When I was little, I used to enjoy CNY because that meant a fun half-day in school where we could dress up (and impress my crush lol) and a few days of PH afterwards. I also enjoyed collecting angbaos, travelling across the island to visit places and playing with my cousins.
But when I grew up, those changed.
I started dreading CNY – or no, in fact, I started hating CNY.
As an adult, the few days of PH means I have to squeeze in the same amount of work into lesser days in a week. CNY now also means a barrage of insensitive and overly personal questions from people who clearly don’t care about your wellbeing and are only asking to compare salaries, boast about how impressive their romantic partners are or heck, use it as an excuse to impose their values on you and douse unsolicited advice in a noble attempt to impart their wisdom onto you.
While I’m unmarried and am still eligible to collect angbaos (I’m in my mid-20s), I’ve stopped loving this aspect of CNY because I’ve realised that my parents give significantly more $ in their angbaos than I’ve ever received. Financially we’re doing slightly better than our extended families, but increasingly it just feels like we’re being exploited for our generosity because our extended families generally expect us to pay for more expensive things during the potluck CNY dinners (e.g. we sponsor the abalones and seafood while others turn up with food like cabbage or mushrooms lol). This exploitation is also evident in how we’re expected to sponsor the location (e.g. chalet or even MBS hotel fml) whenever we have our annual family staycation – but this is a story for another day.
When I was a child, this didn’t seem like a problem to me since we’re fAmiLY afTeRaLL, and family is meant to be considerate to each other. But as an adult who knows how difficult it is to earn money, I feel for my parents and simply hate their behaviour. We’re not that rich anyway – we’re middle class, live in a HDB, and drive one second-hand car from a very ordinary brand – all of which my extended families are able to afford too lol.
So, TLDR, I find myself increasingly hating CNY because
- PH barely means anything anymore
- The barrage of questions and endless comparison
- Deep-seated resentment from feeling like my extended family is exploiting us
As the dreadful weekend approaches, I’m looking for people to commiserate with me.
Why do you hate CNY too?