Chinese New Year in Australia

Being in Australia, Chinese New Year means NOTHING at all. My colleagues didn’t know it was CNY, no fancy decorations on the streets/mall, people were not rushing out to buy stuffs, everything seems pretty normal than usual. So depressing to see this. This is my 1st year in Australia celebrating CNY, thought it would be an experience, but it is really an unforgettable, unbearable experience. The reason of not going back to Malaysia was because

1. I have a younger brother here, I was told to look after him. (he’s already 19 years old – what’s the point of me being here “look after”).
2. I only have 3 weeks of annual leave, I figured it was a bit short for me to go home, I was thinking if I accumulate more annual leaves by working 2 years straight, I can next time take a longer holiday to Malaysia. (now I do realised it was a bad choice!)
   

Well, anyway, it is the 5th day of CNY today, the pain of missing home, the pain of depressing are slowly dissolving into thin air. I still remember, I nearly broke down and cried while I was in supermarket the 1st day of CNY. This is what happened. I was in China town, went into a Supermarket while waiting for my mate to do his groceries. They were playing those mandarin CNY’s song, and I thought to myself, if I were to be in Malaysia right at this moment, I would hear this songs over and over again, I would be buying fire crackers and getting ready for CNY. While over here, don’t really hear anyone getting excited about CNY. Let me see what I have done for the last couple of days

CNY eve
Sit at home, played game in the morn, afternoon.
Went to church at night for dinner,
Went to temple (a bit of a conflict huh?) afterwards for some lion dances and fire works. Was amazed to see so many Asian at once.

CNY 1st day
Sit at home, played game in the morn, afternoon.
Went to mate’s house for some food at night. He was saying : “come to my house for some food”. Now if you were in Malaysia, you would expect wonderful food and drinks. But what we had over here were…..
Wait for it….
……
…..
…..
…..
Fried rice noodle, vermicelli, ho kien noodle and 2 mid sized fish to be shared among 11 people.
Although there is a HUGE gap between Malaysia Australia CNY food, but I was grateful enough to have at least some celebration among friends. After dinner, we went to a church auntie’s (I don’t even know who she is) house for gathering. Think there will be ang pao (red packet)???
Absolutely nothing.
Went home, more gaming.

CNY 2nd day
Suppose to be at work today, but took the day off, too depresses to work on CNY 2nd day. Went to china town, had lunch with friends while waiting for lion dance. Were fortune enough to see a couple lion dances, and to my amazed, they even set off fire crackers. Now, I thought to myself, there must be a way to get fire crackers around here. Asked a shop who deals with illegal activities, and was told it is not legal to have them (that’s why I asked this particular shop, idiot!!). Didn’t further ask how to get fire crackers because as if I will go and buy one here. It must be really expensive and running the risk of getting caught by police.
A bit of pokies, and went home.

3rd day of CNY
Back to my depressing work place. Sigh~~!

Depressing? yeah i guess so!

anyway, Happy new year guys! I have decided to go home every CNY! Another 365 days to go! Counting down.