Speed Dating (CNY edition)

I'm so not ready for the New Year. Not only haven't I gotten my haircut yet, I find it extremely strenuous to stand the temptation of wearing my new clothes and shoes before the start of the year of the monkey. Also, I'm feeling too fat to see any of my relatives, who saw me last at the gathering at the start of the year of the ram, about seven pounds thinner

Having accumulated the experience from the last Chinese New Year, I see fit to prepare cue cards of personal information by Wednesday (Chinese New Year's eve). Information on my job, my love life, and my progress of readapting to life in Hong Kong, just to name a few of the things my relatives tend to interrogate on over civet cat dishes and Puli tea. Not because they're interested in knowing, but because they think they're being nice.

The good news is, with a family tree as flourished as mine, most relatives have agreed, for the sake of efficiency, to arrange one large gathering for everyone at once rather than having each individual family visiting every other family superior in ranking like the tradition goes. This way, instead of taking my cue cards all over Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories during the whole of my four-day holiday, I could pretty much get on a roll with the same answers to the same questions with one person at a time, sitting in the same chair, in half a day's time. Much like speed dating, really.

Instead of Mr. Right, I’m hoping to settle a decent amount of red packet money. Hopefully enough to pay for the new clothes and shoes. Plus the haircut, if I'm lucky.