I came back last night. As mentioned, a brief update on my chinese new year. How did you spend your new year? Pigging out like me?? 😛
A typical chinese new year’s eve begins at home with my mom preparing a dish for the reunion meal. I say meal because we usually have lunch instead of dinner.
Then we move off to my grandma’s place (Teo Family) in JB at around 10 a.m.
No point going too early, cos my grandma would be making prayers. Nowadays we are helping her, as she is not so mobile any more. Traditionally, the gods will have their meals before the mortals do, and the ancestors before the living. Don’t ask me which gods and which ancestors they are. We lay a few dishes and three sets of chopsticks, whisky and tea. My cousin, Han mentioned that he finally understood who those three sets were for, but that’s blasphemous and disrespectful to both Taoists and the Christians, so I shall not mention what he said now.
We move in to the living room shortly after and different sets were laid for the ancestors of the family this time.
Only when all the traditional ceremonies are done do the rest of us eat.
Every year, we have all the meats;- fish, duck, two styles of chicken, roast pork. We would have my mom’s dish with mushrooms, fat choy and ho see. And not to forget, the very expensive soup with abalone and sea cucumber in it. Very nice!
By the time we start eating, it’s 2pm, so I tend of overeat my first meal.
We will spend the day and the rest of the days at my grandma’s place watching movies together, playing mahjong, eating. Just chilling. Ok… not really chilling cause it is really quite hot in the house, and stuffy at times, what with 18 of us in the small 4 room HDB equivalent sized house. But hey, it’s the only time we get to meet, and I sure do cherish the moments.
Ever since my grandpa (Tham side) passed away, my father’s side of the family meet on the 1st day of lunar new year at my 1st Uncle’s place. Very huge gathering, my 1st Uncle alone has 3 generations under the same roof. I have 9 uncles, my dad is the 7th, and he has 2 elder sisters and 1 foster sister. Each of my dad’s siblings have kids, and some of them have kids, so you can imagine how many people there are in the gathering.
So a lot of ang baos are exchanged. Now that I am getting married, I am thankful that the currency for ang bao exchange is in RM and the norm is 4RM each packet. Phew…
Anyway, I tried the youtube upload again. Ya’tta! It works this time! Enjoy!
(Note : The video takes a while to become active after upload.)
