15 Jan 2012
MADAM LIU YE, 25, staff nurse at the orthopaedic ward of Singapore General Hospital
Hometown: Inner Mongolia, northern border area of China
Husband and wife Gao Jin Yan, 29, and Liu Ye, 25, have much to learn about each other’s Chinese New Year traditions.
They were married in October 2010 and spent their first Chinese New Year together last year in Mr Gao’s hometown in south-eastern Fujian province.
Madam Liu’s Chinese New Year traditions differ from her husband as she is from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.
For example, unlike her husband, she does not eat nian gao or sweet glutinous rice cakes for prosperity during the festive period.
Instead, those living in her hometown eat dumplings to symbolise the same thing. However, she does not mind.
“We accept each other. It is always good to experience different things. He teaches me and I teach him,” says the nurse, who graduated with a diploma from Ngee Ann Polytechnic in 2010.
She was given a scholarship to study here.
The couple live in a rented four-room HDB flat in Telok Blangah with five others from China. Madam Liu plans to decorate it with couplets and the Chinese word “prosperity”.
She will also buy fresh flowers such as orchids from a market near her house.
On new year’s eve, the couple will have a reunion dinner with flatmates. They will prepare dishes from their own province.
However, Madam Liu and Mr Gao, who is a chef at a restaurant in Clementi, intend to also prepare boiled fish cooked with beansprouts, old cucumber and chilli.
The dish is actually a traditional Sichuan dish but is a favourite with the couple.
Madam Liu is looking forward to the dinner and says: “There is only one spring festival every year and it is very important for us to be gathered together.”
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