I did not really help out much in the house, whether in cleaning the house or preparing the food. I guess i did do a little bit of helping out here and there, and the most i did was washing the dishes after the meal. I'm not sure how the in-laws think of this kind of behaviour, but frankly, i've never had to help out on anything during CNY when i was with my own family. I do not like doing any kind of housework too. It felt kind of hypocritical if i gotta pretend to be that virtuous daughter-in-law who cooks and cleans when i'm there. I am who i am, and i hope they can accept and like me as i am, and not someone whom i am not yet pretend to be.
Anyway, we had steamboat three times, and i was stuffed everytime even though i did not take any rice to go with the steamboat. I ate lots of junk food, and 贝 had Tiger beer almost everyday. He said that should be the way to spend CNY.
On the eve of CNY, i was asked to pay respect to 贝's ancestors. This was the first time i went through this kind of ritual, as my family does not carry out any kinds of religious rites during CNY (or any other days for that matter).
My mother-in-law bought lots of vegetarian dishes and placed them out on a table. There were also twelve bowls of rice, chopsticks and cups of tea on the table. 贝 and i were asked to burn a joss stick and offered tea to his grandparents (who had passed away of course). Then 贝's dad knelt down, prayed for a while, and then threw two coins into the air. When the coins dropped on the floor and showed two different sides, it meant that the ancestors were full already and we could clean up the table. I found the Chinese tradition to be really interesting.
贝 and i offered tea to his parents, brother and sister-in-law on the night of CNY. My mother-in-law gave me a very thick gold necklace, and i also received a big anypao of RM1,288, which i wasn't sure was from mother-in-law or father-in-law. I didn't feel good to get such a big sum from the in-law, so i gave them an angpao of RM888 each before we returned to JB.
On the 2nd day of CNY, the whole family visited my mother-in-law's family. She had specially arranged for us to have the tea ceremony on that day too. It was a very simple ceremony, but as mentioned, my mother-in-law came from a huge family. I think we offered tea to more than 20 pairs of couples and took quite a while to complete the whole process.
After offering tea to the elderly and senior cousins, it was our turn to give out angpao to those who are younger than us. I didn't really keep track of the number of angpao we gave out, but it wasn't really that many as we had thought. We still had about 40 angpao left when we went back home, but the angpao we received from the tea ceremony summed up to more than RM1,500! Well, this is the last year that we could get any more angpao from anyone during CNY, and i guess it wasn't too bad.
The same ceremony wasn't carried out for 贝's paternal family. They said it wasn't really necessary, since we didn't hold any wedding dinner or traditional wedding ceremony. Both 贝 and i were glad that this whole marriage thing is finally over, in the simple way that we have wanted. What's left are the wedding photography and the honeymoon trip, which hopefully will be completed by this year as well.
So that's my first CNY as a wife and daughter-in-law. It was not too bad an experience. I was a bit bothered by one thing though -- the mother-in-law dropped a hint about we should quickly have our own kids or something. I kept quiet as i did not know what to say. Then when 贝 and i were alone, i asked him why he did not make it clear to his parents about our decision of not having any children. He said he did say it once, but the parents did not take him seriously. Oh boy, i hope this is not gonna be something that will become a trouble for us in the future.
Labels: life
