Lunar New Year, busier than home
Many newcomers had nowhere to celebrate, so they came to play. We made dumplings; not one of the fourteen courts sat empty.
On New Year’s Eve I meant to close early. Then from four in the afternoon they kept arriving — many of them young people newly in Canada, renting a room alone, nowhere to be for the holiday.
So we turned it into an open night on the spot. We laid flour and filling across the front desk — those who could wrap, wrapped; those who couldn’t, learned. Badminton on the courts, dumplings court-side, a pair of couplets pasted under the tiger wall.
“What people thousands of miles from home dread most on a holiday is the quiet. That night, our club was anything but quiet.”
Not one court empty
By nine, all fourteen courts were full and those waiting sat on the benches cracking melon seeds. A young man said to me, Dong-jie, this is my first New Year in Canada that hasn’t felt lonely. I turned away so he wouldn’t see my face.
We’re not a club with a canteen. But that night, this was many people’s reunion dinner.
New Year’s open night
冬姐 · Michelle Wang
Founder of Aplus Badminton Club. She writes here — the things she notices, the small moments of her students, the thoughts before she locks up at night.
