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TYERSALL PARK

SINGAPORE, CHINESE NEW YEAR, MORNING

Three Mercedes S-Class sedans in the identical shade of iridium silver bearing license plate numbers TAN01, TAN02, and TAN03 idled in the morning traffic on their way to Tyersall Park. In the lead car, Lillian May Tan, matriarch of the family with the surname so unabashedly flaunted on its vehicles, peered out at the red-and-gold Chinese New Year decorations that assaulted every façade along Orchard Road. Every year, the decorations seemed to get more and more elaborate and less and less tasteful. “What in God’s name is that?”

Seated in the front passenger seat, Eric Tan studied the ten-story LED billboard flashing an epileptic-seizure-inducing animation and let out a chuckle. “Grandma, I think it’s supposed to be a red snake…entering some…um, golden tunnel.”

“It’s a curious-looking snake,” Eric’s new wife, Evie, commented in her high-pitched voice.

Lillian May refrained from mentioning what she thought the engorged creature with the flared head resembled, but it reminded her of something she had seen a long time ago when her late husband—bless his soul—took her to a most peculiar live show in Amsterdam. “We should have taken Clemenceau Avenue! Now we’re stuck in all this Orchard Road traffic,” Lillian May said, fretting.

“Aiyah, no matter which way we go, it’s going to be jammed up,” her daughter Geraldine said.

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.”