Gung Ho Fat Choy

When you are an expat living away from family, friends are important. When you are a newly minted expat in the middle of a pandemic, friends become a lifeline, an essential part of life. I am fortunate that I have found two friends that have become like family at a time when none of us are able to visit our families or have them visit us.

As I get older, I realise making good friends is hard work. In college it was so easy making friends - living day in and day out together, sharing the same experiences, friendship came easily. As priorities shift when you get older, making truly close friends is hard work. On the one hand, with children you get an automatic social circle, but this doesn’t necessarily mean you ‘click’. Living on an expat island has definitely made meeting people easy. Because everyone is from somewhere else, people are very friendly and open. There are cliques ofcourse, but in general because of the transient lifestyle its easy to make friends. I am truly lucky because E, C and I clicked instantly and even our husbands have become close and make plans (often without us 🤪). The kind of friends you can drink endless cups of tea with and not realise how much time has gone by.

Last week marked the most important festival here - the Lunar Chinese New Year and our families decided to celebrate together (thankfully C has had a lifetime of practice so she led the ropes!). Signs of the festival were everywhere from the little orange trees to red decorations and little red envelopes for ‘lai see’, a tradition of elders giving little packets of money to younger children, employees and helpers. With C, who is a Taobao (amazon of China) queen, the kids were dressed for the occasion.

We learnt that it is tradition to make dumplings for the new year so we all rolled up our sleeves and got involved. C fashioned some beautiful shapes. I’m sad to say my dumpling skills were as strong as my chopstick using skills 🤪. But we had a lovely time nevertheless sharing lot of laughs (and flour!). We also had a go at Chinese calligraphy using paintbrushes and real ink. The evening was exactly what a festival should be - family and friends spending time together and building memories:)

Gung Ho Fat Choy!