Lunar New Year: Emery Fung's Experience

Written by Emery Fung, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Consultant, for Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year is often an exciting time of the year, especially for children & young adults. You get extra school holidays, ‘Lai See’ (Red Envelopes) and lots of food!

For myself, as a Trans person and someone who consistently missed Lunar New Year celebrations for 13 years because I studied abroad (which is also a common experience for kids from Hong Kong), it brings up very complex feelings.

For one, for every year I miss, I feel I am less & less attached to my Hong Kong roots. This echoes further when Christmas is generally perceived as the ‘biggest holiday period’, even though over 2 billion people celebrate Lunar New Year. Some countries have public holidays such as Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, The Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, North Korea, Singapore, and Brunei.

Christmas takes the main stage for festive holidays across the year, but I would question the message is sending to people who don’t celebrate Christmas.

Lunar New Year is often described as the ‘Chinese Christmas’ in terms of family time. Back in December, I wrote a post on LinkedIn about Christmas & the festive period.

I wrote:

Yes, there are lots of reasons why we should be jolly during the festive period, but don’t forget:

NOT EVERYONE celebrates Christmas 

NOT EVERYONE will have plans for the holiday 

NOT EVERYONE is able to be with their families

NOT EVERYONE is close with their families & the festive period can often bring up trauma & hurt

There is no shame in NOT enjoying the festive period. Remember everyone has their own unique situation they are going through. <3 

The same sentiment stands with Lunar New Year. Since returning to Hong Kong for the past 8 years now, Lunar New Year gives me more stress than any other festive period.

Secondly, being around extended family can be a stressful experience for the LGBT+ community, because It’s very often topics like relationships, marriage, children, careers, and your physical appearance that are questioned during this time.

Stress is heightened if you are at ‘marriage appropriate age’ and a partner from the opposite sex has not been introduced to the family, you can expect to be the topic of conversation.

Yes, most of these questions are well-intended and are asked with love. Though the expectation of having a heterosexual relationship, being married & having kids or being a home-owner by the time you are 30 in Hong Kong is no longer appropriate, nor feasible for today’s world.

LGBT+ individuals are often uncomfortable in these situations. More specifically Trans are often misgendered. These family gathering often runs for a whole day of different activities & sharing of food, which means it can be very traumatic for those who are unable to ‘come out’ due to family pressures, or those who are still figuring out what their preferences are.

When I was much younger, well-intended ‘advice’ such as “why do you dress so much like a boy? No boys will like you, you should wear dresses and find a nice boyfriend to marry” is given at least a few times a day.

In Chinese culture, respecting your elders is a core value. So when your uncles or aunties make such comments, you can only smile and nod.

Pronouns are a tricky one. Though it’s not as strictly practised today as it was perhaps a decade ago, we address all our relatives not by their name, but by their ‘Title’ in relation to you. The youngest should always greet the eldest first.

I come from a big family and I am the 3rd eldest of 18 cousins (just on my mum's side!). So when my younger cousins are greeting me, you will find them struggling to address me as their ‘older female cousin’ even know it is very clear I identify as male.

Honestly, I am still navigating through what I can do to diffuse these very awkward situations, but I think the most important I have learned is that the experience I have during this festive period with my extended family does not define my identity, just like other times in everyday life! I can choose how I react and watch out for negative self-talk subsequently.

It is not your responsibility to educate those around you, it is also not your fault if your family does not understand.

This a harsh reminder that as a Trans person, in my case - I am not as close with my family as my peers are. I often have less family engagement planned, and therefore spend most of the week by myself. To be frank, I do opt-out of or leave early on certain family gatherings as I recognise the effects it may have on my mental health.