frivolous yak on CNY

ok some frivolous, silly, inane talk here. come on, it’s the CNY, so allow me to yak yak on some nonsense talk ok. warning oledi lor… so you don’t like silly talk, skip this. just look at those nice prosperous monkeys (and my big name. ahem.) up there will do. 🙂

why do people like to use ‘gong xi fa cai’? since when did ‘gong xi fa cai’ came in? before it came in, it was ‘kongsi fatt chai’, right? ‘gong xi fa cai’ looks so unpronounceable! i remember someone telling me it is the new spelling (hanyun pin or something like that?). or is this spell like this for the non chinese educated chinese and the non chinese to use? how do you pronounce it actually? let’s see… the ‘gong’ there. if you pronounce it as ‘gong’ it sounds so silly since ‘gong’ is silly in hokkien! ‘xi’ sounds all right, and suppose ‘fa’ too… a light soft pronunciation as oppose to ‘fatt’ without the ‘t’ sound. and what about ‘cai’? eh! is it ‘chai’ minus the ‘h’ ala the new malay spelling? you know, like in malay, china become cina, chempedak become cempedak. ayoh! ini macam ah. surely you can’t pronounce it as ‘kai’. good lord, oh no, because in cantonese it means chicken and it do sound like another type of chicken… the human ones who solicit for business. hehehe. you know what i mean.

btw, many non chinese are into wishing us chinese gong xi fa cai or kongsi fatt choy as ali ditta alalh did, but i wonder do they know the meaning of ‘fatt choy’ there? i believe though it is chinese, but since it is so common, many do know the meaning.
i believe most people, especially non chinese, will say ‘kongsi f att chai’ and not just ‘kongsi’, no, not because they wish you to ‘fatt chai’ (prosper) but. it has sort of become the norm to say it all.

let’s see if i’m right here…

kongsi fatt chai – mandarin
kongsi kung hei fatt choy – cantonese
keong hee huat chai – hokkien
gong xi fa cai – universal?

ok lah. for ‘ang moh sai’ chinese banana people like me, i guess i’ll have to stick to ‘gong xi fa cai’. or why not simply ‘’happy new year’. i find it rather strange that some would say ‘happy chinese new year’. why on earth add in the ‘chinese’. as this time of the year, we know it’s chinese new year already, why should we say happy chinese new year? (greeting cards are guilty of this too!). do we say ‘happy western new year’ on 1st jan? and on the tamil’s new year (which is somewhere in april), if we wish them, we don’t say ‘happy indian new year’ do we. well among my friends here, no matter what race they are, they always wish me ‘happy new year’ and never ever ‘happy chinese new year’.

btw, in case you are wondering if i grumble about the ‘HCNY’ why does the picture i have in comments contain HCNY and not just HNY, well, that picture is not from me but from wits0! (including this cool animating pic above, aslo a product of his handwork). yep, my dear friend wits0 is my picture supplier. 🙂

ok now what other trivial things to pick on? ok CNY cards. why should all CNY card be in red? and the envelopes too! i know lah, the chinese like red, and red is a good, lucky, auspicious colour but for me i wouldn’t mind buying a non red CNY card, if any. (oops. but the problem is the receiver might mind.) and the envelopes… at least nowadays many of the envelopes are plain light pink, they won’t make the postman’s eyes popped out. i remember long ago, it was pink in colour but with tiny checks all over and when you have the name/address written on it, it looks hardly visible. anyway nowadays with the advent of e-cards, not many people are sending those kinds anymore.

if you feel i like to grumble on why CNY cards are red, next you expect me to grumble on why angpow packets are red? no lah, silly, i won’t! angpow means ‘red packets’ see, so it should be red… no grumblings… but i wonder if ‘lampow’ would sound better. (lam = blue, though lampow sounds something er… vulgar. heh!).

i’m not going to pick on those stuffs which to me, are silly, but they are actually customs or traditions handed down from our forefathers. some i would not refer to them as traditions but superstitions! you know like do not sweep the house on the 1st day of CNY as you will sweep away the luck. yeah many other traditions/customs i consider silly but i will keep silent on them. it’s precisely those are traditions/customs, that i feel it is not right for me to harp on them as silly.

ok better don’t bother you nice people further and leave you in peace now, so as not to spoil your appetite for the reunion dinner/lunch. have a nice reunion! eat as much as you can… forget the fats and the cholesterol… eat, eat, eat!

p/s – and that’s what i’m going to do (eat!) as i’ll be visiting 3 open houses: the CM’s, MCA/gerakan’s and state’s! food here i come!! whoppee!