posted by Gypsygal Prime

(for my lil sis)

Being more Pinoy than Chinese (I’m a fifth generation Filipino Chinese from my mother’s side), our family celebrate the Lunar New Year (or better known as Chinese New Year). We go to church, then have lunch at Binondo (Manila’s Chinatown district) , watch a lion dance in the street and cap the day with my mother buying almond jelly and other sweet breads in Salazar Bakery in Ongpin and/or drop by Eng Bee Tin shop ( I love its violently-violet motif ) for its yummy ube hopia (and lately because both my parents are diabetic, sugar-free hopia).

And of course, the Chinese New Year won’t be complete without the boxes of tikoy – those sweet cakes made of glutinous rice which our yaya will then slice into small rectangular pieces, dip each slice in a batter of egg yolk, and fry them for about five minutes.

We have to eat them while it’s warm, soft and sweet – just enough to indulge our sweet tooth. But I don’t mind eating them cold too, as it’s still chewy and sweet (although my mother will probably disagree).

We usually buy tikoy days before the onset of Chinese New Year. This year, for instance, I dragged my parents to Ongpin a week before the New Year, so I can buy them (and my brother and my auntie) boxes of tikoy. We view tikoy (or moon cake for that) the way we view all those toys that we give to our dozens of inaanak on Christmas – something to be given on a special occasion, no matter what.

I can never recall the time that we don’t have tikoy in our table during Chinese New Year. Given that we live in Tondo, which is just a 15-minute jeepney ride away from the nearby district of Binondo, we can always avail of tikoy all –year round. But we never did that. We seldom buy tikoy beyond the Chinese New Year season (that’s between January and February). It’s as if buying and eating tikoy is a ritual that had to be performed at some auspicious date, or else it will lose its meaning.

I don’t know how and why this tradition started. All I know is that my mother’s family never really celebrated Chinese new year (she said they were too busy minding their growing furniture shop), but they managed to eat loads of tikoy nevertheless as their Chinese business partners either give them fruit or boxes of tikoy. The tradition will live on as there’s always someone in the family – me, any my siblings, my parents, one of my aunties – buying tikoy. My sister often say that there must be tikoy on Chinese New Year – as it’s good luck. (and a harbinger of wealth too given its round shape that resembles one big gold coin) . It is supposed to bring luck not only to the recipient but to the tikoy giver too.

When I lived in Singapore for several years, tikoy (along with sinigang and Varona's vegetarian barbecue) is one food that I really missed. Which is really strange, considering that the Chinese New Year is perhaps the biggest holiday in Singapore the majority of its population are Chinese. But I can’t find tikoy there and I foolishly assumed that tikoy must be a Tsinoy food invention (the same thing that there’s no such thing as lumpiang shanghai in Shanghai).

I will learn, much much later, and when I was back in Manila, that of course I can’t find tikoy in Singapore because it’s better known as “nian gao” there , it’s Mandarin name, which means New Year cake. (Tikoy is the Pinoy
derivation of the Hokkien word tee kueh– which means “sweet cake”)

And it’s also much much later, after interviewing people for a story I'm writing about how Filipino Chinese celebrate the Lunar New Year, that I will learn the significance of tikoy – it’s also an auspicious symbol for family harmony: as it’s sticky which symbolizes that the family will “stick” together.

So now, as I’m in the mood again to eat another slice of tikoy (as I’m writing this, our yaya is cooking the red-bean flavored tikoy that I gave to my mother), I ponder on what tikoy – or the Chinese new year for that matter – means to me.

It is about my mother who never goes home without a pasalubong for us; it is about my dad who drives me to the office because I never learned how to drive; it is about all of us helping our mother to cope –and triumph – against cancer; it is about our family spending Sundays together going to church and having lunch in Binondo or Malate.

It is also about my sister, who’s now based in Europe, but never forgets to call home every Chinese New Year just to say: “Did you buy tikoy? You should buy tikoy now, that’s for good luck.”

( Keong Hee to our Shobe!)