I am baking my sugi biscuits. While they are in the oven, I thought its a good time to share my thoughts.
I remember how I spent my Chinese New Year when I was young. By starting this thread, I am hoping to hear from you what customs, tradition, beliefs and superstitions your parents had when celebrating CNY.
My family was very poor then. My dad was a baker and he barely made enough money to feed my mum and their seven chiildren. We had dark sauce with rice and if mum has a little more to spare, then we get eggs with rice.
We love Chinese New Year because no matter how tight our finances were, we would still have chicken, fish, rice and chup chye. This is a once a year feast so we ate our fill. I remembered mum buying a crate of Green Spot - I love that orange juice. Maybe at that time, we were so hard up, everything tasted good.
Mum would make her Hainanese snacks and goodies. We had "Hee How" - this is a pinky size dough deep fried and coated with frosting and "Ho Gong" - rice bubbles with roasted peanut and caramel. I used to help mum mak them but its a pity I did not note down the recipes cos it was old school style where everything was a handful, or a pinch or thumb size type of measurement.
I think the most popular person during the period prior to CNY day had to be the Bibi who lived a few doors away from us. She was very good at making all the Nonya goodies and one of her favourites was Kuih Bolu. During those days, there was only the cast iron mould and charcoal stove. As with most Bibis, the QC standards for their kuihs were high. The kuihs would be discarded if they were found to have the slightest burn on them. My neighbour will bake her kuih bolu with bits of glowing charcoal in the stove and on top of the mould so that there will be even distribution of heat.
There were many children in the neighbourhood and when Bibi is making her kuih, we would hang around her backyard where she does her baking. Then when she lifts the mould cover to check, the children will chant "hangus" (charred) and when she exclaims "alamak", we would charge forward with toothpicks in our hands and poked at the Bolu and went to one corner to savour our "catch" and Bibi would say cilaka!
My eldest sister would be in charge of cutting our hair and making our clothes. She had limited knowledge of hairstyling or tailoring. We always prayed very hard before we let her cut our hair. No matter what style we asked for, we always get the "coconut head" hairstyle. Our hair looked like a bowl had been placed on our head and it looked like whoever was responsible just used the scissors and go round, following the rim of the bowl.
Our dresses were not any better. Mum would buy a bale of cotton (cheaper this way) and we got to choose our pattern. It waseither pockets or a bow (bows). I loved my bows, 3 of them in a row on my chest. So pretty 
We dont get to keep our hongbaos. We were instructed on the eve that we were supposed to hand them over to mum as soon as we got them so that mum could recyle the money :( So sad that telling this brings tears to my eyes. Not that I am sad that I dont get to keep the money, more so that mum must have wished that she could afford for us to keep what were given to us.
Those days, we had fire crackers and we were usually awake from eve through midnight and at the stroke of midnight, mum will unwrap sweets (the sweetest type she can find at the stores) and stuff them into our mouths before we can utter any word as it is believed that in this way, only sweet words and good things will come out from our mouth.
No matter how poor or how hard life was then, my sisters and I enjoyed our childhood days. We appreciate very much we have today. When things get tough now, we tell ourselves that life was tough when we were young but we dealt with all the blows that came our way and survived. if anything goes wrong like if I drop my purse and loses some money, or if I break something, I tell myself "buang sueh" - meaning to throw away the bad luck.
Oooooh my sugi biscuits are out of the oven and they are very happy. Why, cos they are all bursting will smiles like what you see on huat kuihs (steamed sponge cakes). Tasted one and its yummylicious.
I hope to be like my sugi biscuits - happy as can be.
Xin Nian Kuai Le and Gong Xi Fa Cai and Shen Ti Jian Kang and Wan Shi Ru Yi
Cheers
Caroline Gee
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