Lunar New Year, redux
Three Toronto families on how they’ve embraced and adapted this ancient holiday
For me, Lunar New Year is all about scrubbing down the house before the big day. Mattresses get flipped and vacuumed, the mop is on constant duty, and my rubber gloves spring leaks. I’m a third-generation, half-Chinese Torontonian. (My mom is a “CBC”: Canadian Born Chinese.) I don’t speak my family’s Taishan dialect, aside from being able to wish everyone “Gong Hei Fat Choy,” the one Taishanese phrase my mom insisted I learn in my otherwise English-speaking childhood! Nor are traditional Spring Festival foods part of my culinary skill set. But one thing I have clung to are the luck-encouraging superstitions of my grandparents. Namely, I clean like crazy, distribute hong bao (red envelopes with money) to the kids of my extended Chinese family, and I teach my son, Cillian,, 6, who is a quarter Chinese, a quarter Greek (my side) and half Irish (my husband emigrated from Ireland in the ’90s) some of the New Year basics. We discuss lucky numbers (8), unlucky numbers (4), and the animal zodiac sign of the year, for instance. On the continuum of celebrations, my household is in the “diluted” camp, but I always enjoy learning how other blended families of Chinese descent do it.
Discovering tradition
Toronto’s diaspora of blended and mixed multi-generational families makes for Lunar New Year customs traditional, unique and everything in between. Andrea Lim, a lawyer, and her husband, Edward Sit, an account director, are both second-generation Chinese Canadians. They uphold the traditions of the Sit family, who immigrated from Xinhui, China, as they celebrate the holidays with their son Austen, 9 months. “We all stay over at Ed’s parents’ house in Markham the evening before Chinese New Year. We have to wear new bedclothes. And wew have to wear brightcolouredc clothes – nothin go dark like black – the next day,
and
they have to be new,” says Lim. The family wakes up aat 5 a.m. to eat a special meal, including jai (a vegetarian dish) and sweets prepared by Sit’s mother in the middle of the night. “Generally, that day we go to work, but we come back together for a big family dinner,” says Sit. By contrast, Lim (who is Chinese on her dad’s side and a mix of Chinese, Filipino and Spanish on her mom’s side) grew up celebrating with the exchange of red pockets and perhaps a family dinner with noodles and pastries. Lim values her in-law’s more intensive holiday traditions: “I come from a mixed background family, so I can see how the traditions dwindled away. I’m happy to reintroduce them to myself and to Austen, too. I want him to carry it on in his family. I think it’s really important,” Lim says.
Cultural connections
Jaclyn Mah, a fluent Cantonese speaker, and one-half thirdgeneration Chinese via her father’s side, is celebrating her second Lunar New Year as mom to Gabriella, 1. Mah uses the holiday to commemorate her deceased grandparents. “I’ll be burning incense and visiting my YinYin (paternal grandfather) and Ya Ya’s (paternal grandmother) graves,” she says. Mah and her spouse, Rick Silva, a firstgeneration Trinidadian-Canadian, own Tasty’s
Caribbean Chicken, a College St. restaurant near Chinatown, but she says proximity to Chinatown isn’t essential to her celebrations. For her, Lunar New Year is about eating foods like tofu and jai, and checking out lion dances – something they do year-round anyway. It’s also about teaching Gabriella the language and cultural heritage that honours her grandparents. To that end, she regularly speaks to Gabriella in Cantonese, especially during Lunar New Year, so she can learn the vocabulary associated with this holiday. Mah will be following some household rituals too. “I won’t sweep on New Year. I won’t wash my hair [which Chinese folklore says will wash away good luck] and when I visit people’s homes I’ll be bringing oranges [for good luck],” she says. While every family may put its own spin on traditional Lunar New Year customs and celebrate in their own way, one thing we all have in common? A wish to share in good fortune in the year ahead. Gong Hei Fat Choy! Passing on family traditions: Top: Edward Sit, and son, Austen, 9 months. Middle: Jaclyn Mah and daughter, Gabriella, age 1. Bottom: Helen Racanelli with Cillian, 6.