KUALA LUMPUR (SIN CHEW DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – Chinese New Year celebrations, to many a Chinese, is a lengthy process of festivities that typically last about three weeks.

Few among Chinese Malaysians can name all the festivities in details, and it is weird that this year, we need our non-Chinese government officials to help us draw up SOPs for the festive celebration.

They should be excused, therefore, for coming up with some unconventional rules initially, as they did not have a clue how to go about it in the first place!

Well, we then have the amended version which is better but still not devoid of contradictions.

Take for example, you are allowed to enjoy a reunion dinner with immediate family members living within a radius of 10km, but are not allowed to travel across district border.

In Malaysia, many districts are separated by just a narrow street or alley, making it extremely challenging for people to decide whether to secretly cross the district border to have a reunion dinner with grandma, or just stay at home obediently.

Drawing up such SOPs will not help promote greater unity in our multicultural society but will make life difficult for many and make things look unnecessarily confusing.

Due to the ravaging pandemic, many are prepared to celebrate the coming Chinese New Year in a very much toned down manner.

Perhaps we should be grateful to our government officials who have been so passionate about making rules. We should be even more thankful to local Chinese organisations as well as those officials for willing to bend a little. Although we still cannot cross the state and district borders, at least we can now travel within 10km to have reunion dinner with our families on Chinese New Year’s Eve.

Hopefully this is the only year we need to set up some SOPs for celebrating Chinese New Year. If we still need another set of SOPs next year, it means the pandemic is still very much alive next year.

Theoretically this should not happen, given the whole range of measures we already have in place, from the emergency ordinance to MCOs and the every-changing SOPs, and it is learnt that the vaccines are on their way here. However, if we still fail to get rid of the virus by then, we might as well forget about celebrating Chinese New Year next year!

Another two days will be Chinese New Year’s Eve. Hopefully the Year of the Ox will be a much better one compared to the Year of the Rat characterised by a dreadful pandemic on a global scale.

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While we may not enjoy the same kind of joyous reunion dinners we used to have in the past so many years, nor can we visit our long missed friends and relatives to deliver our sincerest festive greetings, at least we can still celebrate modestly in the city instead of with our families back home.

We believe with a strong determination and concerted effort, we can defeat the virus together, as we look forward to many more prosperous new years ahead!

Sin Chew Daily is a member of The Straits Times media partner Asia News Network, an alliance of 23 news media organisations.

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