Archive for the 'Festivals' Category

Twitter Layouts

The other day while I was at the Mall, I saw the “God of Prosperity” ie a chap dressed up like the above. You can see quite a lot of them at malls during this season. Some of them will be giving out mandarin oranges, or angpows (usually with vouchers in them) to entice you to buy, buy, BUY!

Anyway, this chap was fooling around. He was standing very still. If you did not know it, you would think that he was just a manequin. Then he would suddenly move much to the surprise and amusement of shoppers. All of a sudden he spoke……. in Malay to the shoppers. lol. A “God of Prosperity” who speaks Malay. That is what you get in a multiracial society.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! I will be back after I have finished eating, drinking and being merry which may take up to two to three weeks.

“Mummy, how many days till Chinese New Year?” the small one asked. “About a week” I replied and he went “Yeah!” while he glanced longingly at the Chinese New Year cookies and goodies laid out temptingly on the table.

The kids have been banned from touching the cookies until the eve of Chinese New Year. (no matter how much they plead). This is all part and parcel of the fun and the build-up and suspense towards Chinese New Year.

We have completed our home-made decorations. This year we decided to make angpow rabbits. We will be stringing and hanging them up on Monday with plenty of instructions from the kids. “Hang here, mummy. No, it looks nicer here.” etc.

Despite all our preparations, the cleaning up, making decorations, storing up cookies, buying new clothes, we actually celebrate Chinese New Year on a small scale with little or no visitors. Well, there is no law that says you can’t put up decorations to admire yourself right, so we do it year after year. We do balik kampung but it does not mean that this house where we stay should be neglected.

Though it is just the four of us, we make it into a big thing and create a big fuss for the kids delight and for ourselves too as a result. When the kids are happy, we are happy. So, we’re all set now to usher in the Year of the Rabbit…. well, almost. Still a bit of stuff to do here and there.

I shop just once a year during Chinese New Year and then we wear the clothing throughout the whole year. It helps me to save money and at the same time it creates excitement and a festive feeling for the kids. Since I shop just once a year, I can also have the excuse of picking up good quality clothing that may cost a bit more since we have to wear them all year round. The only disadvantage about doing this is the clothing price is higher during this peak season as some, like me will shop around this time.

I decided to do this, after my sister who shops all round the year told me that to her kids, Chinese New Year is nothing special because they have new clothes all the time. I want my kids to feel the same kind of excitement I felt as a child during CNY. So to me they should have new clothes during this time and not throughout the year. As children they outgrow their clothes very quickly so we will definitely need to buy them some so why not do it for Chinese New Year. Of course, we have to be careful to choose those that they can grow into and not out of quickly.

As a child, we always had new clothes during Chinese New Year and we will wear them on the first two days of Chinese New Year at least. Some of my more traditional aunties even have new clothes for each of the 15 days of Chinese New Year! Amazing! For us, we just target the first few days and we will usually buy mix and match outfits that we can pair with to create new looks.

We even had new sleepwear which we will wear after busy cleaning up house on the eve of Chinese New Year before having a good shower to wash away the old year. So I always buy new pyjamas for my kids and they love changing into them on the eve of Chinese New Year. They change into them, receive angpows from mummy and daddy and then they get to stay up late to welcome the New Year with the sounds of firecrackers and fireworks all around.  So exciting. On the first morning of Chinese New Year, the kids will get bundled into their new clothes and shoes. Oh, how they love it!

This year we also got new cushion covers and table cloths, all in the bright auspicious colour – red. Tradition is very much alive in my house even though we celebrate in a really small scale.

These days you have “digital” everything. Digital clock, digital cameras and even a digital perm.

So this year I went and got myself a digital perm. Ahem. What a painful experience it was, sitting in the hair salon for 4 hours having loads of solutions sprayed, applied and massaged into the hair. Oh the great lengths people will go to for beauty’s sake. The 4 hour process went something like this.

1. Hair washed and semi dried
2. Wait……(tapping fingers)
3. Hair trimmed. Snip. Snip. Snip
4. Off for another rinse and hair combed out
5. Wait…….(tapping fingers)
6. Hair was sprayed with some solution for treatment before perm
7. Wait………(tapping fingers)
8. Perming cream was massaged onto the hair and left on for a few minutes
9. Wait…….. (tapping fingers)
10. Rinse and semi dried again
11. Hair was curled up. Each curl had to be sprayed with more solution before curling. The curlers were big and had a wire at the end. Two rubber bands were used to secure the hair into each curler
12. Padding was placed under each curler
13. A big white thingy that looked like a hat with no top was put around my head near the scalp just before the hair begins
14. Each wire from each curler was then plugged into separate sockets from an electrical contraption to heat up each curler. (By now I felt like I was having an EEG rather than a hair perm)
15. Wait……. (Tap fingers)
16. Curlers were removed and hair smoothed out
17. Hair trimmed again
18. More solution was sprayed on hair
19. Had to lie back and look at the ceiling while hair was slowly airdried on a slow spray of air
20. All done

And that my friend is what women do in the name of beauty.

So. what is the verdict?

1. “Mummy, you look like a bad person.”
2. “Mummy, why did you choose this? “
3. “Mummy, I don’t like it.”
4. “Mummy, you look like a small girl.”
5. Small hands pulled at my hair. “I’m drying to pull it straight.”
6. “Ewe…. it does not feel nice like before. It feels hard.”

That came from the boy. The girl simply said “Mummy, I like it.” Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder so it really is unnecessary to “torture” oneself for 4 hours like this but since Chinese New Year is round the corner, so for the sake of age old tradition of “in with the new and out with the old” for everything including hair and even underwear for some judging from the numerous “new year” underwears (usually red with some auspicious design, lol) being sold for BOTH women as well as men. (I guess there must be a market for it!)

So this is how, In the name of beauty and for the sake of tradition, I waste 4 hours of my precious time. Not again!…. until next year, that is.

Now that my kids are old enough to have gone through our very own routine and tradition for Chinese New Year, they are really looking forward to it.

When we were younger, we used to have our own family routines for Chinese New Year. Hubby had his routine and I had mine. Now that we have our own little family, we started our very own routine for the kids.

We both married late. So with only one remaining grandparent, the kids do not have to go through any strict type of age old family routine so we have to create our own routine. Even though we are a small household and we celebrate Chinese New Year on a small scale, we do not believe in locking up the house and going away for the holidays to get away from everyone. That is not what Chinese New Year is all about.

To us, Chinese New Year is about cleaning and decorating the house, buying and wearing new clothes, buying and eating cookies (too bad I can’t bake). So even though we do have many people to visit and not many come to visit us, we still do all these things. We also try to do the same things on the first day and on the second day etc. On Chinese New Year eve, they enjoy washing the car and the porch and then hanging up our homemade and storebought decorations, before having a bath changing into new pyjamas and eating our own “reunion” dinner. We dine at home, just us but we make an effort to make it special.

By now, the kids know the routine and tradition well. They begged to make the Chinese New Year decorations, they are looking forward to eating the same cookies. They are sooooo looking forward to Chinese New Year. I am not sure they enjoy the buying new clothes part though. The crowd is horrible. After a while, they drag their feet and complain about being tired. This year we are late. Usually I like to get all this out of the way before the crowds come. Now the crowds have started and we have only just begun. I think I am going to drag my feet and complain about being tired too. Still, I am also looking forward to Chinese New Year.