It is Chinese New Year! Some of us love it… some of us hate it.
Those of us who love it… love it because it’s an opportunity for us to meet our long lost relatives in which we have so much to catch up on with.
Those of us who hate it… hate it because that means we have to go back to some secluded hometown and meet up with relatives that you never really shared too much in common with anyway.
For me… I enjoy visiting my relatives and friends but dread the times when I’m asked
“What internet business you doing? Why didn’t you want to be a lawyer or banker?”
And when I try to explain that I’m in blog advertising… I get a response like
“HAMIK?! Block advertising? Hamik lai? Can make money wan or not???”
And when I say
“Uhmm.. no not really..”
They’ll tell me
“Then what for you do?!?!?!”
But I guess all that still isn’t as bad as the occasional
“HAR?!?!? STILL NO GIRLFRIEND AR!?!? HAIHHH!!!!”
So whenever I go visiting, I try to sit down quietly and eat the yummy Chinese New Year biscuits or snacks like this.
I particularly love this.
Let me prove how much I love it.
When I first came… it was full.
When I left… all that was left was this.
And the only reason why there were any left overs was because I didn’t exactly want to look bad for finishing it all off and not leaving anything for everyone else.
Anyway, a very common question among the young right after Chinese New Year would be
“What is the biggest Ang Pow you got this year?”
Most Ang Pows to me are like RM20 or if I’m lucky RM50 but to be honest, I never really bother to check who gives me what.
I’m just happy I get money just for saying “Gong Xi Fa Cai”. Money will never come any easier than that in life.
But since we’re talking about big.. how big is big?
I mean seriously… BIG is RELATIVE.
For me… a big Ang Pow is RM100… the biggest Ang Pow I have ever got in my life is RM1,000 but that’s one of a kind. Most of my Ang Pows are between RM10-RM20 or if I’m lucky once in a while I get RM50.
So RM100 is BIG for me.
But if your family is filthy rich like if your grandfather owns Genting or something, you might even get Ang Pows in the region of RM10,000 or RM20,000 each.
And if you ever get a RM5,000 Ang Pow from one of your relatives you’ll go complain to your mum and say
“MUMMY!!! Aunty Susan only gave me RM5,000 Ang Pow this year!!!”
And your mum would probably reply
“WHAT?!?! Really? HMPH!!! Fine.. then next year I also don’t give her so much. I will give her ONLY RM5,000.”
So how big is big to you??
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space