Gong hay fat choy! Sun nin fai lok!

Today is Chinese New Year. I sat down at my computer to check my email and noticed that my friend James was online. I double-clicked his screen name, waited for his window to pop up, and typed “Sun nin fai lok!” which translates into “Happy New Year!” In response, James typed back “Lay see dow loy,” which roughly meant, “Give me money.”

I laughed, not because it was such a strange response, but because it brought back childhood memories of celebrating Chinese New Year, digging into my drawer to find a red t-shirt, eating handfuls of Chinese candies, and singing “Gong hai fat choy!” (which means “Congratulations and be prosperous”) to any unfortunate victim who crossed my path.

I remember trying to put on my cutest, puppy-eyed expression, preparing myself to walk shyly up to my relatives and say “Sun nin fai lok” and “Gong hai fat choy” in as accurate a Chinese accent as I could, so that when I held out my hands in front of me, they’d place the precious little red envelopes into my palms and wish me a happy new year. To us little Chinese kids, Chinese New Year meant eating as much good food as we could and sucking up to as many generous relatives as we could.

But this year, Chinese New Year feels like it’s passing me by, fading into the background of my frenetic life—a life that’s consumed by books, presentations, deadlines, meetings, and applications. Or maybe it’s because I’m at Biola; my new year’s greetings were met by many a blank stare. Either way, I feel a bit sad and very nostalgic.

The best I could do this year was put on my Asian-inspired earrings and dream of a delicious Chinese feast. I’m so ashamed to call myself Chinese sometimes. My cultural pendulum swings between being too Americanized and being scared to become, for lack of a more PC term, “fobby.”

I’ve never regretting being American-born. There’s an independence and freedom that I would never have experienced if I were more “Chinese” than I am now. Other than playing an instrument and earning decent grades, I’ve always gone against the stereotype: I played basketball in high school, I never had a curfew, I turned down UCLA, Berkeley, and USC, and I majored in English rather than engineering or biology (even with both my parents in the medical field).

But part of me feels a strong pull toward Chinese culture—a need to reclaim parts of who I am that I never really took as my own. Some day, I would love to study both Cantonese and Mandarin, to live overseas and re-absorb some of my cultural heritage. It’s funny how new dreams crop up into our hearts and minds without us noticing or expecting them.