow friends and colleagues who are ever so "keen" to get angpows from me to come and visit my humble home. To those who can't come, here's a picture of the angpow as my e-wish to you to have a joyous and prosperous new year!