Superstition

A week before Chinese New Year approaches, I have to do some shopping for gifts with my mom. These are gifts which we normally offer to close relatives before the actual day arrive (song nien). While my granny was still around, she was considered the eldest – the head of the family. All our relatives would send gifts to our home every year and only then will we give some gifts back to them. After she passed, we all had to send gifts to the other home which the eldest in the family stayed in. And thus it goes on for years. My family normally give canned food, sweet cake(nien gao), tangerines, leek, dried BBQ meat and jelly fish. Every one of the food symbolizes something – food throughout the year, money and luck. And when we go visiting every year, we bring along some tangerines which we will give to every household we visit.

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