Wednesday, February 06, 2008
{ 7:31 AM }
We'd set off the long trail of firecrackers. The crackling so deafening and the smoke absolutely intoxicating, but we'd set it off anyway just before dinner, on the eve of Chinese New Year. With the decorations up and the dinner table set, we'd feast on all things heavenly. Lion dances by the truck loads, we'd welcome, not one, not two but a record breaking seven. To chase away the spirits as tradition requests of us, but at the same time, to entertain guests who've poured in to my grandfather's open house.
This year, I sit in my room, close to tears and missing my family so much, reminiscing about my Chinese New Year last year as, conincidently ,my iTunes plays Michale Buble's Home. I didn't think it get to me this badly but it did. Today I write from a different perspective. Not one of joy and unconcelable excitement as I did previous years, but of great loneliness and emptiness.
As beautifully blue the sky is, I miss the red, all of it, blinding or not. My first Chinese New Year away from home. FIRST AND LAST.
Happy Chinese New Year.