• pigduck
• Jan 30,2006
• In: Rants

Gong Xi Fa Cai 2006

So this was the smallest of them all. The rest exploded and burst into colour in the sky. Those rocket types. Too dangerous to take pictures of. It was smokey and all the debris rained from the sky. These on the ground were so mild. We were hardly thrilled. Till our cousins decided to see how many they could light at one go.

I think my sister took some with her new Panasonic Lumix FX9. I’ll add them later to my photo gallery.

My parents handing out angpows.

Anyway, the family tradition is:-

1. Reunion Night Dinner with fireworks and lots of food. The gambling may start or not at my 1st uncle’s house.

2. 1st day - We assemble at my 2nd uncle’s house to receive ang pows according to seniority. So, 1st uncle’s kids go and collect ang pows, followed by 2nd uncle’s kids, then 3rd uncle’s kids etc.

The uncles and aunties who give out ang pows also follow rank. In this way, my father’s oldest brother will give out the ang pow first, then my father’s second oldest brother and so it goes.

All of the children line-up to collect ang pows and it’s really become quite a system. We have some of the cousins who are very well versed in Chinese phrases and they are the ones who come up with great well wishes for the elders. Yes, since I am a banana, i do not fall into this category. I just stand there stupefied, nodding and “gong-xi-ing” (this involves clasping my hands together and moving them back and forth in front of me…)

Then again, it’s a lot of food and chit-chatting, gambling, mahjong, whatever comes to mind…

3. This year we are starting a new tradition. My cousin has just moved into a huge huge huge bungalow a few blocks away and basically, we will be having lunch there tomorrow.

I’ll try and collect photos to display in my photo gallery. I didn’t take many even though I brought my camera. I couldn’t really be bothered. My cousins however are paparazzi-like so I am sure I will have ample photos.

Some of the photos I took. I think I’ve grown slimmer. Weird. Either that or it’s the haircut.

Anyway, what happened today? Well, we did the whole ang pow thing since today was the 1st day of Chinese New Year. Had Assam Laksa and Nasi Lemak.

I drove most of the time today. Went over to my mom’s friend’s house for her open house. You could tell it was a parent thing. All the kids were sitting around moping, listening to their MP3 players or playing with their phones or looking like they were going to fall asleep while the adults were greeting one another and talking… hehe…

Came home and my mom’s brother came to visit… My bedeh… He’s so nice. He came especially to visit us and to ask my dad how he was and truly, our relatives are so wonderful.

We spent a lot of the time perusing my sister’s wedding videos since one of the aunties wasn’t around for the wedding.

My sister got the videos back from her wedding. Basically it was 8 hours of video shrunk to 6 hours. Not very good editing.

My cousin, Danny, brought over his girlfriend, Nicole, too. First time I saw her and she seems really nice.

We had a minor situation with our electricity short circuiting as well. One of the lights in our bathroom had water accumulated in the light bulb area. Luckily, the fuse went off. If not, we might have had a major situation.

Had dinner and then took a shower. Carmen and I then sat down for a game of Scrabble. It was really fun. Kok Lai Koko and Mei Ling Che Che came over and helped us.

Kok Lai Koko was on my side and Mei Ling Che Che was on Carmen’s side. They cheated a lot though… using the dictionary VERY often. hehe… but I still won anyway… Kok Lai Koko helped but… he went over to their side some times… actually, I helped them too with some of the words… aiyah, we helped each other lah. But I still won. HAHAHAH…. Carmen and I made a bet with Scrabble. So far it’s 2-0. I’m winning!!!

It’s quite horrible of me isn’t it? I’m competing with an 11 year old. HAHAHAH.

For the broken toilet light, I put up a sign that read, “OUT OF ORDER - USE THE OTHER ONE OPPOSITE” - so my cousins would know that that guest bathroom was out of bounds.

Funny, they thought I meant my bathroom which is on my side of the apartment which is actually quite far away…Carmen’s bathroom on the other hand, is directly opposite the guest bathroom. Silly cousins. I had to re-direct some of them to that one. Maybe the sign was misleading. Who knows.

The cousins came over for the annual gambling. I only played in the last hour or so. I won RM30. That’s all. However, I have decided to aim high this year. As I try to every year. hahaha.

There was a Mariah Carey video marathon going on on Channel V. Watched it. I think she’s cool. They showed some good ones and topped it off with Don’t Forget About Us. Yeah!

Yeah, that’s it really. A real chronological run down of all the minor little details that happen. Not sure if it’s all relevant to my readers.

It was nice that Che Che and CK were around this year too. They were supposed to go back to CK’s side in Malacca but because my sister just came back from Singapore yesterday, they couldn’t make it. Their 1st year giving ang pow too. Hehe…