KOTA KINABALU: With Chinese New Year or the Lunar New Year in progress, the multi-cultural citizens of Malaysia have been enjoying ‘open house’ with all the good food that Malaysians are known for, an overabundance of sunflower seeds (‘kuaci’) and mandarin oranges, and have been treated to Lion and Dragon dance performances in hotels and shopping malls.
Nancy Koh, author, photographer and food aficionado, spent the first day of the New Year first watching a Lion Dance troupe at a friend’s open house in the morning, then zooming off in the afternoon with another chum to her favourite resort for drinks and to catch their annual Lion Dance performance.
With all these fun and activities going on, and with friends and family gathering for dinners and ‘yee sang’ to celebrate this auspicious occasion, one can be forgiven for wondering how much of the activities are actually cultural and how much are more recent additions to the Chinese New Year celebrations.
Nancy ponders this as cultural practices and its significance in modern life is one of the main threads running through her upcoming book ‘Borneo’s Hidden Treasures’.
BHT explores the different races, places and cultures in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, through one common interest – food!
Continue reading at: Borneo’s Hidden Treasures - Chinese influence in modern Sabah life
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