CNY childhood joys

According to reports the average amount in the ang pow youngsters get this year is $10. That was the maximum I got when I was a child and that was from my poor parents. Friends, relatives and neighbours gave much less. Sometimes I also received coins, usually 10-cent and 20-cent, wrapped in red paper. 20 cents was quite a lot of money then. It could buy you a bowl of mee in the school canteen.

I think even up to the early seventies there were still people who wrapped coins in red papers and gave them as ang pows. I don't think the banks gave out ang pow envelopes at that time. You have to buy them. I remember my father once bought those with our Chinese surname on it.

The joys of CNY during my childhood: wearing new clothes and shoes, eating sweets and drinking soft drinks, playing with fire crackers and counting ang pow money.