Chinese New Year!

It may be a tradition for our Prime Minister but I'd just noticed it a couple of years ago, that our Prime Minister Lee would spend time with people working on the first day of Chinese New Year as a gesture of thanks to acknowledge their commitment.  While many of us have taken the Chinese New Year holidays for granted, there are people in logistics, security, cleaning, healthcare, service and transport who would work throughout the holidays.

I remember as a child, my mum would prepare a few red packets on the first day of Chinese New Year for the rubbish truck driver and his crew as they drive by our home to collect our trash, she does this as a gesture of thanks.  This may be insignificant to many of us today, but my mum was a domestic maid for the expatriate family and certainly does not earn a lot of money and I love her for her generous spirit.

When I heard that the National Taxi Association (NTA) will be going to Changi Airport to greet taxi drivers this Chinese New Year I thought "Wow! I'll like to be there!"  Primarily because my dad was a taxi driver and I thought this was a very nice gesture.

Knowing that NTA would be early, I planned to arrive at the Airport by 7 AM.  And as the sky lightened up, the road leading to T3 was already quite crowded and there're quite a few taxis on the road.  I am really looking forward to catching some action.

As I arrived at T3, I went to both the arrival and departure halls and didn't see anyone who looked like they were greeting the taxi drivers, so i took a skytrain to T1 and saw the taxi queues.  I thought now that would be a nice place to greet taxi drivers as they wait for passengers.

I asked around and was told that NTA was just coming over to T1 and sure enough, the team stepped out of the skytrain.

So I followed along and caught them in action....they walked from taxi to taxi, greeting each driver with a bag of goodies as well as a red packet.

The NTA team has apparently been at the airport since 5:30 AM and was preparing the oranges in the goodie bag as well as the red packets which contains "hope" to be a millionaire (a lottery ticket).

I didn't know much about NTA and the gentlemen I was walking with told me that most of the people distributing the goodie bags are taxi drivers themselves.  They are union leaders who decided to volunteer their time to encourage their fellow drivers who are working on the first day of Chinese New Year.  The gentleman leading the effort was the Advisor to NTA, Mr. Ang Hin Kee, who is also an MP in Ang Mo Kio GRC.  Now I wonder what my dad would say to that!    =)

There were a few ladies, a young lady who works for NTUC as an Industrial Relations Officer and she walked along even though she was expecting a baby in July.  There was also a lady taxi driver.

It was a unique experience that reminded me to be thankful to people working 24/7 to keep Singapore moving.  As I went home to join my family in visiting our relatives, I prepared extra ang pows to give to those who are working this Chinese New Year.

Wishing all Gong Xi Fa Cai!!