As the world prepares to celebrate year 4,716 of the Chinese lunar calendar on February 5 as first day of the Chinese New Year, Anvil Business Club’s young Filipino Chinese entrepreneurs and invited special guest Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go on February 1 Friday morning shared 10,000 free tikoy for urban poor communities in Caloocan City—5,000 tikoy to Camarin area and 5,000 tikoy to Barracks area, both in north part of Caloocan City.Alongside Bong Go at this socio-civic project were Anvil Business Club officers led by chairman Wilson Lee Flores, president Patrick Cua, honorary chairman Reynold Siy, honorary chairman Marcelo Co and tikoy-sharing project director Joeben Tai. Chinese New Year became an official non-working holiday in the Philippines in 2012.

Also invited special guests at Anvil tikoy-sharing were Caloocan Mayor Oscar “Oca” Malapitan, Presidential Commission on Urban Poor chairman Alvin Feliciano, actor Cesar Montano, Councilor Dean Asistio, Councilor Enteng Malapitan, Councilor Lanz Almeda, Councilor Carmelo Africa and others.

Anvil’s socio-civic project of sharing 10,000 free tikoy is the young Filipino Chinese entrepreneurs’ way of wishing the whole Philippines a happy and prosperous new year. February 5 also starts new “Year of the Pig”, one of the 12 animal signs of the ancient Chinese zodiac.

Anvil Business Club has many economic and socio-civic projects, like free college scholarships, disaster relief donations and the annual Sept. 28 Teachers Day honoring all Philippine teachers on this birthday of great teacher Confucius.

“Tikoy” is the Filipino name for the Chinese New Year glutinous rice cake dessert called “ti-ke” in Hokkien (south Fujian) dialect of the ethnic Chinese minority of the Philippines and literally meaning “sweet pastry”. The tikoy is called “nian-gao” in Mandarin Chinese or meaning “sticky cake”. Tikoy may be eaten as is, but it is also more popularly cooked by dipping in beaten egg and lightly pan fried until crispy but still chewy inside.

The Hokkien greeting for Chinese New Year is “Kiong-hee Huat-chai” and the Mandarin greeting is “Gong-xi Fa-chai”, meaning “Wish you a Prosperous & Happy New Year”!