While enjoying a hot bowl of plain porridge with Kiam Chye Boay this morning, I was reminded of the ritual of our breakfast on the first day of Chinese New Year.

My breakfast – plain porridge with Kiam Chye Boay

We would normally have a reunion dinner/steamboat dinner on Chinese New Year’s Eve when I was growing up. The leftover stock/soup from the steamboat was used to cook Kiam Chye Boay.

Talking about Chinese New Year, even though I know the date for this year’s Chinese New Year is 10th of February 2024, it just hit me that is less than two weeks away….

So have you spring-cleaned your home? Baked the Chinese New Year cookies and cakes? Bought your new set of clothing? Got ready the red packets?

While writing, I was thinking back what we normally did on the first day of Chinese New Year. So many flashbacks of the joyful time of Chinese New Year …

For me, the first thing we did was to change into our new clothing.  After that, we would wish our grandparents, our parents, and all the senior relatives in the household a Happy New Year. After the well wishes and collecting red packets along the way, we would meet up in the kitchen for breakfast.

Our breakfast would be a bowl of plain porridge with Kiam Chye Boay and a few side dishes like salted fish and hard boiled salted duck eggs etc. This was all thanks to my aunties and my mum, who woke up very early on Chinese New Year’s Day to prepare this sumptuous dish.

After breakfast, we would organise our table settings to prepare to greet relatives and friends who would come to our home to pay their respect to my grandmother (being the senior member of the family) and wish her a Happy New Year.

Mah Mah (my grandmother) with her Chinese New Year cookies

In the picture, you can see my grandmother was getting ready to greet her family and friends on the first day of Chinese New Year with all her cookies laid out.

So, while my grandmother was greeting her families and friends, the younger generation would head out to greet other senior members of our families. This was definitely a joyful time for the younger generation, while enjoying the sumptuous food and collecting the red packets, we were able to meet up with all our relatives along the way.

What were your Chinese New Year rituals growing up? What would you normally have for breakfast on the first day of Chinese New Year? Did you greet and wish your parents and grandparents Happy New Year before or after breakfast? After breakfast, would you then visit your relatives to wish them Happy New Year?

Happy Chinese New Year Preparation!