Year of the Dragon

It is the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. It's the Year of the Dragon, the only mythical creature in the Chinese Zodiac. The last time we had the dragon come around, it was the turn of the century.

The excellent thing about New Years is that they start with a holiday. CNY is a big event in Singapore, and most offices are shut for two days. This time, the first day of the New Year fortuitously falls on Monday, resulting in a four day weekend.

My New Year began with tossing a salad at my cousin's (now a Singapore veteran of 16 months), a traditional ritual to welcome the Chinese New Year. This is called Yu Sheng and while the real thing has strips of raw fish, we made do with a vegetarian substitute.

Seeing a long weekend stretching ahead of me, I found license to make it even lazier than usual, catching two movies back to back at the neighbourhood cinema. The two movies, "Contraband" (action thriller) and "The Descendants" (human relationships drama) were far apart in content, but both thoroughly enjoyable.

The weekend also gave me the time to sit back and re-connect with some friends and family I hadn't chatted with in a while. My social calendar in Singapore has suddenly started looking busier, with entry into a Book Club I was introduced to via my cousin. There's a bit of pressure, given the commitment to read a book every two months, and then talk about it. The latter bit makes me feel like I am on that TV talk show hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, but I believe it's all in a good cause.

While I was just loitering around the shopping area on Orchard Road, a passerby who seemed to guess I had nothing better to do, asked if I could help escort a blind lady to the bus stop a block away. I did this, and felt a lot better about myself than I had in a long while. Doing good feels good - no doubt about that.

I tried looking up what the Year of the Dragon 2012 has in store, but couldn't find anything that clearly made a statement, one way or the other. If the start is anything to go by, I think it's going to be A Good Year.

Gong Xi Fa Cai.