Jennifer Wong tells SBS Chinese she loves Lunar New Year because of the three things that this traditional festival represents- family, fortune and food.
Ms Wong’s childhood memories of the Lunar New Year celebrations with her extended family are vivid.
She remembers how they enjoyed a big restaurant meal and placed a red packet underneath the teapots when the traditional lion dances came up to the restaurant for a performance.
She recalls that her family was very happy when the dancers removed the red packets with money inside.
“I would say that a lot of it [the celebration of LNY] is based around luck and the idea of good fortune because, for many years, there was no luck or good fortune in many Chinese families. The festival revolves heavily around food, like all the best cultural celebrations,” she says.
Ms Wong has a list of "lucky" foods to eat during this period.
Spring rolls and dumplings are symbols of wealth and prosperity and are eaten due to their shape, which look like solid gold bar or an ancient Chinese gold ingot.
Source: Crab spring rolls (Macau Gourmet with Justine Schofield)
Fish is a must-have dish on Lunar New Year's Eve, but not eaten completely.
Leftovers are usually stored overnight, as the Chinese phrase “may there be surpluses every year” sounds the same as “let there be fish every year.”
Noodles, which expectedly symbolise the wish for longevity, that’s why noodles served during the Lunar New Year are usually longer than normal noodles, and they are never cut, as this implies cutting life short.
Year cake, or nian gao in Chinese, is a sweet cake made from glutinous rice, which is supposed to make someone taller during the coming year.
Cakes to celebrate Lunar New Year 賀年糕點 Source: Wai Yee Yeung
“It sounds silly when you say it because the word for cake pronounces the same as the word for ‘tall’. Yeah, the more you explain it, the more ridiculous it sounds. It sounds like you're making something up. It sounds like you're pulling someone's leg,” she giggles.
Comedy career
This year, with her brother and relatives overseas, Ms Wong has another thing to look forward to. She is hosting two at The Concourse Theatre in Sydney on Saturday, February 27.
The lineup includes some of Australia’s best Asian-Australian comedians, such as Alex Lee and Lawrence Leung.
She says it’s the first time she and these fellow comedians will perform in the same room.
Being able to return to the stage after a year hit by the pandemic makes her emotional and grateful.
“I think it's a real joy to be able to share that Asian Australian excellence with the audience in Chatswood. And I really hope that we can all get together and have a big laugh and laugh away the bad luck of the year before and hopefully get some new luck for the Year of the Ox,” she says.
Hailing from China, Ms Wong brings a fresh and new flavour of eastern comedy to the Australian stage.
She is accessible and non-confrontational, and not afraid to touch on racism and stereotypes in Australian society.
She shares her personal experiences with thoughtful cultural observations – and of course, with a bit of humour.
"If I hear someone on a bus go 'Hey why don't you speak English'. Maybe I'll go up and say something equally random like 'Why can't you play the piano?'"
Back in 2017, Ms Wong had a show called 'How to English harder', in which she explored both the English language and what it can mean in today's political climate.
It can be a way to communicate with others, but it can also be used to exclude, to judge, “to decide whether or not you belong in a situation or society or not”, she says.
“Certainly in Australia, we've always been, back to the days of when they had language tests to see who could be allowed in the country or not. And that remains the same now with language ability.”
And for Ms Wong herself, as someone born and raised in Australia, and has always been a first language speaker of English, she and her brother were forced to learn English in a second language class when they went to school, just because they "looked Chinese".
She remembers sitting with a Sri Lankan girl, who also spoke English perfectly, practising their handwriting when they were forced to attend English as a second language class.
“It was quite baffling that we were in these classes.”
Ms Wong hopes the way she packages her personal experiences with thoughtful cultural observations and humour can convince her audience to see the world in a different way.
“You hope that they're walking away with something more than just the physical sensation of laughing for those few minutes, my hope, is that maybe it gets someone to think differently about the way that we treat each other in this country.”
Mental health advocate
Despite her passion for stand-up comedy, Ms Wong had to make a decision to stay away from the stage and focus on her journalism job - all because of depression.
“One of the quotes that I read, when I was unwell, was that the opposite of depression is not happiness, it’s a vitality,” she says.
“When I had a deep depression, I can feel that sense of life in myself really does go away. Right now I feel very much alive.”
As she walked out of the blue, Ms Wong has become an active advocate for mental health support, which she says is an area people are reluctant to talk about when they need help.
“It's very common for a lot of people to experience problems with mental health, regardless of the profession they're in.
“They're certainly a lot more stories that we hear about people working in the performing arts, in media who talk about the experience of having depression, but I think sometimes that comes from perhaps their profile - we just don’t hear from the farmer or the electrician that has depression.”
Jennifer Wong at a Chinese restaurant for her new ABC TV series Chopsticks or Fork? Source: Supplied
She says one of the reasons why she values the opportunity to perform in the Chatswood Lunar New Year comedy is partly because of its partnership with Lifeline, the crisis support service.
“Often people know of Lifeline as a phone number to call (13 11 14) but in the community, they do so much more, including offering counselling services in person.
“Often we won't talk about mental health in our families, and my hope is that one day we will be able to discuss mental health as easily as we have conversations about the weather.”
