There's no question that Chinese New Year celebrations aren't what they used to be.

On Feb. 9, few Island Chinese will make gao from scratch — and if they do, they'll make a baking-dish-size batch and pop it in the microwave. Many will eat jai, but they'll do so in restaurants — or they'll buy the dish ready-made.

Some may continue the tradition of cleaning the house thoroughly before the holiday, and having the family over for a meal — Tong will have 50 family members in and out that day, if everyone comes.

Those who are religious traditionalists may perform rituals, including setting prized foods before the ancestral altar and setting fire to the paper kitchen god after smearing its lips with honey (so it will take a sweet report back to the heavens).

But few will make the ceremonial visits to grandparents and parents that express the Confucian value of filial piety, the young people literally dropping to their knees and knocking their heads on the floor. Chang Wyrgatsch recalls with a smile that the children weren't at all reluctant to kow tow because after they did so, they would receive li see, New Year's money gifts. First would be the gifts from the grandparents, then from parents, uncles and other elders. Her popo would sit regally in a tall chair, dressed in silk robes, her pockets literally bulging with red envelopes of money.

Fewer still will buy all new clothes and parade down the street — parents and children all in a row — to visit friends' homes and be served tea in lidded cups topped with sweet preserved olives, and sugared fruit piled high in round, segmented trays.

But Tong said that, even for Christian Chinese, like her family, the holiday remains an important time to gather. When her parents were alive, the whole clan would get together every couple of months or so. But now, Chinese New Year is practically the only time when this happens.

Many, like Chang Wyrgatsch, will buy mottos, in black or gold calligraphy on red paper, expressing their hopes for the new year. She has prepared her own and, instead of pasting them on the front door as one would in China, took what she considers a very American route, posting them on the refrigerator.

Her four mottos are flowery and poetic: for harmony in the family that is like spring year-round,

for global peace that will automatically bring prosperity, for sunshine pouring through the door in the proper feng shui manner, and for the promise of spring to be realized.

She said the Chinese New Year celebration is actually about the promise of spring after the cold Asian winter; in February, the weather is poised to change. And one punning meaning of the familiar cry "Gung Hee Fat Choy" is "congratulations on getting past the old monster."

Chang Wyrgatsch, who is a multitalented silk painter, jewelry designer and cooking teacher, will entertain her daughter's family with "way too much food," as her husband, Richard, smilingly says.

But next week's menu will be nothing compared to the round-the-clock feasting of old times. From her cupboard, Chang Wyrgatsch fetches an old-style metal huo kuo or hot pot, with a chimney for burning charcoal in the center and a deep, doughnut-shaped chamber in which hot broth was kept bubbling. "The winter sooo bitter in Shanghai," Chang Wyrgatsch recalled, "you sit around table, dipping, dipping. You sweat because it's so hot!"

"Pork, beef, long rice, vegetable, fish cake, meatball, tofu, dry scallop ... " She ticks off the seemingly endless list of things that would be quickly cooked in the hot pot. Today, she uses a wok-shaped pot with two chambers (for mild and spicy broths), and a gas tabletop burner. She likes to make a dipping sauce of a spicy Malaysian barbecue sauce (Bullhead BBQ Sauce, sold in cans in Chinatown), blended with a little shoyu and oyster sauce.

Both Tong and Chang Wyrgatsch make jai, translated as monk's food or Buddha's Delight. As is common throughout China, however, the technique is similar — stir-fry, then braise, mushrooms, tofu and vegetables in broth, with seasonings — but the ingredients differ.

"Northern jai, southern jai, totally different flavor," said Chang Wyrgatsch. Actually, the flavor is different from one household to another as each cook selects favorite ingredients.

In Shanghai in Chang Wyrgatsch's childhood, women made big pots of jai and servants would be dispatched to take portions to friends and relatives. She laughs as she recalls how her mother and grandmother would critique people's jai technique.

"In my family jai is so important; it's very competitive. Every girl who marry into the family, they have to make jai for the mother-in-law. She want to test them, to see how they chop the vegetables." She demonstrates with a square of tofu cheese, expertly cutting slices thin enough to see through, then turning these into hair-fine threads. "My mother would say, 'Look at that, how she cut. Look like finger, too thick.' If you cut too thick, your flavor don't go inside."

On Feb. 9, Tong's family will get together, each brother or sister, niece or nephew, son or daughter, grandchild and so on arriving with a covered dish of this or that. Tong had already begun cooking and freezing things when we talked to her last week. There will be jai, of course; she's got prepped ingredients in her freezer.

She's making oyster roll: a filling of dried oysters, chopped ham or pork hash, water chestnuts, shrimp or fish cake, ginger, onion and parsley — all finely chopped — then wrapped in mong yao (pork caul — the fatty membrane that lines the abdominal cavity of the pig), briefly browned and steamed. There'll be stuffed duck, but she's taking the shortcut of buying the duck ready-roasted, then splitting and boning it and stuffing it with a blend of bamboo shoots, mushrooms, ham or pork hash, ginkgo seeds and other good things, before steaming it, too.

Someone will bring a shortcut version of kau yuk — store-bought roast pork slathered in a pungent bean curd and spice mixture and steamed — because Hawai'i Chinese can't have a celebration without it.

They'll barbecue char siu spare ribs.