The Chinese New Year Tradition, The Quirks, The Tolerance of Husbands & Wives

Finally am able to start writing on my new posting. Boy….am so glad Chinese New Year's finally here. Although it’s just the fourth day of New Year but am so, so glad that the preparation is done. It’s amazing how the Chinese goes all the way out to prepare for the New Year celebration.

There’s this Chinese proverb that states that all creations are reborn on New Year’s Day. Hence, the Chinese New Year is a celebration of change ... out with the old and in with the new!

Hardcore Chinese believe that events that occurred during the New Year celebration may impact their life for the rest of the year. So during the New Year, be more careful with your speech, actions, even your thoughts. Not only that, the type of food you eat is important too. That’s why there’s abundance of good food during New Year. Red is auspicious, represents prosperity, which is why some believe that all red, even the underwear will starts the New Year prosperous. And surround your house with colours of red, gold or yellow to stimulate positive energy all around you and your family.



Everything associated with the New Year must represent good fortune. To single people, good fortune may mean love and romance. Good fortune may mean good grades to students, children for families, jobs for the unemployed and health for the sick.
Well, all that’s done now and as I start reflecting on this yearly’s tradition, I recall all the patience I had to put up with the spouse. It’s just amazing how the different attracts when one is dating. Why, I believe it’s because the opposite is all that you are not. So it is kind of fascinating to hear about all the things this other person is doing which are just not you! And during courtship, one is blinded to all those little ‘hints’ of incompatibility. So couples dated, engaged, married and settled into their little love nest. Well, maybe for the first few years, it’s still honeymoon period. But slowly, but surely all the ‘incompatibilities’ start surfacing.

For me, it’s as simple as how I decorate the flowers in a vase. I arranged a nice vase of flowers on the dining table. An hour later after I had showered, checked some emails; I found that my flowers had been changed in to two vases. His method of arranging flowers and my method is totally different. It’s just amazing how one sees things differently by just arranging a vase of flowers. He likes it arranged sparsely so he split the one vase of flowers in to two vases as he felt the flowers look too ‘packed’ in one vase!

Similarly on how we hanged those cute, auspicious decorative items on the cherry blossom plant. I would hang lots of it all around the plant. Two hours later, he will take half of it out. He said looks too cluttered!

It really drives me up the wall that such a minor stuffs which are not at all a man’s role should irritates me so much. I would assume that these kind of nitty gritty stuffs be left to women to handle. But looks like he wants to meddle in to all these small stuffs too. And it makes me feels like I can’t do things my way at all.

I have a friend, Jane who had almost the same kind of incompatibility with the husband, Jim. Jim would usually asked, “What do you think if we rearrange the furniture by moving this sofas around so that the TV now is on the opposite?” Jane would look at it and commented, “It looks good as it is now. The TV would look odd at the opposite side, as the space is too big. Let’s just leave it.” And with that Jane thought that’s it. Don’t move. By evening when Jane comes home from office, guess what? The furnitures’ moved. Jane fumed. It’s just an instant reaction I supposed. Jane matched up to Jim, “I thought we don’t move cos it really looks odd with the sofas now all crammed over this side.” Jim defended, “I just want to see how it actually looks, I just can’t visualized it when you said that. Ok, no problem, I move it back.” And so after a hard day’s work, after cooking and dinner, Jane has to rearrange all her living room stuffs.

And it seems to have got worse, now he’s even stepping into her territory. He starts rearranging all the stuffs in her kitchen cabinets! Jane is still very patient although she’s damn upset that her opinion does not matter as far as Jim’s concerned. And in her mind, she’s just waiting for her kids to grow, so that she can start living her own life. Arranging her house the way she likes.

Do you have any stories to share of your other half “quirks”? Share your story to all our friends here. And it need not necessary be the women as men too would want to have their say, am sure.

Superwoman Wives, Lazy Husbands

I remember a posting that I did dated Sept 12, 2009, titled ‘Asian Women’s Resilience to Adversity’. There I wrote about ‘Cathy’ who had to cope with a husband that has not been working for past 8 years. And how she has then been working to support the whole family whilst the husband continues to enjoy a stress free life, just ‘lepak’ around whilst the wife is slogging away.

And since then, over the past couple of weeks, I hear more stories from friends of how some of their friends are also facing the same situation - caught in this dilemma of having to cope with ‘under-performing spouses’. The Cantonese has this saying of ‘loi yann umm pah koon, chui pah ka choh long’. Meaning ‘Woman has no fear of poverty, just fear of marrying the wrong man’. And it is so true.



There’s story of this lady, ‘Swen’ that has to cope with her husband that laze around the house, with no motivation to chase for sales (he’s in sales line). Sleeping on the couch every noon in front of the kids, which is not a good example. Kids be growing up thinking that women are the ones that are working, rushing around from sending kids to school, to cooking, household chores, not to mention working. Good thing is that Swen’s working in sales, which gives her flexibility. And then there’s ‘Jinny’, who has to put up with husband asking her for money. Where he could have tried harder to chase to business. But he didn’t because his wife is working and if there’s always money when he needs it.

To these husbands, life is good. There’s security of a home. Food is ready on table. There’s always cold drinks or snacks in the fridge. Children are there to call him Dad without him having to support them. And if need of any cash, just ask the wife. Or in one of the case, the husband just took cash from her purse without even asking her. I am so disgusted with that idea.

So what has happened to the conservative, traditional Asian men that have traditionally being bringing home the doug whilst the wives stayed home to tend to the family. And these same Asian men are the ones that are telling the wife that ‘she has no right to question him where he goes as long he brings home the doug’. These Asian men that considers themselves as the ‘King of the Home’, that when he said ‘one’, no one dares say ‘two’. Is that just a ‘myth’ now?

As for the women, how did all this come about? Why do women have to put up with this? Are women to blame for just letting it happen? For just accepting it? No, I think it’s because of the way Asian women are been bought up. From young, Asian family inculcated in their daughter to always put their family first. That daughter has to always look after the family face value. That ‘divorce’ will bring shame to the family. And ultimately, it’s because Asian women somehow still do not believe in divorce when the kids are young. Despite all the education and the Western influence, Asian women somehow still do not believe in single parenthood. That’s why most Asian women will endure till their kids are grown. If by then, they aren’t already been reduced to an unhappy, depressed, unhealthy, old woman. Will it be too late then?