Celebrating Chinese New Year in a Modern World

Florence Kuek, Senior Lecturer, Chinese Studies Department, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya

27-Jan-25 18:00

Celebrating Chinese New Year in a Modern World

Pause
Embed

Excitement is kicking in as we approach Chinese New Year. Families are preparing to return to their hometowns, clean their houses, pack Ang Pows, and gear up for reunion dinners. This celebration remains a time to reconnect with family and friends, to usher out the old year and bring in the luck of the new one. While many traditions have endured, some practices have evolved to fit modern times. So we delve into this with Florence Kuek, and talk about how these traditions continue to shape and adapt to contemporary lifestyles.

Image Credit: shutterstock.com

Produced by: Alia Zefri

Presented by: Lee Chwi Lynn

This and more than 60,000 other podcasts in your hand. Download the all new BFM mobile app.

Categories: culture, History/Heritage

Tags: chinese traditions, florence kuek, chinese new year traditions, CNY celebrations, today i learned, chinese new year, year of the snake,

Today’s Shows

11:00 AM

Best of Enterprise

(REPEAT) We take a flavourful dive into the world of Korean fried chicken with Terry Goh, CEO of KyoChon Malaysia.

12:00 PM

Popcorn Culture

(REPEAT) From the epic montage scene in Sinners, to Powerhouse from Coolie, and the unforgettable theme of Severance, 2025 has been a great year for scores and soundtracks. In this special, music-centred episode of Popcorn Culture, we look back at our favourite B-Sides of the year.

1:00 PM

Cruise Control

(REPEAT) If you're in the market for a used, old school sports sedan, should you consider the Mitsubishi Lancer GT, or the Proton Inspira? Daniel Fernandez from dsf.my shares his thoughts!

2:00 PM

Matt-Splained

(REPEAT) Rich Bradbury and Matt Armitage bellyflop into the murky world of brand authenticity. As consumers become increasingly vocal and energized, they are directing their spending towards companies they believe share and reflect their worldview.

3:00 PM

Earth Matters

(REPEAT) In this ‘Best of 2025’ replay, we hear from anthropologist Dr. Christine Padoch about her book Return to Nanga Jela, which revisits an Iban longhouse community in Sarawak lost beneath the Batang Ai Dam.

4:00 PM

Bar None

(REPEAT) Jeremy Ho, Founder of BHub Bouldering joins us to talk about the appeal of rock climbing and what's the community like here in Malaysia.

5:00 PM

BBC World Service

In this episode of The Conversation, Ella Al-Shamahi speaks to two women in India and Uganda who’ve created grass roots fitness communities exclusively for women.

PROGRAMMES