Wednesday, February 09, 2005 . 10:39 PM
* Let's talk abt Chinese New Yr baby (take 2) *
( ok i shall continue the story hee on my bro's pc cos mine has decided to die aldy)
ISit called Lunar New yr??Let's juz call it CNY lar. Sometimes i feel like i'm half a BANANA altho i've stayed in a chinese dominant country most of my life, and even in Sarawak, the chinese was still pretty dominant. Back in Kuching, as far as i could rem (rem i was only there till i was 7 yrs old) CNY was the most happening thing for the whole yr. My mom would dress me up in nice pretty fluffy dress, which i remembrered also gave mi the ultimate itch, but every year i would still look forward to wearing fluffy dresses that would irritate my skin to hell. She would tie my hair meticulously like she always does , into many sophisticated styles and included lots of ribbons sometimes. One yr i remembered i got to wear a cheongsam which i think wasn't really my favorite cos i still prefer irritating fluffy dresses...Likewise, my brother and my close cousins get to dress up like it's some modelling show, to parade our most fashionable dresses and hairstyles amongst the relatives. In those days most of my aunties were still unmarried and there were only my family and hsiaolin's with kids...so it was me, her , my bro and then her younger sis. So 4 of us. And 3 lovely dogs. And whole damn batch of aunties. Years later, Hsiaolin's younger bro would come along but that was like much much later. So every CNY was a parade of nice clothes, for our parents to compare about each other, to haolian, and relatives to commend how BIG we are aldy, and for us kids to have pure damn fun. And lots of hongbaos hee. CNY to us kids meant lots and lots of food and fun. We would play silly games, play each other's hair,chase the dogs. The highlight being the lighting of the paozhu. Pardon me ah...I have no idea wat that thing is called. Cos singapore kinda wiped out my memories of that thingie..PAOZHU lar. The line of paozhu that will go off when lighted, bloody lot of noise. Aint really my favorite i remember. The fireworks were more fantastic. But i have little recollection abt them as well. All i could remember was mayb 6-7 yrs ago hsiaolin and i were back in kuching and we put the fireworks ourselves in our grandpa's backyard. Was so damn cool!!! And now that she reminded me, my cousins micheal and his sis Karen and the other family, Michelle and Marcus were ard too. They migrated to Australia when we were all very young. So we rarely get to meet. That was one hell of a fun cny where everyone finally gathered together. Till now, we haven't had the chance to have that sort of gathering. 2 yrs back hsiaolin and i went back as well, to visit my parents cos my dad was recuperating in Kuching. And Micheal was there! Everytime we had a chance to b back in M'sia it was really fun. It's so different from Singapore. All that cny feeling, the festive feeling,the fireworks, Singapore has cruelly taken away. OK lar..the onli place in singapore that feels like CNY is CHinatown and boy do i have lots to say abt CHINATOWN. Blaeah. And most of all, it feels gd to have relatives. As u all know, i only have Hsiaolin's family and another cousin's family (mom's side) here. So we are pretty much on our own. CNY was never a big hoohaa, it was always a small affair here. But back in M'sia, all the kids, aunties,uncles,and long dist relatives..it feels gd to have such a big family, altho they may not be the best pple to have ard actually...but wat the hell...
There aren't many gd memories of CNY in Singapore. It's getting more and more boring for both our families. We used to go visit this rich family fren of ours but we stopped doing it aldy these few yrs cos of funnie grudges and my dad finds it inconvenient to move ard too much. Tho there aint' many visitations, my parents think of CNY as the biggest thing for the whole yr. Again we dress up, again we parade amongst ourselves(onli 2 families...haha)and parents comparing our results and schools hai. I remember the 1st day would always b reserved for hsiaolin's family. Either they come by our hse or we go to theirs and we would often stay at their place or at my place for the whole day. And we usually get damn bored. Hsiaolin and i would coop ourselves up in my/her room and chat the whole day and we loved it. Although it gets boring but we enjoyed being together =) And i remembered my dad's bloody bad temper. He doesn't like it when we are slow. Especially CNY. He expects us to wake up earlier and dress up and b ready to go if not he would snap at us. I used to hate it. And i remembered pulling long faces the whole day, evident in my photos.
My parents were not strict about following the customs. The usual cny food,greetings and deco were followed. We never done any lao yu seng as well cos i think it's purely local custom or something. Yesterday i went to hsiaolin's place for renioun dinner and we lao yu seng!! Its a new thing to all of us...speaking abt doing wat the locals do. When i was going thru the teens yrs (which was bloody long ago) I dreaded CNY. Partly cos of my dad's bad temper and i knew he would juz make things undesirable for all of us. And also becos i juz don like being forced to do wat i don wan to. Like listening to the noisy CNY songs omg..the chinatown adventures and having to get up early for home visitations and wear clothes that i didn't like. Back then my face was filled with pimples and i had not much of a nice figure to show off, my mom loved making me wear all those clothes that didn't flatter but worsen my figure and my confidence! Some years i recall i had horrible haircuts so on top of horrible figure, oily-pimpled face, i got an unlookable crop argh. Whenever i looked at those photos i really wonder y i didn't juz do something abt my hair and the clothes. Wat a geek!!! THank god i'm not like that now.
Being dragged to Chinatown by my parents was another horror. I dreaded those yrs. DREAD!! But i can't rem much abt them aldy cos i've conciously decided to wipe those memories off my database. I only remembered lots of pple,damn hot,lots of sausages and weird looking things and we hardly bought anything, why were we there?MY bro and i rebelled against them when we grew alittle older....and they juz let us stay at home while they go sqeeze themselves.
My mom would devote lots of her time into making pineapple tarts which i really muz say was delicious. No more of such now. She's too tired to do those. Sometimes i feel like a banana really. I don really celebrate CNY, i hated it somemore. TO tell the truth, i can only come out with SOME cny goodies's names, and let mi name all of them here: BAKGUA,love letters, pineapple tarts withthe pineapple paste in the middle, another one which has the pineapple wrapped up and i'm absolutely clueless abt its name, an the white white small things that look like flour, and tadaaaa babao he..the 8 treasure box. hmm that's all i know? I oso know u have to spring clean ur hse b4 CNY, but for watever reason i assume that's cos pple are gonna visit u and it's gonna b embarrasing to have ur hse in such a mess. I knw u shdn't be cleaning or sweeping the floor on CNY, isit the 1st day onli or forthe rest of the 15 days? I know y!! Cos u would b sweeping ur gd luck away!! I know u shd wear red and put red stuffs cos it's ausipicious. You shdn't b arguing during CNY or talk abt death or any thing that's inauspicious, don't worry your elders will constantly remind u that.
I know u have to bring even no of oranges for visitations and married couples hv to dish out angbaos to us. What i didn't know but took me a few yrs to learn were, cny eve u stay up till 12am for your parents, it's like a tradition, something to wish them gd health and b fillial u know. ANd we gladly stayed up cos 12am is hardly late for any of us anyway. And then they wouldgive us hongbaos after 12am or the next day to bless us with gd health and all the best for our studies watever. And then my mom does weird thigns nowadays which gets on my nerve. U know the reason y i'm not that into CNY yr and i'm quite an idiot when it comes to CNY stuffs was mainly due to the fact that i view xmas more important than CNY. NOt cos i'm a banana but cos when i believed in Christ, alot of these customs and tradition no longer makes sense to me. It's really not difficult to figure chinese out...everything has to do with money. It's like if u don do this u won't get gd luck u do that u will be blessed sort of things. With God ard, everything would b provided to us, so i gez i don have to worry abt doing this or that to make sure i have money for the next yr u know. Bcos i am already blessed. So that definetely gave mi a reason to not worry abt such things or submit to unfounded fears... One yr i found my mom dumping dried orange skins at all possible corners of the hse. She said something abt having a gd yr ahead. And i gave her the WTH look,tried talking her out of this silly thing, wouldn't listen i gave uo and walked away. And there at all the possible corners of the hse the skins remained for possibly another 1 yr or so.I really could have removed them and trust mi i tot abt removing them but i didn't wan to hurt her so i juz let the skins b there.. And then i can't remember from when onwards she started telling us not to switch off the living room lights on the nite of cny eve. Bcos the god of wealth will then travel pass, the lights would capture his attention and he shall enter this hse. It's really funnie actually the tot of it. I tot by doing so we would attract more evil spirits actually...But anyway mothers are always right. Other weird customs i won't know. Like wat god u shd b worshipping and burning papers to them etc, i won't know all these or wat muz visit temple......cos we don and thankfully we don.
And after every CNY public hols and when we get back to school, everyone would b so excited about their angbao money. I always end up having the least angbao money. There were some very exaggerated cases , like whose dad gave him $1000 for angbaos etc. While my mom is throwing orange skins and keeping the lights on, some pple juz have it so easy. OK i shdn't make fun of my mom later lightning strikes...haha
This yr, i don expect my cny to b great or anything, it would juz b as boring as the last few yrs but at least i have my parents with mi . It gets especially lonely if u don celebrate with a family bcos CNY is all abt family aint it? I had a renuion dinner at hsiaolin's place last nite. Was great. Today the 1st day of CNY and i juz rotted at home. My whole family rot at home, including my bro..hmm...except my mom who was so busy in the kitchen donoe doing wat. Felt like time really crawled. I didn't know wat to do, i watched tv, i went to lie down on my bed and watched tv and lie and lie and then it was dinner and then watched tv and now i'm writing this on my bro's pc bcos apparently he announced that my pc's hardisk has RIPed and i'm telling ya that's y i couldn't reformat my com....................now deying u know lar..................hai..
And friday i took leave so that ihave a bloody long holiday. I'm thinking of revamping my room from friday onwards, would that mean i'm disobeying the "no cleaning" custom for cny????
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