IT USED to be that all reunion dinners were held at home, with home-cooked dishes comprising traditional ingredients such as black moss or fa cai, meaning prosperity, noodles for longevity and a whole chicken and fish to symbolise completeness.
In recent years, more and more Chinese families have steamboat dinners for their reunion celebrations. Some families go to hotels and restaurants to have their dinners.
Mr Peter Wee, owner of Katong Antique House and a fourth-generation Peranakan says the reunion dinner is one of the main highlights of Chinese New Year, and it should be held at home.
"The Chinese New Year reunion dinner is very significant in the Peranakan culture. It is all about the family, and that is why we have to hold it in the house where the family stays. It represents their identity and the ancestors who may have stayed in the same house," he says.
The traditional Peranakan family does not have steamboat for their reunion dinner.
Instead, they eat typical Peranakan fare with dishes such as ayam buah keluak, a fruit from a nut tree, often cooked with pork ribs or chicken and babi pongteh, a dish of pork trotters stewed in thick brown sauce. The traditional Peranakans also prepare home-made pickles and belachan (shrimp paste) specially for the Chinese New Year celebrations.
In the Peranakan culture, it is important to acknowledge the ancestors of the family by paying respects to them first during Chinese New Year. Typically, the same food for the family at the reunion dinner should be offered to the ancestors at the altar in the morning, when family members acknowledge and invite the ancestors' spirits into the house.
Peranakans also visit the graves of their ancestors during the Chinese New Year period to clean up tombs, offer food and pay their respects.
Although ancestral acknowledgement features largely in what Peranakans do during Chinese New Year, Mr Wee notes that some of the practices have become diluted over the years, and not all families observe them.
However, children still pay respects to their elders in several ways: by visiting the homes of their elders, according to their senority, on the second day of Chinese New Year, and offering salutations before a meal.
"Children respect their elders by addressing them before eating the food at the reunion dinner. It's like asking for their blessings," says Mr Wee.
Ms Lim Boon Tan, executive director of the Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations, says that Chinese New Year revolves around the family and relatives, and that tradition is still observed in most of the Chinese dialect groups.
The reunion dinner, giving out red packets (hong bao), exchange of oranges during house visits, paying respects to one's ancestors, and visiting friends and relatives, are some of the Chinese New Year customs that are still being practised.
Of red packets, Ms Lim says that it is common for children to receive $5 to $10, while the parents and grandparents tend to get more, depending on the giver's generosity.
As for the red outfit that children wear on the first day of the Chinese New Year, it is not a must to observe the practice.
It was a belief in the old days that red represented luck and prosperity, and could help to ward off bad luck.
One item that is synonymous with Chinese New Year and symbolic of family togetherness for the Chinese and the Peranakans is the nian gao - a round cake made with glutinous rice and sugar.
Mr Wee says: "This is the Chinese New Year cake and this sticky cake was made during the depth of winter in ancient China so that it could last and be kept during the winter months. The shape has to be round because it signifies togetherness and helps to "stick" the family together."
