four observations during 拜年

I. My grandfather watches from his living room altar every Chinese New Year, our family gathering in an abundance of flashing red and greetings galore. The framed image of his surly, unyielding expression towers over us as we shuffle into the house he and my grandmother used to live in. A miniature porcelain pot sits before him, joss sticks freshly lighted. It beckons me forward; the scent of incense floods my face as I approach the raised altar. Acrid smoke seeps deep into my eyes, a sting that ignites my senses in a menacing warning. As my vision clears, my grandfather’s portrait glowers back at me, suspecting me of what I already know to be true: I wish I were anywhere but here.

II. My grandfather scrutinises my father standing alone in his studio apartment, donned in his regular New Year clothes and counting the stack of ang baos he has to hand out this year. He files money into the red packets mechanically and paws around for a long-forgotten wedding band, still determined to keep up the pretence. My grandfather sits upon his dais, looks down on my father—his sixth child, his first son—and wonders how he has been reduced to a suitcase splayed on a cracked floor, how he can trace the outline of this hollowness and not recognise it as grief. But how could he? We’ve always kept the pain subdued, always fanned the flames of our cold war.

III. My grandfather witnesses my brother find his place among our cousins, while I try to find space in the back for my introversion. It’s a painful sight to see: the only granddaughter without a New Year dress on, year after year as uncompromising as ever. My grandmother accepts the mandarin oranges we present to her, receives the customary greetings that taste foreign in my brother’s mouth. The language does not come easy anymore—floodgates of shame and self-hatred shut out a then raging river of fluid pinyin; now only droplets of our mother tongue leak through. Among relatives, gossip of our deficiencies spreads like wildfire and disappointment reverberates around the house—the blaze within only rises.

IV. My grandfather considers these open defiances of legacy, of tradition, and scowls down at us from his portrait. He first came to us disguised as superstitions, as memories tucked within all the untold stories. Since then, we’ve stopped salvaging what we could from the inferno, letting the fiery flames consume the last of our remnants. All of it meant something once, I’m sure. I stand before my grandfather’s portrait and breathe in the uneasy history; the falling embers latch onto our present, ravage our future—offerings for a lineage gone cold. Our suffocation has always been inevitable. Soon, this house will be all that remains.

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footnotes:

- 拜年 (bài nián): visiting during CNY, a tradition where relatives visit each other to celebrate

- ang bao: red packets of money that are usually given by married people during CNY.

- pinyin: the romanisation of the Chinese language

- four is an unlucky number in Chinese culture, it sounds like ‘death’ in mandarin. this piece centres on that, exploring both physical and metaphorical deaths.