Gong Xi Fa Chai.....
Ah.. wonderful smell of joss stickGong Xi Fa Chai everyone...I am sure most of you back in Msia/Spore are having a great family time. Can't say that Ivy and me enjoyed ourselves.. coz we didn't :-( This CNY is the 1st time that i actually worked thru the whole occasion. However, we did try to make it as festive as we could.. hung CNY rat stuff on the wall.. burnt joss sticks to make the apartment smell like the occasion... cooked nian kow ^_^ I think our place now smells like a temple :-P
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Hey, Gong Xi Fa Cai to all. All the best for the year ahead. May you find good health, prosperity & happiness this year of ze Rat.
We've had a good time with family & friends during the celebrations. Ben, contrary to you, this year I took leave to celebrate the event. It's important to give our kids the spirit of such festivities when we experienced them as kids.
It was great then - we got to 'balik kampung' and where my dad was from, it was sure 'kampung' alright. We had many adventures then - exploring rubber estates, playing firecrackers & almost burned down the storeroom, got my finger bitten (& eaten) by a rat, riding down town in my grandma's bicycle,etc...
akhoo...yeah, it makes sense for you to take the day off to spend time with your family ^_^ me family unit not made yet :-P
i didn't need to balik kampung when i was young coz my mum's side were all in JB. the attraction was always meeting up with all the cousins, playing crackers and getting $$$ ^_^
i sure miss playing fireworks and crackers. ivy keeps harping on how dangerous they are and how "right" it is to ban them. they are dangerous, quite a few have exploded in my hands but amazingly, i know of no one who was badly injured by them. i think it is the same as climbing trees and jumping into rivers.. i was never allowed to do them, but my dad did it in his childhood and tells gud stories of his moments. are all these moments lost forever with the coming generations coz we need to "protect" them from all foreseeable harm?
Buggrit...this time I've filled up the "Nickname" field at the bottom so that if a slip happens I don't come off as Anonymous!
I drove the whole shebang (1 Kat, 4 kids, 2 maids and an XC filled to the brim with supplies!) down to Singapore this year - should have known better: the whole island was basically shut down for the first two days of CNY. No shops no food nada except for fast food :-(
But we did get to visit an abnormally quiet zoo, where we managed to catch a couple of rhinos fighting (!) and basically had choice spots for all the exhibits.
When I was young, I had a neighbour who'd kick up an awful fuss each CNY because of our firecracker wars outside... now I kind of understand why. They are good fun, right up until someone explodes one right outside the room your kids are sleeping in...
I think (in Malaysia at least) the tendency to over-protect is a reaction to the fact that the general environment isn't quite what it used to be when we were growing up - for instance my parents thought nothing of me riding all the way to TTDI at 6 am to play basketball. Nowadays, though, it's a different story altogether: witness the frequent news reports about crime specifically targetted at kids, and you'll understand why.
I had a moontraveller shot straight into my living room once. We used to play "war" where two groups fought each other using firecrackers. We were spoiled with the vast choices then - moontravellers, red crackers, froggies, Thunderbang, 18-colours, etc..
Things are definitely different these days. With the amount of child sexual abuse going on, I'd love to shoot some firecrackers up the perpetrators' arse
Ahkhoo, that would be a real sight to see.
And YiingYee, Singapore is a dead town during CNY. Should have told you earlier that during the first 2-3 days, everything is pretty much closed....except for Malay and Indian food. Even then, some take the oppurtunity to close shop. Pretty much everyone eats at home or their parent's place or relative's place. And no fireworks. :)...Actually we caught the HK one on TV. They really pulled all stops this year. 23 minutes worth and they had 4 barges. Very nice.
Ben, at least you did not need to give out $$$, now that your status has changed :)
if you want action during cny... come to Oz..business as usual here ^_^
wat no ang pow.. i sent some back for parents and close relatives. most of my overseas aunts and close cousins did the same thing when i was young, it just seemed right for me to do the same now ^_^
akhoo.. i had crackers war during school days too.. ahhh..the moon-traveller bazookas, "hong-pow" grenades. i still dunno why the red cracker fuse has to burn so fast.
Gong Xi - Gong Xi... Happy Rat Year to all you guys.
Hmm... my CNY was pretty interesting though no more traveling back to "kampung" as Alan puts it, which in a way is a good thing. We can avoid all the heavy traffic, and enjoy "quiet" roads in KL. It's been different these few years as I have to go to Sam's side for CNY & then later head over to my parents place.
But hey.. those days of firecracker and fun with the neighbours and cousins... those were real great memories. I guess these are some stuff the younger ones will be missing out.
And... I'm still on leave till Monday... officially at least, though I got called back to work today for a project clarifications. *bummer*!!
Kong Hei Fatt Choy!
Wishing everyone a most prosperous and healthy year!
Ju-Ju, since when did one need the smell of incense to create CNY atmosphere? I thought you grew up in a Christian home :P Though the smell of the red pau-cheongs definitely signify CNY for me!
Since we're recounting our childhood mis-adventures, I'll add mine. We accidentally helped our neighbour incinerate his pile of garden waste one year, almost causing 'war' with our new neighbour.
ah han.. wat's wrong wif burning your neighbour's rubbish?
family dinners were usually at my grandparents.. they were Buddhist. these days, my cousins normally pay respects to our ancestors at my grand-dad's place for CNY (which is next door).. thus the constant joss-stick smell ^_^
although my mum is a christian.. she is kinda the family chief "priestess" when it comes to all the Buddhist and ancestor worship stuff ^_^ quite funny actually.
Ah Ho, does your mother wear any special headgear or costume as the chief priestess? Does she jump over the fire and the egg? How about becoming a human flame-thrower by spitting out spirits from her mouth?
:D
Hey ben, gong xi fa chai to you. not much of celebration in KL. It is just the same. Eating dinner with family was the most important thing to me. But other than that i didn't really enjoyit cause every chinese restaurant in town was waiting to cut your throat. Spend so much money on dinner, just to catch up with some long lost friend. Sigh...no fire crackers cracking. It was just too quiet.
allo ms loo! ^_^ isn't a mamak the "default" location for friends??
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