The newspaper delivery boy came to my house last night, asking for my Chinese newspaper subscription fee. I was a little surprised, because the month of January had not yet ended.

I asked him whether it was because of the Chinese New Year falling on Feb 7. It is an ancient Chinese custom that outstanding bills must be settled before the day of the CNY, a tradition that most Chinese businessmen try their best to honour. For the first 15 days of the New Year, nobody can demand payment of any bills receivable.

Downcast and almost in tears, the newspaper boy told me he had been robbed at gun point of over RM3000 in Sungei Long last week by a gang of Thai thugs. He now has no money to celebrate the new year. His family will be devastated.

His story stirred great agitation in my heart. These newspaper delivery people make a matter of cents for every copy of the newspaper that they deliver to our doorsteps. For such paltry profit, they had to get up very early in the morning. Rain or shine, they must collect their supply of newspapers and promptly ensure we get to enjoy our daily fix of news at the breakfast table.

The other chap who supplies my English newspaper goes around his business on a motor bike. The high piles of various papers are usually ferried precariously in front and behind his bike seat, making his journey rather perilous. One day he was knocked down by a car, and his arm was cleanly broken. He was out of action for a month or two.

Only time to lay back

Contrary to the Malay national narrative, not all Chinese are rich. Denied the opportunity to participate much in the public sector, and largely squeezed out of the public tertiary education system, this middle-lower income group of Chinese have nothing to aid them in their survival in the big city except their guile, their thrift, and their stubbornly hard work wherever there is a buck to be made.

The vegetable and fish vendors in my neighbourhood work seven days a week, for 52 weeks of the year. Many of them would sell their stuff twice a day. They sell in neighbourhoods like mine early in the morning, and chase after the busiest pasar malam at night. With the hours for loading and unloading, as well as opening and closing of their stalls, you wonder if they can ever get enough sleep.

That is why the Chinese Lunar New Year is so important to the Chinese in Malaysia. For them, that is the only period of time for them to lay back, take a reprieve from hard work, and indulge in the pleasures of life with a vengeance. My neighbourhood fish monger told me he went to Genting last year for the CNY and made a tiny fortune - or “Fa Cai” in the appropriate festive parlance.

The CNY is all about “Fa Cai”, banishing the disappointment and affliction of the previous year, and looking forward to better times in the forthcoming Year of the Rat. The most popular CNY greeting is still “Gong Xi Fa Cai”, wishing you great prosperity. Torn by war and famine between intermittent periods of relative prosperity and stability, the Chinese in mainland have always dreamed of just being left alone to survive and prosper. This eternal aspiration has become a kind of cultural genes going back many millennia.

The sad story of the newspaper delivery boy also reflects the ugly reality of living in the Klang Valley. Crimes are rampant, and nobody can feel really safe. Last year, the owner of the Mamak restaurant in our housing estate was hacked to death by a gang of Indian youths in broad daylight, right behind the counter of his shop! Every house on my street is locked down like a high-security prison, even and especially when people are inside.

The sorry state of his plight can only be imagined. The schools have just reopened for the year barely a month ago. That would usually burn out a big hole in his small pocket. If he has two or three children going to school, the monthly expenditure would be in the region of over a thousand, covering expenses like all those extra charges that schools like to impose on the unsuspecting parents, besides the mandatory school bus service. No wonder Chinese parents choose to have fewer kids these days.

The pressure of making ends meet is severe in the Klang Valley these days. The shopkeepers and the small businessmen I meet daily here grumble about the sluggish economy. They leer with a sardonic smile when I mention to them all those macro-economic indicators like high growth rate, low unemployment rate, and low inflation rate.

The glowing picture about how well our economy is doing - as painted by politicians and the media - do not seem to have trickled down to the ordinary people.

In my neighbourhood, the grocery stores have cordoned off the parking space in front of their shops, and filled it with CNY goodies piled sky high. The old Chinese songs of the Toong-Toong-Toong-Chiang variety boom from loud-speakers. A wide variety of crimson red house decorations are up for grab. But there are more lookers than takers.

One gets the feeling that these shrewd city folks are all bracing for a bleak year ahead. They need no economists to tell them that the price of fuel will jump another nerve-racking notch after the general election. No matter who wins in their constituency, daily necessities will probably cost more. Life will become harder, irrespective of how well the KLSE is doing.

Witness to rapid changes

Despite the gloom and doom, the Chinese here are still determined to celebrate their CNY. It is the largest festival for them in the year after all. This morning, a total stranger greeted me at the morning market with the CNY wish for prosperity and happiness with the sort of spontaneity and cheerfulness that is uncharacteristic of life in Kuala Lumpur.

My heart bled for my unfortunate newspaper delivery boy. I know what it is like to be deprived of CNY joy just because there is no money. I was born after the war and grew up in that period of universal poverty. Looking back five decades later, my parents must have lived through great anguish and pain just trying to scramble their last pennies to provide us with a decent CNY Eve reunion dinner. Miraculously meat would be served.

The CNY was the only occasion when I would be rich beyond measure, after my mother had given me an ang pow containing the grand sum of two dollars. Many years later, I had discovered that my mother had to borrow money from some kind neighbours just to bring a touch of New Year cheer to her children.

I was born in the Year of the Rat. As anybody with minimal knowledge of the Chinese astrology can tell you, I am 60 years of age. For half a century, I have been a witness to the rapid changes to our country, the good as well as the bad swings of event that changed the course of our nation’s history.

I can bear testimony to how the Chinese people have done well eventually, despite all the odds in their adopted country, through sheer determination, hard work, stoic resilience, almost miserly thrift, and unimaginable sacrifice for the cause of their children’s education.

That is why I am not that worried about the future of my Chinese newspaper delivery boy. He may have a lean year. But as long as he stays away from gambling and from the loan sharks, his tenacious will to survive will prevail in the end. Millions before him have done it, and he will slowly but surely achieve some kind of financial independence after many years of suffering.

As any Chinese adults will tell you, the CNY celebration is for the kids. I have no kids and live a Spartan reclusive life. This CNY, I shall celebrate it by cooking some Teochew fish porridge the way my mother taught me. What kids do not realise is that the Lunar New Year is also the occasion to remember one’s departed parents. When you drink the water downstream, think of its source.

That is perhaps the original meaning of the CNY, the acknowledgement of the cycle of death and life in the river of our Being.

Happy Chinese New Year!