I personally love Chinese New Year and I want my children to experience it like I did when I was a kid. I want them to overeat, get high on fizzy drinks, enjoy illegal fireworks and bask in the delight of 'temporary wealth' which comes with receiving many, many 'ang pows' from elders! 'Temporary' because mum and dad will 'keep' it for them later :) (meaning it usually goes back into circulation!)
To be fair, we did open a bank account with the money Annie collected last year, to introduce to her the idea of 'savings'. The rest are still too young to appreciate one. But this year, we decided to give them a treat and used most of their 'collection' to buy a
I try not to indulge their material wants too much as I do not want them to place import on material things. I pity those who find they have to spend every last penny on that Louis Vuitton bag. I consider myself not much of a slave to material lusts and am happy I was brought up that way. I went to a private primary school where many of my classmates were much better off than me. They had Barbie dolls and Transformer toys but I had many sisters and neighbours to play with.
We could have loads of fun with just pots and pans and 'cooking' leaves and grass! Some favourite games included hide and seek, which we called "koma- kiuma"; don't ask me what that means, it's what we had to shout out, like "Marco-Polo". There was rounders (bak pao) which was played with a tennis ball and a pyramid of 3 standing slippers/sandals as the 'wickets'. Then there was police and thieves, or 'mata liak chat' . Being the youngest then, I would always have to be the gu yew pao (butter bun) seller who gets robbed and screams for the police!
It was great training for our imagination. We had a big swing at the car porch, the metal kind which could seat 4 adults, or 20 kids! :) This was the source of much fun. Boredom is indeed the mother of invention, as we created many interesting 'games' using this swing!
We would be adventurers and traverse along the length of our house fence to get to the swing (our life-saving ship), all the time being careful not to let our feet touch the ground, lest we be eaten up by the 'crocodiles'! We would also be circus acrobats, doing leaps and cartwheels towards the swing, then do our 'tricks' like hanging upside down.. etc... Yes, there were casualties resulting from this swing, I think Sis no.4 dislocated an arm once.
We even had fun from a simple game where everyone's slippers were stuck in between the bars of the swing floor. We would then push the swing to and fro and slippers would drop off one by one.The one whose slipper was the last to remain would be the winner! Hahaha... those were the days of simplicity.
Well, that was a big detour from Chinese New Year 2010, I should do more blogs on our childhood fun times! When I have more time, I'll dig out old pics and work from there.
So anyway, here are some pics from Chinese New Year:
Sa Chap Meh (Chinese New Year's Eve) family reunion lunch at my dad's. That colourful dish which everyone is communally digging into with chopsticks is called 'yee sang'. It's a fishy, sweet, sour-y, salad-like dish which I do not like, but tossing it as high as possible without messing up the table is supposed to bring prosperity. So hey, "Toss away!!"
Sa Chap Meh night at Kung Kung Paul's house. We had the traditional family reunion dinner followed by Hubby's favourite; the fireworks display, this is when he has a legitimate excuse to play with gunpowder :) This year he restrained himself a bit, as compared to years past, when the back of his pickup would be full with boxes of fireworks!
This was the first day of Chinese New Year at Kung Kung Titus' house, the first house we visited.On the second day, I was busy cooking the whole day for friends who were coming over that night for our open house cum house-warming dinner and also for the next day when family would be coming over for another house-warming cum house blessing lunch.
Our friends came over for dinner and we had a gambling session which is compulsory during Chinese New Year! I was too busy entertaining to take any pics, and Hubby 'KO'ed early because of 'headache' (read 'too much alcohol'...)! :)
Luckily Aunty Julie got some pics of the house blessing the next day. Fr Richard, Hubby's cousin, blessed our new home and sprinkled holy water around to "chase away the ghosts!" hahaha.. at least that's what he jokingly told the kids. He did say later at Taiku's house warming that it is just a symbol of the water we were baptized in, not magic water!
On the third day of Chinese New Year, after our house-warming lunch, was Baby Hugh's first birthday dinner. It was held at the newest hotel in town, Pullman's. Here are the kids having fun with all the cousins from Vietnam and Miri.
Later that night, when the kids had settled down, Hubby and I went to Kelvin's house for more gambling and also to celebrate another 2 friends' birthdays, Alex and Allan's.The fourth day of Chinese New Year was also Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent and is a day of fasting. (enter guilty smile...)
On the fifth day, Taiku and Uncle Dylan had their house-warming, as they had also just moved into a new home. Fr Richard again blessed their house that night, and it was followed by a buffet dinner.
Things quietened down a bit and on Saturday, the seventh day, Sis no.4 held her open house dinner. Hubby had gone to Bintulu for work by then.Well, it was a busy Chinese New Year I must say. An enjoyable one too! Belated Gong Xi Fat Cai everyone!
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