My parents never celebrated Chinese New Year maybe because my father probably thought it would be strange to celebrate Chinese New Year with his pure Filipina wife in a neighborhood full of Filipinos. My father also grew up in the Philippines although he was born in China, that made him more of a Filipino.
When I got married, I initiated a simple celebration which I began when my kids were still little. It was easy to introduce this new practice to my own family because I married someone like me. Edmund is also half Chinese and half siomai. For several consecutive years, we always had our Chinese New Year dinner at China Bistro, a fine dining resaurant in C5 near Eastwood. China Bistro vowed out of business several years ago.
That time we just had simple celebration. Dinner and a few firecrackers. We did not want to disturb the neighborhood’s tranquility that’s why we lighted firecrackers at around 9 pm.
I used to host a family lunch event and a family Christmas party, lumpia party, Edmund’s birthday party, etc. but due to a more rigid work schedule the past two years up until now, I have scrapped those and we now just have the Tan & Yee family gathering every Chinese New Year.
Due to miscommunication, We were not able to arrange for dragon dancers to come to all our facilities and residence because they were charging a lot more this time, nainis si Edmund.
We are suki and yet they are taking advantage of the situation. It’s good there are a lot of Chinese residents in our subdivision kaya the village association arranged for 4 groups of dragon dancers to go around the neighborhood.
I called the admin and requested if they could send the dancers here. I asked how much and they said no specific amount.
When I was coming home, I saw one group walking along the main road led by Jaime Dichaves.
They came at around 2 pm, sayang our guests were not here yet because our party was still at 4 pm.
I did not get a caterer, I just bought some food from the market.
All helpers were busy. I assigned the new driver BG to help me roll the tikoy. Ang galing nya, he was able to follow every bit of my instruction.
Oyen was the one who suggested that we make lumpia tikoy.
This earned praises from our guests. Ang sarap daw.
Cut the tikoy in thin strips, put two strips of fresh langka, sprinkle with brown sugar, wrap in lumpia wrapper,
then give it a quick fry.
Guests were required to come in either red or a Chinese attire.
Kuya Lito was one of the runner-ups in the Best Dressed Award
Best Dressed winner Chin-chin, Runner-ups: Anne, Edgar, Defending champion Helen and Authie Flor.
Last night, I had difficulty choosing a winner because 8 people came in complete Chinese attires. I ended up giving all of them prizes para walang iyakan.
Golden plates for abundance and prosperity. Don’t believe me I just made that up.
This is an antique china from Bavaria.
More antique plates with 24k gold plating. I found this in the US but these are all from Europe.
Centerpiece was two dozens of red roses.
Those shrimps were so alive and kicking when I bought them.
Old Chinese food actually uses hipon swahe not the tiger prawns of today.
Oyen and Nyke bought the siomai, sharkspin and hakao dumplings.
I made gulaman at sago with pandan, sobrang daming pandan. And guinumis with freshly prepared bilo-bilo with fresh coconut milk I bought from the magni-niyog.
Guinumis, with freshly cooked pinipig, lahat fresh.
Edmund and Auntie Flor
Dra. Wilma Galope, Edgar, wife Anne, only daughter Chinchin and their son Chad.
Owell’s babies
Ega and Ann’s first apo. 7 month old baby girl named “Inka” of Butchok, their eldest son. Inka is so cute.
We started the games at exactly 7 pm. My nephews formed one group, Owell, Angel, Rommel and his kids Denise and T.boy (He was originally nicknamed Chicboy but they changed it when he became older. Mabuti naman at baka maging babaero).
Contestants were given two minutes to identify the 12 faces in the folder. I counted very slowly so it became 3 minutes.
Instead of Pinoy Henio, I made a game called Chinese Food Genius.
Helen came so close to guessing Fried Pigeon. She already said fried but she ran out of time.
The last game was about a popular place in China. Owell wasn’t able to guess the Great Wall of China but he came very close except that time was up.
When the guests were leaving and were already outside of our house, we lighted 6 fortune fountains,
pang pa swerte and the aerial fireworks called “Blessings from Heaven”.
We almost forgot our tradition, to have a family picture on Chinese New Year, Christmas, New Year, before and after, birthdays, every holiday and every day.
Kung Hei Batchoy family picture
and lastly, after everyone has left, I now could rest.
I forced my son to sit on my lap. Kunwari para nung baby pa sya. Ang bigat, napisa ako.
