There's one thing you can't go wrong with on Chinese New Year: it's fun. To most of the world, we Chinese are a bunch of crackpots who celebrate New Year in February. To those in the know however, i.e those with more than the miniscule grain of culture that happens to blow into their cranial orifices like pollen, Chinese New Year [CNY] is a perfectly reasonable and downright superb celebration.

As the writer it is my obligation to educate the readers as to the purpose of Chinese New Year. Much as the name sounds obvious, it doesn't sound sensible to the logically supressed that much of the world never actually followed the Gregorian calendar. There is a reason as to why CNY is celebrated in February, and why the date changes annually. It is because to the historically agrarian Chinese, the advent of New Year is tied to the lunar cycle. The New Year isn't so much January the 1st [though the Chinese did indeed have the concept of a twelve-month year and a twelve-year zodiac] as the advent of spring, which is why in China CNY is actually referred to as the Spring Festival, and as it is to any agrarian culture, spring heralds the planting season. Spring Festival is a time to offer thanks for last year's harvest [or curses if it was a bad one], in any case offer hope for a good one this time round, and re-establish family bonds, which is why families will get together and meet; this is often the only opportune moment to do so all year.

Now that the whats and whys have been seen to, several rites and trends of CNY will be explained. As mentioned before, families for their own particular reasons find it difficult to unite during other times of the year. Much importance is therefore placed on the family's reunion gathering, done on New Year's Eve. The reunion dinner is a symbol of the family's togetherness; it is a gesture of politeness as much as it is an obligation to turn up. The dinner is usually held in the home of the family patriarch, as a mark of respect for the family's leader, and this home will be the focal point of most of the subsequent celebrations. For wedded couples, it is the husband's side that holds priority; a wife will therefore usually spend the reunion dinner at the in-laws'.

The Chinese festive dinner is literally a litany of lucky wishes. Due to the repetitive nature of Chinese pronounciation, the name of certain food items is taken as connotations of something auspicious. For instance, fatt choy, a kind of desert algae which resembles wads of unconditioned hair, has the same pronounciation as the Chinese word for 'increasing wealth', and is thus considered an auspicious food [the harvest of this algae is sadly an illegal trade, much of it being taken from the dunes of northwestern China; the ecological impact being the dunes' surface not being held together and erodes. Efforts to halt fatt choy harvesting have been as successful as a lunar attempt on Apollo 13]. Pineapples [ong lai] or cheap tacky plastic representations thereof are often hung in doorways as their name corresponds to 'gold arriving'. Though essentially a Malaysian tradition the tossed salad or lowh sang was in fact started by the Hong Kong-ites; the Singaporeans just love taking the credit. The tossing action is complemented by blessings uttered as the salad is tossed higher and higher, and is usually done to reaffirm family and social ties. A fish [yeue] is often represented somewhere in the house as its name corresponds to the Chinese word for excess; a gold fish [kam yeue] in figurine, sometimes live form, is usually used as it connotates an excess of gold. In addition to the significant foods, items which are just plain expensive like shark's fin and sea cucumber are also served.

If you hadn't guessed by now, the Chinese are a superstitious and materialistic bunch. During CNY, it is believed a deity of prosperity [Choi Sun] will arrive on Earth to give His blessing. As such prayer altars are erected and incense burned by Taoist and esoteric Buddhists to herald the deity's arrival. Worship of other deities and temple visitation is also practiced by these people as requests for blessings, and offerings include the brilliant pink fatt koh [fortune cake, also the pronounciation for 'high wealth']. Another famous offering is the lin koh or sticky cake. Made from palm sugar stirred for hours over a fire and wrapped in palm leaves, this is sweet and is 'served' to the immortal Choi Sun to gum up His mouth so He may not send a bad report against the visited household. How's that for Chinese humour? It is more typical these days for families to eat the cake; it is best sliced and fried in egg or grated coconut.

The famous lion and dragon dances are performed in the belief that the domineering cacophony as well as the hood's fearsome visage will drive away evil spirits from the household. Fireworks and firecrackers do more than just gladden the heart, they perform the same purpose as the dances, creating bright light and loud noise to deter unwelcome spirits [Caution: may lead to subsequent pyromania, a lust to start bonfires and a yearning to burn everything]. Spring cleaning the house is done not only to prep the house up for the festival, but to ensure the house is thoroughly cleansed, for during the first days of CNY it is inauspicious to clean the house for fear of 'sweeping the luck away'. Calligraphy bestowing blessings upon the household is stuck up on walls, the most auspicious one, the Chinese word for prosperity, 福 [fook] is usually stuck upside-down on doors, as the character when upside-down appears to depict a smooth flow of wealth through the house's front door.

On the first day of New Year the traditional tea ceremony is conducted, whereby children will offer tea to their parents and offer well-wishes. This is done primarily to reaffirm the family hierarchy and ensure the children continue to show respect to their elders. In exchange the parents and elders feed the children's materialism by dispensing packets of money. In olden days this was usually a token gesture, with little money involved. In modern times bigger pay packets and the general materialism of society mean this has, like presents for Christmas, for better or worse, become the keystone ceremony of CNY.

It is always a tradition to wear new clothes on the first days of CNY, in keeping with the theme of 'out with the old and in with the new'. Inauspicious colours are black, dark blue and white, as these generally signify death and gloom, and particularly in the case of white, funerals. The Chinese fixation with red can be explained as thus, red being a bright 'happy' colour is the most auspicious, along with gold. Ornaments and embellishments such as flowers placed in or around the house are usually of these two colours. Much emphasis is placed on depictions of happy children, for it is believed that children are downright cute and their youthful smiling faces are the ideal depiction of a happy start to the year. It is highly inauspicious to show anger, sadness or mention death during the first few days of New Year and is said to have a negative effect on the rest of the year. Throughout the first few days of New Year it is tradition that families and friends visit each other dispensing gifts and blessings.

The eighth day of New Year is auspicious for the Hokkien peoples, and is celebrated with as much verve and cheer as can be expected on any given day of CNY. The Hokkiens have several deities specific to their linguistic sub-culture and worship of these is carried out on this day. The other auspicious day of New Year is the last. Known as Chap Go Meh it is the 14th and last day of CNY and heralds the end of festivities and the resumption of the year's labour. On this day young girls hoping for love throw oranges into the rivers, having quietly made a relevant wish.

I love bee-eaters. I love everything about them, the way they look, the way they fly, the aloof manner in which they puff their feathers when they perch, thus forcing their heads into an upward position. Even the way they eat endears them to me, albeit in a slightly more morbid sense than mere innocent endearment. More on that later.

As you might've guessed by now, bee-eaters are birds. For those who don't know what a bee-eater looks like, this is it
Picture NOT used with permission by National Geographic. It was a desktop anyway. That's one species of bee-eater from Africa, there're many more species scattered all over the Old World, most in Africa and North Asia. We in Malaysia only get them as migrants, with the exception of the rather dumpy-looking [but exceedingly cute and winning nominee for Animal That Should Be Made Into Soft Toys award] Red- bearded Bee-eater, resident in our primary rainforests. The altogether more conspicuous species more observant people might recognise are winter migrants from north Asia, Malaysia being one of the stops on their way down to Australia, though there are a few which seem to prefer staying here till the flight back. The two most common are the Blue-tailed and Blue-crowned bee-eaters, though there are a handful of Red-crowneds and the occasional Rainbow. Apparently they migrate in flocks, but I've only ever seen them in pairs or individuals.

The most conspicuous thing about bee-eaters is their bright colours. Nearly all species have wonderful multi-coloured plumage; the Rainbow literally lives up to it's name. It is strange when you consider the family is closely related to the not altogether very colourful hornbills, but more explicable when you discover they number rollers, kingfishers and hoopoes amongst their other relatives. A stupendously diverse family. The next thing one might notice about them is their long bill, which is understandable given that they live up to their name. In truth bee-eaters eat just about any kind of flying insect, but when bees, hornets and giant wasps number amongst your high-favourites, it is wise that they be kept a comfortable distance from your body before they are dispatched.

The bee-eater's method of feeding highly endears them to me. There's something slightly morbid and thrilled inside me when I'm watching a bird bash its head against the side of a branch repeatedly. The beating motion serves to smash the sting and life out of the prey, rendering it safer to eat. As stated above, bee-eaters tend to use the branches that they perch on for this purpose. Metal might be just as suitable, but apparently the birds haven't really gotten used to that yet. Many a time I have awoken to a tinking sound outside my window. Upon investigation I tend to find a rather fluffed and dazed-looking bee-eater struggling to regain its composure having bashed its pithy meal against a solid metal TV aerial.

The bee-eater comes across to most people as a very sleek bird. It is indeed a very slim-cut creature, the fighter-jet equivalent of the bird world. Its streamlined build is tailored especially for the sharp turns and quick dashes it makes when making brief sallies from its chosen perch, maximising its aerodynamicity and speed. Bee-eaters spend so much time on the wing it seems surprising most people see them at all, indeed they are most conspicuous when perched, and it would be difficult to observe them otherwise. Handily they choose to sit in conspicuous places like in dead trees and atop roofs, so viewers will nearly always get a decent eyeful of the pretty bird. As a bonus, they are for the most part, non-nervous and acclimatised to human presence, so observers will usually be permitted close views.

When bee-eaters are resident [with the exception of the Red-bearded, which is a loner], they tend to mingle in flocks which can number several hundred, and when bee-eaters get together, they do everything together. One of the more spectacular birdwatching sights in Africa is a flock of bee-eaters nesting communally in a riverbank or sandflat, occassionally making brief forays from the cliff face or beach en masse and returning to their nest holes at the same time. It is a lifelong wish to see this sight which will only serve to gladden more my heart and eyes, which for now, continue to be teased by that delightful little green and blue bird, right now flitting to and fro outside my bedroom window, and coyly fluffing its feathers.