Being Chinese | Learning to celebrate Lunar New Year in deepest, darkest Devon
Grappling with being the sole source of Singapore Chinese culture for my children, I have focused on transmitting it through food
When we lived in Singapore, my husband made sure they knew their English heritage. Now that we live in England, it’s my job to keep their Singaporean identity alive. And celebrating Lunar New Year in a tiny Devon village is hard work. My husband may not agree with how Christmas is celebrated in Singapore but at least it’s a public holiday.
Where we are, it’s school, business, indeed, life as usual. In the midst of the pandemic lockdown, in the bitterly cold winter, I wondered darkly: does anyone here know it’s Lunar New Year?
The problem with being the sole source of Singaporean Chinese culture for my children is I’m neither very traditional nor do I agree with everything in my culture. My attempts at teaching them Mandarin and Teochew have failed spectacularly, and I’m not interested in passing on the conservative Chinese values I was raised with; I don’t want absolute obedience, my children’s sexual proclivities, whatever they turn out to be, are none of my business, and I want them to find their place in the world, not be put in their place by outdated ideas about daughters, wives or mothers. The only area I feel I could transmit culture in is food.
