Family footsteps retraced – by Peta Rush

It’s Chinese new year, which means auspicious red paper decorations and lanterns are being hung up, and fireworks can be heard going off every evening. For those who live away from their laojia, or ancestral home, it also means taking the bus, train or plane in the largest annual human migration in history, as people return to their family homes for the holidays.

I might do the same, if I knew where mine was.

Here's an amusing titbit in advance of the Chinese new year that I hope doesn't get the Anthill blocked.

There's been some vexation that this year, the eve of the spring festival (January 30th) is a working day, not a holiday. So a creative homophone has been doing the rounds. That night, new year's eve, is called 除夕 (chúxī – where 夕 xī means "eve"). But with a small substitution you get 除习 (chúxí), which sounds like a shortened version of "除掉 (chúdiào – eliminate) 习近平 (Xi Jinping)" – get rid of Xi. That, the suggestion goes, is why the government isn't keen to celebrate the occasion.

It's a two way street – a story by Jason Y Ng

THIS SHORT STORY ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN AS WE SEE IT

Chongjun nearly knocked over a woman when he got off the Southern Airlines plane. This sort of thing happened to him all the time, for even when he walked he had his nose buried in a book or a magazine. Dui ng tsu ah, he apologised to her in halting Cantonese, quickly slipping the book he was reading – The Complete Guide to Low Light Photography – back into his tattered leather attaché. Hong Kong people were squeamish about any form of physical contact, the 32 year-old Shanghai native had to remind himself from time to time.

A short story from Hong Kong, by Jason Y Ng

THIS STORY ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN AS WE SEE IT, AN ANTHOLOGY FROM THE HONG KONG WRITERS CIRCLE

William removed the laptop from his carry-on luggage and placed it in a grey plastic bin. In a swift, almost choreographed swing of an arm, he grabbed another one from the stack and in went his keys, loose change and Blackberry. As the 35 year-old architect waited to walk through the metal detector, the Shanghainese woman in front of him set off the alarm with the cell phone in her pocket. William shook his head at the sorry display of inexperience. A few moments later, it was his turn to step through the gantry and there wasn’t a single beep. Of course not, he thought to himself with satisfaction.