The biggest holiday for Chinese Malaysians is Chinese New Year. Malaysia Chinese New Year holidays are usually three days off before and after the actual Chinese New Year day by lunar calendar. However, Whether or not the day after Chinese New Year is a holiday depends on the state. It is a holiday in most states, but not in the states of Johor, Kelantan and Terengganu.
Table of Contents
1. Buying Chinese New Year's New Red Clothes In Advance
2. Preparing Tangerines And Refreshments
3. Decorating Your Home Before Chinese New Year
4. Eating Yee Sang (魚生)
Buying Chinese New Year's New Red Clothes In Advance
However, most companies run by overseas Chinese take about a week off. Even my Malaysian relatives start resting on Friday and are on holiday until next Thursday, so the Chinese New Year holiday is a week long.
Buying new clothes for the New Year has become an unfamiliar sight to us, but it is still common in Malaysia. So, a month or two before the Chinese New Year, Chinese people usually buy new clothes in red. Here, new clothing includes both underwear and outerwear. Clothes purchased this way are worn on Chinese New Year's Day.
The color of outerwear is red, but these days, you can choose clothes in a variety of colors, from pink to red. So, I have a few pink clothes in my closet.
And not only your personal clothes but also your home gets a bit of decoration. Attach red New Year's stickers to the door or indoors. These stickers can only be found in the New Year in stores like 'Chinese Style'.
Preparing Tangerines And Refreshments
The fruit that represents the Chinese New Year in Malaysia is tangerine. The tangerines are not produced in Malaysia. So this is the only opportunity to eat tangerines in Malaysia. And this fruits are mainly from China only this time of the year. However, in Malaysia, people do not buy tangerines to eat, but to give them to people on New Year's Day.
There are many other fruits in Malaysia, so why choose tangerines? The reason is that tangerines have a similar pronunciation to 'gold'. Since he can't give people real gold, he gives them tangerines instead and hopes that they will be lucky in terms of wealth. Perhaps that's why sometimes tangerines are individually packaged.
Most of these tangerines are imported from China. During Malaysian New Year, most tangerines are sold at supermarkets. Most Chinese people buy tangerines in boxes, so if you want to buy tangerines at a cheaper price, you may use street vendors.
And you can buy tangerine trees at the supermarket before Chinese New Year. Tangerine trees are grown in small pots with seedlings about 50 cm tall. Although the tangerine trees produce a lot of tangerines, for some reason we don't eat them.
During Chinese New Year, relatives visit each other. So, I prepare refreshments at home. The snacks served at each house may be different, but there are many cases where these snacks are made at home.
Typical examples of these snacks include chicken rolls, shrimp rolls or honeycomb biscuits. However, there is no rule that says you have to serve these kinds of sweets on New Year's Day, so you can prepare any kind of sweets you want. However, this does not mean that we do not serve moon cakes for Mid-Autumn Festival. Well, even if you try to find it in the market, you can't find moon cakes.
We don't prepare anything special for drinks. Most homes prepare Malaysia's famous 100Plus. Our family prepares
HoneyB, a drink containing honey. Canned beverages such as 100Plus, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi are sold in specially designed cans with various pictures to celebrate the Chinese New Year. I used to collect a set of cans every year, but I threw them all away when I moved.
Decorating Your Home Before Chinese New Year
We decorate our homes before the Chinese New Year to welcome visiting friends and relatives. You can buy Chinese New Year decorations at shopping malls or general stores. For example, there are red lanterns on the ceiling or paper and stickers with good wishes written on them.
Like Chinese New Year clothes, Chinese New Year decorations are often colored red. If you had red and green for Christmas a few months ago, this time you just need to get rid of the green.
Eating Yee Sang (魚生)
Yee Sang (魚生) is a dish that cannot be missed during Chinese New Year in Malaysia. This dish is a Malaysian Chinese New Year dish that can only be found during the Chinese New Year in Malaysia. And you can see Yee Sang during Chinse New Year in Singapore too.
The award was first created in the 1940s by Loke Ching Fatt, a Guangdong immigrant living in Seremban, south of Kuala Lumpur . It is said that he created it after World War II to recover from the damage caused by the war . So, the ideal is food that symbolizes prosperity and harmony .
So what does abnormality look like? As you can guess from the Chinese character name, this is a salad dish containing raw fish. Arrange cucumbers, carrots, ginger, peanuts, crackers, and raw fish on a large plate. Then people stand up with chopsticks, gather around the plate, say something to wish for, and mix the ingredients.
We also have a large plate for Yee Sang at home. You can see this kind of plates in any shopping mall before Chinese New Year. However, since Yee Sang is a food eaten once a year, this dish can also be used once a year.
Whenever I eat Yee Sang, my Malaysian relatives always brag to me, a foreigner, saying, ‘This is how they celebrate Chinese New Year in Malaysia.’ Well, when it comes to Malaysian New Year, I automatically think about eating more.
Oh, I forgot the ang pao a gift of money given in a red envelope during Chinese New Year.
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