New Year’s Symbolism Teaches Me about God’s Love, Grace for Family
Symbolism and meaning is integrated into everything surrounding Chinese New Year. You see it in the red banners proclaiming blessings and hopes hanging over everyone’s door. At Hong Kong’s Wong Tai Sin Temple, people rushed forward to get what they believe to be the first blessing. Even the colorful Chinese New Year’s parade involves symbolic meanings. It is believed that if you reach out and touch the dragon dancing along the parade route, you’ll receive good luck.
As I spent days immersed in these symbolisms in Hong Kong, one stands out above the rest — food, or more specifically the dinner table. Sitting around the dinner table with family, for me, is a symbol of the importance of relationship — which is the point of this whole journey. Understanding my own culture has been the guide, but in the end, relationships are what matter the most.
T.Y. Po and his aunt, Kuen Lai, purchase Chinese New Year’s gifts.
I know it’s a special time for my family as well and that it doesn’t happen as often as they would like. I remember spending summers with my aunt and uncle, Joong and Kuen Leung, as a child. My uncle worked hard to provide for his family. He came home late from work only to disappear into the night for hours selling sweet tofu pudding from a bamboo container strapped to his bike. He came home at 2 a.m., to wake up three hours later to go to his day job.
For me, this defines the people here — hard working. They work long hours so they can provide for their families. So during Chinese New Year, slowing down and spending time with your family is important.
Uncle Joong and Aunt Kuen fill our table with classic foods like fish with ginger and scallions and chicken soup filled with herbs. They also prepare a few traditional dishes weighted with symbolism specific to the New Year. For instance, the word for “fish” in Chinese is similar to the word for “abundance.” Vegetables represent surplus and great health.
Uncle Joong Leung carries in a plate of the nian gao, Chinese New Year cake. The cake is traditionally eaten during the New Year’s holiday to bring good luck.
Tradition asks that we eat looking to a New Year with physical abundance, whether it is buying power or social status. I prefer looking to this New Year as a way to build better relationships.
When we finish the meal, Uncle Leung rushes into the kitchen.
“One last thing,” he says, carrying out the nian gao or New Year’s cake.
It looks nothing like cake! It resembles more of a chewy glutinous mass. It reminds me of the fruitcakes that are given in America during the Christmas holidays. (You know, the kind of thing that you give to neighbors.)
Uncle Leung explains this cake is a symbol of raising oneself up the coming year. He wishes me a year of profit wealth and health.
As we eat, I wonder what it would be like to live here. Would I be in a perpetual state of being the outsider looking in? I have felt that way since arriving.
Coming into this journey, I simply thought that by arriving in Hong Kong, my identity and family ties would be sorted out. I wanted to be embraced … to be accepted.
T.Y. Po holds a pinwheel up to catch the breeze. Yip Leung explains to his American cousin, T.Y. Po, that the spinning wheels impart a special blessing of peace.
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I didn’t realize how hard it would be. Despite the distance and isolation that I sometimes felt within my own family, I discovered that I needed to offer them the same kind of grace that has been given to me from God.
Maybe it’s not so much how well we fit in, but what kind of relationships we invest in. Are people blessed by what I do? Am I someone who cultivates community? Some people miss out on the most basic needs of community — wholeness and companionship — and I don’t want to be one of them.
Even though I find that relationships can be elusive in a city like Hong Kong. Working long hours away from people we care about has come to be expected. I find that for one night during Chinese New Year, things are different. Families, like mine, share life over a warm meal.
It seems like this is the same thing Jesus offered to those he loved: a seat by the fire, some fish and a shot at redemption.