The Household COO

In an earlier post I mentioned that there were three new activities I had to participate in during Chinese New Year. This was one of them.

On the fifteenth day of New Year, there is a festival that takes place in the evening where food is prepared for the inner and outer altars. It ends with a massive bonfire of burning “gold” paper and the lighting of a string of very noisy fireworks. I’ve been told that the noise is supposed to scare away any ill-wishing spirits.

About a day or two before, there is a massive cook up in the kitchen to prepare the food. Among the items prepared are fruits, Chinese herbs, and kuih (cakes).

On the evening itself, the external altar is set up a house made of colourful cardboard and sugar. Each food item and the tea is then set up according to a plan (which is really a photograph of the previous festival). Each item has it’s own particular place, although I do not know the reasons why.

Checking the photograph to see if everything is in its proper place.

Close up of the cardboard house. Just imagine that this intricate piece of work is going up in smoke in about an hour’s time.

The inner altar is also prepared with food and flowers as well, but it seems more attention is given to the external one.

Outside, a pile of golden paper is prepared and ready for burning. The process is something akin to offering money, I think.

It goes up in smoke along with the cardboard house seen earlier.

The final event is the fireworks.

All over the neighbourhood, you will witness mini bonfires and the cracking sounds of fireworks. Some are more elaborate, shooting off coloured fireworks into the sky. The coloured fireworks are actually illegal, but we saw a lot of them going off that night. As usual, you can get anything with a bit of money…

This takes place around about midnight and can continue on into the wee hours of the morning. Luckily I’m a heavy sleeper so I wasn’t too bothered by the noise.

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