Chinese New Year thoughts

We're still in the first month of the year and I feel as if so much has happened around us. A number of events recently caught our attention: a YouTube video of a forum held at a public university whereby a panelist displayed her ugly self by intimidating a student, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong's confession to Oprah, the terrorist hostage incident in an Algerian gas plant, yesterday's Malaysian stock market plunge due to uncertainties created by the impending general election, and a six-year-old boy who has been missing for five days. Meanwhile, the weekend newspapers are plasterd with advertisements of sales of food, clothing, furniture, household items for the coming Chinese New Year of the Snake. Malls and supermarkets are blaring away CNY songs and displaying all the goodies on sale.

As usual, we celebrate festivals in a simple and quiet way. Unlike the more traditional families, we don't make it a point to spring clean, wash the entire house, change curtains and furniture, replace all things old with new ones, cook a ton of festive dishes or bake loads of cookies and cakes. This is all too overwhelming for me. Now that we are living in a larger home, it's even worse. I can't even keep up with the daily tidying let alone spring clean! I think this generation is one that is too caught up with consuming and accumulating material things and therefore, we have things cluttering the home.

It's different from the days of my parents' and grandparents' generation. Families were larger, lived closer to each other, lives were simpler. So when it came to festivities, everyone went all out to make it grand. The community spirit was greater then. They helped each other clean homes, paint walls, bake cookies, sew new clothes and cook. Back then, special dishes and delicacies were only enjoyed during festivals. I remember eating meat floss and dried barbecued meat ('bak kwa') during CNY but now you can get these anytime from a shop. There was no 'yee sang' to 'lou sang'. Roast duck, chicken, expensive fish and prawns were eaten only a few times a year. Now, you can eat them anytime. What was considered 'special' back then is now everyday fare.

But of course, the spirit of any festival should not just lie in the food, decor and having all things new, presents, angpows or whatever. It should be a time of celebration and thanksgiving for all the blessings we have received, our family, love, health, safety etc. That's how most festivals originate anyway and that's why whether it's a religious or cultural festival, people will include the act of worship and prayers as part of the celebration. According to history, the Chinese New Year was celebrated because people marked the spring and new year of planting crops, while legend also speaks of people rejoicing over the defeat of an evil monster that terrorised them after they made loud noises (hence firecrackers) to scare it away. Although Chinese New Year is a cultural festival, many Chinese also include worship and prayers in their activities. The Buddhists and Taoists visit temples and churches also hold special services, for example.

So in my opinion, it's good to know why we are celebrating a festival, and impart it to the next generation so that the knowledge and tradition will not be lost in this seamless, global, high-tech world where everyone seems to be celebrating everything, sometimes without realising its significance...

Still on first gear

I couldn't think of an appropriate title for this post but the above describes my 'speed' at the moment after six days into 2013. Yesterday I finally decided on my new year resolutions! Forming them in my mind and putting them down on paper sounds easy now that that's done. Working on them is another story....So now I'm still on first gear. Realising your resolutions is like driving a manual shift car. You can't just put it into 'D' like an automatic car, step on the pedal, and expect the gears to shift themselves.

This year, one resolution is to eat more fruits and veges and exercise. My recent medical checkup indicates that I need to. I am at my heaviest in my entire life, have access body fat, lack muscles, and have below normal metabolism. Back in the day, when I was a teenager and in my 20s, I was scrawny and underweight. I could wear XS-sized clothes.

I remember when I used to be fit when I was in my early 30s. Spending four days outdoors every two weeks for two years climbing hills, trekking jungles, canoeing in seas and rivers, camping under hole-y tents, waking before dawn to exercise, breathing in relatively fresh air and being amidst greenery helped build some muscles and fitness. I'm glad that my job gave me that opportunity then. Now in this job, I wake just after dawn, prepare breakfast, do laundry, cook, sit in the car and in front of the computer.

Yesterday, my notebook suddenly decided to become Sleeping Beauty. I turned it on but it didn't boot up or show anything on the screen. E checked it and tried the various necessary things to resuscitate it but it was in vain. I take it as a sign that I should cut down my internet and computer time and use it as needed for real work only. Having our desktop on the third floor of our home now helps I guess. When it's not in front of me I'd be less tempted to keep it on all day long and poke my nose into what my Facebook friends are doing, read unnecessary stuff online or surf.

I hope that will make me get on my feet, be active physically and spend more time doing other more beneficial stuff.

And I shall sign out now before I get sucked into the dark hole of the online world!

...and 2013 is here!

Happy New Year! 2013 still feels fresh and new as it's only the second day of the year today. It's funny how the end of one year and the beginning of another always gives that 'the old has gone, the new has come' feeling. At the end of the year, we look back and take stock of what we didn't accomplish and rush about to try to do it. 'Spring' cleaning at winter time. Then, we start making new resolutions that we once again hope to achieve, only to slowly forget to work hard on them as we procrastinate and tell ourselves there's lots more time before the year ends. I'm simply speaking in general as there are people who are super-disciplined and seriously keep track of theirs goals and resolutions.

For the first time, in 2012, ACE made three resolutions each. I remember on 31 December 2011, we sat down together around a large piece of 'mahjong' paper, divided it into three columns and wrote our resolutions down. C then illustrated them with her simple drawings. That piece of paper was stuck to one of the doors in our room for the entire year and slowly, it became an insignificant part of the room, like it was invisible as we passed the door daily, like a forgotten picture frame on the wall! Hahaha.....but there were times, though rare, that I looked at it and thought about how we fared at that point in time in keeping those resolutions. Out of the three resolutions, we managed to achieve one each by 31st Dec 2012. If we were graded, it would have been only 33.33 per cent....

For 2013, we've yet to do the same 'mahjong' paper thingy despite having reminded ourselves that we need to think about our new resolutions. We were busy and tired on 31st Dec 2012 having made a day trip to Seremban and Melaka that day. We didn't even stay up till midnight as a family. It's still not too late so I shall try and get us thinking and writing them down again, although not necessarily on 'mahjong' paper. As parents now, I think it's a good activity to have with C. It helps with providing some learning opportunities, direction and focus.

C and E are back to school and work today. I had feared that we'd have difficulty getting up at 6.00 am but surprisingly we managed. C even got up on her own to her alarm clock. That hardly ever happened last year. Last night she said she was rather excited about going back to school so I guess that had 'primed' her brain to wake up this morning. Her excitement was evident this morning with her chattiness. She said she was looking forward to checking on 'latest developments' which I suspect is about classroom gossip, as well as what new storybooks her school library has. Well, that's typically C. Who her class teacher and other teachers will be, the changes the school is facing this year (movement of students and some of her old classmates to the international school syllabus the school is now offering) are the least of her worries, unlike me when I was her age.

I wasn't as self-confident as C back then and used to feel nervous on the first day of school every year, despite knowing that I'd have the same friends in my class. I didn't take to changes well, especially with new teachers. And I remember when I was in Standard 3, we had the worst teacher any nine-year-old could have. She was strict to the point of being abusive verbally and physically that a number of parents complained to the principal. Looking back, it was indeed a terrifying time for all of us in that class. Imagine getting slapped for handing up your work 'too early', grounded without food for the entire recess time because we were noisy, getting whacked on the back with the gigantic wooden ruler used for drawing lines on the blackboard if you couldn't answer correctly, and a few more horrific abuses I shan't mention .... we literally cowered with fear everytime that teacher came into class.

Sigh, but we survived and a number of my classmates and I remain good friends till today, having shared such memories plus more wonderful and fun ones as we continued into our teenage years until Form 5 and now into parenthood.

Indeed, the end of an 'old' year and the beginning of a new year is a good time to reflect and count our blessings. 

Christmas is coming very soon!

Hey there! As the title of this post says, we're celebrating yet another Christmas, despite all the doomsday hype about yesterday's Mayan end-of-the-world prediction. For those of us who believe, no one will know the time or the hour, not even the angels, only God. The day came and went uneventfully for us.

This past week, we've been occupied with daily life and last-minute Christmas shopping. Every year end, we end up broke due to year-end travel, year-end sales, Christmas gifts, school holiday activities, book sales, school fees for next year and back-to-school expenses! We've also been occupied with nightly rehearsals for 'Everlasting Light', a Christmas musical we're participating in. In fact, we just returned an hour ago from the final dress rehearsal, with one more last practice on Christmas eve morning before the actual performance that evening.

This is C's first time taking part in a relatively large scale church Christmas production, while I'm helping out backstage. This brings back memories of my own participation in my primary school's annual Christmas cantata. I remember dressing up in a white flowy gown with angel wings once ( I guess I played the part of one of the angels heralding the birth of Jesus). I also remember singing all the carols in the choir. And I remember singing in a few Christmas productions during university days too.

Christmas is a time of joy and reflection. Besides celebrating it with food and presents, it is a reminder of the good news of salvation, peace and hope.

Here's wishing one and all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Enjoy this medley from the musical 'Everlasting Light':

Children's theatre, adult's movie

On Sunday afternoon, C went with two of her cousins, uncle and aunt, to watch a children's play called 'Kleting Kuning and the Giant Crab'. It was held at PJ Live Arts at Jaya One. She enjoyed herself . I was told there was some audience participation and she volunteered and got chosen to be the 'scroll bearer' and ended up getting all wrapped up in the scroll it seems. I guess the theatre people tried to make things fun and funny for the kids to enjoy. From the PJ Live Arts website, the synopsis for the play says this:

Kleting Kuning is often bullied by her sisters, who jealously compete for the hand of a mysterious stranger. A fierce giant crab threatens to destroy their dreams but the quick-thinking (and quick-moving) Kleting Kuning with her MMA (Martial & Magic Arts) skills has some surprises for him! Find out if her dreams come true in this interactive stage adaptation of a classic Javanese folk tale!
Box of Delights Theatre for Children strives to entertain, educate and inspire young audiences by drawing from legends, literature, and historical lore of different cultures from around the world. Directed by Marina Tan, each show offers interactive, energetic, playful performances featuring wholesome, inspiring, sometimes thought-provoking and often wildly entertaining dialogue and song.
Box of Delights: KLETING KUNING & THE GIANT CRAB is performed in English and runs for approximately 45 minutes.

 

While C was at the play, E and I killed time while waiting by catching 'Life of Pi' at a cinema nearby. The movie was good but like most screen adaptations of novels, there was some artistic licence used. Some scenes which were not in the original novel were included, and usually it's some romantic scenario, which in this movie it was. We felt it was not quite necessary as it didn't impact the entire movie that much.