Ox-Tales
It's the Chinese New Year's Eve today, marking the last day of the year, which will lead to the first day of the new Lunar Year for all Chinese (and Chinese descents, like the Vietnamese) from all over the world.
It is common tradition for Chinese families to have a reunion gathering every New Year's Eve, where they have sumptuous dinners and wish one another prosperity and long life. But here's the thing: I don't think I'm truly Chinese in the purest sense of the word. I'm Chinese by biological descent. But actually, I think I'm really British, other than the little vestiges of Chinese culture that may still be found in me if you search really hard.
After decades of living under colonial rule, my parents no longer represent the typification of the Chinese people. They hardly can speak the Mandarin language, and our first language is English. We're better acquainted with Shakespearean literature than we are with Journey to the West (西游记 - okay, I've just copied and pasted these words, so you get the point).
Furthermore, it's only in recent years that my family has began cultivating the traditional practice of New Year's Eve reunions. Can't blame anyone about that, really; my parents are the reason why I'm British. They survived the era of colonial imperialism. But they're unapologetic about it.
One of the things I'm beginning to discover as we go through these annual reunions is that parents truly desire for their children to be present at these reunions. They experience a sense of reassuring comfort when their children seem to remember where they have come from and do not fail to return to their roots when the occasion calls for it.
In the same way, the Christian faith is not so different. The one thing that God had always to remind Israel was this: "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt". He wanted the Israelites to never forget this fact, that they might be rooted in this identity of being a people belonging to a God who had delivered them from slavery. It was only when they had kept this momentous historical event in mind that all the Commandments of the Lord would make sense for them.
So if not for anything else, this is what the annual New Year's Eve reunion gatherings have meant to my imperialised mind - a call to remember my roots. If I have no memory of what it means to be truly Chinese, at least I have a memory of what it means to have been a part of the people of God, delivered from a life of separation into a life in His eternal Kingdom.
To all of you, my friends who are real Chinese - a Very Blessed Year of the Ox.
