Although CNY has ended more than a week, I'm sure everyone wants to know how do we celebrate the Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year around China and Southeast Asia (SEA). I came across the event on LinkedIn while I was scrolling through and signed up for the event. Then, my friend, Luna, who is one of the organisers asked me whether I would be interested to be one of the speakers. I said yes straight away!
We had a quick rehearsal on how the event would run on that day, I tested out my presentation slides, everything was okay. Sophie recognised me, she was one of the participants from SEAGAN's networking session last year in June - "The SEA of Education". It was one of our biggest networking in history since the establishment of SEAGAN.
The next day was the event. I was nervous yet excited because I haven't speak in front of people for a long time. First up, we have Sophie from China who showed us her family tradition. I found it we have something in similar when it comes to the Chinese New Year celebration. I do remember having congee on the 12th month in the lunar calendar. Next up, it was my turn to present how Chinese New Year is celebrated in Malaysia.
Similar to the previous presenter, Sophie, we too also have the reunion dinner and going back to our hometown or more locally we said it balik kampung. What makes Malaysian CNY special? We have our own CNY album for every animal in the Chinese zodiac. I played Hu Hu Gongxi Bersama 虎虎恭喜 Bersama - from Astro's CNY album. The participants seemed to like it. After my presentation, we moved over to Tony, who was the next speaker after me.
There was no Q & A session for us in the first round. We had another round of presentation to go. This time we have speakers from China, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste. Unfortunately, the Sri Lankan presenter was not available. We moved on to Noni of Timor-Leste. Although Timor-Leste does not celebrate Chinese New Year like Malaysia or China, they do have the New Year's celebration for the first day of the year. Like any New Year celebration, family reunion is one thing.
After the two Chinese presenters, we had an Q & A session. One of the participants, Nurin from Indonesia asked me whether the toy I was holding is the official Chinese New Year mascot for Malaysia. "No, it's from one of the TV stations in Malaysia as other TV stations, they will have their own tiger mascots in conjunction with CNY,"
A couple more questions and it was a wrapped for today's Youth Talk! Thank you Go Study! Looking forward to sharing more about Malaysia in future events!
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