Beginning on the first day of the Chinese New Year, Singaporeans participate in a most unique ritual. All over the island, people frantically dash around to the homes of family and friends to offer New Year greetings, exchange ang pows,*1 and gobble down food. The first two days of the New Year are most crucial, and a strict protocol is observed as people arrange their visits in specific order of seniority—paying respects to the oldest, most esteemed (and usually richest) relatives first. Adult children not living at home are expected to visit their parents, younger siblings have to visit each of their older siblings in descending order of age, second cousins twice removed visit first cousins once removed, and after spending all day driving around the city paying tribute to the paternal side, they have to repeat the whole process the next day on the maternal side.*2 In large families the whole affair would often involve complicated Excel flow charts, ang pow tracking apps, and plenty of Russian vodka to dull the migraine-inducing confusion of it all.
The Tans prided themselves on always being the first to arrive at Tyersall Park on New Year’s Day. Even though these descendants of the nineteenth-century rubber tycoon Tan Wah Wee were third cousins to the Youngs and technically not supposed to be the first visitors, they had established a tradition of showing up promptly at 10:00 a.m. since the 1960s (mainly because Lillian May’s late husband did not want to miss out on rubbing shoulders with all the VVIPs who tended to show up early).
As the convoy of vehicles finally reached Tyersall Avenue and made its way up the private gravel road of the sprawling estate, Geraldine gave Evie a last-minute crash course on her new relatives. “Now, Evie, be sure to greet Su Yi in Hokkien like I instructed you, and don’t address her unless you are spoken to first.”
“Okay.” Evie nodded, gaping at the elegant colonnade of palm trees leading to the most majestic house she had ever seen, getting more nervous by the second.
“And just avoid making any eye contact with her Thai ladies-in-waiting. Great-auntie Su Yi always has these two maids standing by her side who will give you the evil eye,” Eric remarked.
“Oh God—”
“Aiyah, stop scaring the poor girl,” Lillian May scoffed. As the family emerged from their cars and prepared to enter the house, Geraldine whispered a final warning to her mother. “Remember…DO NOT bring up Nicky again. You almost caused Auntie Su Yi to have a stroke last year when you asked where he was.”
“What makes you think Nicky won’t be here this year?” Lillian May asked as she crouched down by the Mercedes’s side mirror to rearrange the elaborate wisps of hair cascading down her neck.
Geraldine glanced around quickly before continuing. “Aiyah, you don’t even know the latest! Monica Lee told me that her niece Parker Yeo heard the most sensational tidbit from Teddy Lim: Apparently, Nicky’s all set to marry that girl next month. Instead of a grand wedding here they are getting married in California on a beach! Can you imagine?”
“Hiyah—what a disgrace! Poor Su Yi. And poor Eleanor. What a loss of face—all her efforts to position Nicky as the most favored grandson have been dashed.”
“Remember, Mummy, um ngoi hoi seh, ah.*3 Don’t say anything!”
“Don’t worry, I won’t say a thing to Su Yi,” Lillian May promised. She was glad to be here at Tyersall Park at last, in this oasis of splendor far removed from the garish New Year kitsch that adorned the rest of the island. To Lillian, there was this sense of being in an enchanted time warp the moment she passed through the front door. It was a house that adhered only to the traditions decreed by its exacting chatelaine, transforming for the festive season in its own subtle ways. The white phalae-nopsis orchids that usually greeted visitors on the ancient stone table in the foyer were replaced by a towering arrangement of pink peonies. Upstairs in the drawing room, a twenty-foot-long calligraphy scroll bearing a New Year poem by Xu Zhimo—composed in tribute to Su Yi’s late husband, Sir James Young—would be unfurled against the silver- and lapis-inlaid wall, and the white voile curtains that usually flapped against the veranda doors would be swapped for watered-silk panels in the palest shimmering rose.
In the sun-soaked conservatory, the New Year tea ritual was just beginning. Su Yi, resplendent in a high-necked turquoise silk