I’m Chinese Filipino. Chi-noy for short.
Which means I grew up celebrating Chinese New Year like it was louder than Christmas and more chaotic than any birthday party combined.
It wasn’t just a holiday. It was an event.
It was cymbals clashing so loud your chest vibrated.
It was drums pounding like the whole barangay (small community) shared one giant heartbeat.
It was the smell of firecrackers lingering in the air for days.
It was grocery stores packed with people fighting over thirteen round fruits like prosperity would evaporate if you only bought twelve.
Round fruits mean wealth. Because coins are round. And if you’re going to manifest abundance, you might as well do it with citrus.
Every mall was red. Every hotel was red. Even the tiny stores with flickering fluorescent lights were red. Lanterns everywhere. Decorations everywhere. It looked like the color red personally sponsored the country. You didn’t need Chinese blood to celebrate. The whole country claimed it.
Dragon dances would snake through mall corridors. The dragon would bow dramatically at each shop entrance, and the store owners would slip red envelopes into its mouth. Even businesses barely breaking even would give something. You do not mess with luck.
If you’re not Chinese, you probably think red is automatically lucky.
Not exactly.
Real Chinese families know it depends on your zodiac sign, your element, the year, and how the stars are feeling about you. Chinese New Year follows the lunar calendar, which is why it falls somewhere between January 21 and February 20. It begins on the first new moon of the lunar year and the celebrations go on for fifteen days.
We also love reading our horoscope for the year.
And I mean love.
We would wait for the newspaper to publish the zodiac predictions. My mother would literally hand it to me and say, “Read yours. It’s a lucky year for you.”
If it said money was coming, we believed it.
If it said career success, we walked taller.
If it said romance, well… we pretended not to look too excited.
By midyear we didn’t even remember what it said.
But in January? That horoscope felt like a contract with the universe.
And then there was tikoy.
Sweet. Sticky. Heavy. Relentless tikoy.
Tikoy, also known as nian gao, is a glutinous rice cake traditionally eaten during the Lunar New Year. Its name sounds like “higher year” in Chinese, symbolizing growth and moving up in life. But the version I grew up with was simpler. It’s sweet so the year will be sweet. It’s sticky so the family will stick together.
Tikoy is basically a sticky, sweet rice cake made from glutinous rice flour and sugar. Dense. Chewy. Slightly dangerous if you have braces.
Every afternoon during Chinese New Year season, that was merienda. Sliced. Dipped in egg. Fried until golden. Or sandwiched between white bread if someone decided carbs on carbs was innovation.
It was good.
But it was too much.
Too much sugar. Too much stickiness. Too many consecutive days.
I got sick of it.
I swore that when I grew up, I would never willingly eat tikoy again.
And now here I am in the United States… where there are no dragon dances banging cymbals through shopping centers. No firecracker smoke. No frantic fruit-buying chaos. No neighbors dropping off tikoy or noodles as gifts.
Now I can’t even find it easily.
suddenly I want it.
Why is that?
Why do we reject something when it’s overflowing… and crave it once it disappears?
Most of my kids are back in the Philippines. They grew up with tikoy too. They also learned to hate it.
But I know one day, they’ll miss it.
That’s what getting older does. It softens your opinions. It turns irritation into nostalgia. It makes you crave the very thing you once rolled your eyes at.
Back then, tikoy was just dessert.
Now it feels like proof that I belonged somewhere loud and red and unapologetically dramatic.
Here in the U.S., Chinese New Year is quieter. Polite. Maybe a small grocery display if you’re lucky.
No dragon barging into stores demanding red envelopes.
No malls vibrating with drums.
No smoke in the air.
Just… calm.
And calm is nice.
But sometimes I miss the noise.
I thought about making tikoy this year. It’s actually simple. Cheaper than imported ones. But then I paused.
Who will eat it?
It will sit in the fridge. I’ll slice a few pieces. Fry them in egg. Smile. And then what? The rest will stare at me like a sticky monument to my childhood.
Still.
Maybe I’ll make it anyway.
Not because I need to eat it.
But because I want to remember.
If You Suddenly Want Tikoy Too
If this made you crave it, here’s the simple version we grew up with. No fancy ingredients. Just the basics.
You need:
1 cup sugar
1 ¼ cups water
2 ½ cups glutinous rice flour
Canola oil
2 eggs
Dissolve the sugar in the water.
Slowly mix that into the glutinous rice flour until smooth and lump-free.
Grease an 8-inch round pan generously. Tikoy does not forgive neglect.
Pour in the batter. Steam for 50 to 60 minutes. Cover the lid with a kitchen towel so water doesn’t drip on top.
Let it cool completely. If you try to remove it warm, it will cling to the pan like unresolved childhood trauma.
Refrigerate at least four hours or overnight so it firms up.
When ready, slice into ¼-inch pieces. Dip in beaten egg and fry in a little oil until golden outside and soft and chewy inside.
Sweet. Sticky. Familiar.
Maybe I didn’t really hate tikoy.
Maybe I just didn’t know I’d miss the noise that came with it.
Maybe getting older isn’t about liking new things.
Maybe it’s about finally understanding the old ones.
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