My 1st CNY celebration ever! The Year of The Rabbit!!

If you asked me, undeniable I was damn excited. Starting this year, I will be officially celebrating 2 festivals and apart of giving angpau, which I enjoying doing so since I started working; I learned a lot of customary ways of celebrating both festivals. For sure, CNY gives me more than I expected.

I remembered posted in my Facebook that I learned so much the ‘do’ and ‘don’t’ before, during and after CNY. My Chinese friends help me a lot by sms-ing and calling me just to ensure that I follow all the conventional ways of celebrating. Thanks to my mother in law too as had giving us more tips which I considered it as an enforcement than telling us on how the correct ways to celebrate the CNY =) *clever mommy*.

My hubby was the busiest one to remind me on the rules which I’m pretty sure that all of them were given by his mom hehehe. But thank God that he did not beautify our house in the conservative decoration. I’m sure that our cats are more than happy to put it all down and scratch it to the small pieces.

These are some of the rules to follows for CNY, incase if needed one:

Before CNY
1. Send the Mandarin Oranges to all the close family & relatives.
2. Decorate the house with some ‘good wealth’ posters.
3. Throw the rubbish only on the 28th day of the last month.
4. Put it some angpau (of course with $$ inside) in your house & moon cake.
5. Do not left your rice bowl empty, leave some to start the year.
6. Go shopping for some red or light color outfits which inclusive of your undies.

During CNY
1. Wear red or any light color. Black? No No No.
2. Wear the NEW outfits and NEW undies.
3. Do not sweep up the floor.
4. Do not hang the clothes up to the 3rd days
5. Do not wash your hair
6. Bring 4 or 6 oranges to those houses that you visited and return back 4 oranges to those who visit you with oranges.

After CNY
1. Return to work only on the good day as per prediction
2. Open the angpau only after the 15 day of CNY

Sorry, these are only rules that I can think of the moment. For sure, there are still a lot of rules in celebrating CNY. Some people may take this for granted and some will try hard to follows as it is. No matter how, the more you know, the better you can please the elders. Festivals have always been the source of joy and happiness. The vibrancy of colors, the mixture of different sounds, all create a feeling of excitement and enjoyment.

All the in-laws! I'm the darkest one! uwaaaa

Apart of conventional ways of celebrating; prayers, visiting friends and relatives, yee sang session, giving angpau; my mother in law wanted us to have a Tea Ceremony on the first day of CNY.

Tea Ceremony normally will be the main agenda at Chinese wedding, symbolic of the marriage consent from elders to the newlyweds. Since we did not do it during our wedding, I was certainly eager for the 2nd time. After serving the tea to the elders (his mom and siblings), they will need to give something to us in return. So, we had angpau, necklace, pendant and ear rings. *ehem*

Who said that we are not allowed for the angpau after wedding?

After all, I feel blessed to have an opportunity to celebrate two festivals in a year. Being in 2 families makes me wonder how God created the festival for a reason. We had so much fun in following the rules and having good time during the re-union dinner.

No matter how, festival are ideal to enhance family bonding and unity and being the strongest anchor in our lives holds all the flavors and aroma needed for the celebrations and silently echo the strong bond of love, the bond of blood that holds them all together. Many religious festivals also portray the family as the fundamental entity.

In spite of everything, home is where the heart is, and heart is where the festivities begin.

Gong Xi Fa Cai to all of you. May the Year of The Rabbit will brings you good health, wealthy, happiness and with many good returns.

Leap high & reach far!!

Welcome Chinese New Year - The Year of the Tiger

CNY for me every year seems nothing except for some break during the week. But for sure, the only thing that I love most about CNY is the mandarin oranges. I can even finish the whole box as it’s really tasty, sweet and free *cough*.

But starting this year, the CNY brings me some joy and excitement since my bf is a Chinese *ehem*. We had decided to celebrate together even not to follow the Chinese traditional way of celebrating. It was nice to have him 7 days a week even during CNY. He did not go back to his hometown at Kedah since he has some family-argument going on between him and the siblings (just reserve the comment to him).

On the CNY eve, we had some nice seafood steamboat tom yam at Klang. The reunion dinner without parents, siblings and the nephews around. There was only me and him. But we still had so much fun and *burrpp* at the end.

Since we were in Klang, we made a break at one of the famous temple in Klang to see the impressive of CNY decoration. I was surprisingly to see so many people were there even on CNY eve. “Are they supposed to be at home to help the mother to decorate the house or arranging the kuih box or something?”

The place was so packed and it was really not so me to come to this kind of places. But the decoration was great to attract the guest. It was full with red and orange colors at every single corner of the temple. They also had some live show performance by the local artists which I have no idea at all who are they.

Apart of “celebration-between-boyfriend-girlfriend” kind of excitement, we were really looking forward to celebrate it this year, the day of change of the year in Chinese calendar. Last year wasn’t a good year for us; the Ram (last year was the Ox year). We had so many obstacles in career and life. I’m not going to become a superstitious here, but everything happened seems far from the coincidence. It was really as per predictions. But thank God, we manage to go through the difficulty and learned so many lessons as we go.

This year is the year of Tiger and hoping that we will be roaring well in our life with good health, more wealth and many good returns.

We both born on the same year, thus we are sharing the good and bad behavior and thought of the Ram. The prediction says that the Ram has very good compatibility to the Ram itself as a life partner. *relieve*

To all my Chinese friends, Gong Xi Fa Cai and safe journey home.

Christmas Eve @ Portugese Settlement

After a long break.. now i come back to update my blog.. itulah bila dah terlalu addicted to Facebook till forget about my blog here..

I start the new update with my last christmas eve... first time ever that i been to Portugese Settlement at Melaka. The area is not quite big but always pack during christmas eve. Imagine that all the houses were decorated with all the Christmas stuff.. full with lighting, snow man (actually made by tissue), Jesus and etc. When the countdown time.. all the houses will be opened and they served all the guests with food & drink... so sweet!

The christmas fever was so warm to everyone. Best sangat, macam dekat overseas.. cuma yang takde SNOW saja...

Enjoy the photo..

Aidilfitri 2009

Throughout the Ramadan, I was really happy to at least spending my time to remember God. Even it wasn’t perfect compared to other people; I’m hoping that God will see the sincerity in it. Yet, I’m pretty sure that I had not been able to get the Lailatul Qadar night. There were too many activities to attend to and made myself so tiring on the last 10 days of the Ramadan. I know, I know, it was only an excuse, but hopefully God will give me another chance to have it one day.

This Ramadan too, there was a day that I’ll remember in my life. The day when my parents spent their time to break fasting with us in KL (not a something new actually), the day when on the first time I had told my parents about my boyfriend and the day when my dad so annoyed and asked me to call it off.

I wasn’t sure how he reacts but really certain on what was the reason behind it. For your information, my dad is actually religious man. Having a Chinese boyfriend wasn’t a good idea, unless you have a very sporting daddy. Starting that day, he called me almost every day just to ensure our relationship is ends. A bit annoyed, even he used to call me, but not every day like this.

I’m not a daughter that always give headache to my parents (I mean big big headache hehehe), but this time I don’t know why I was so hard and stubborn on my decision. Maybe because all this time, I just being a good follower in the family.

I had waited for so long to have a boyfriend, not that I don’t have any before, but to have someone that completes me as a women is not easy. Since I finished my secondary school (I think during my University time), I didn’t really into Malay man (sorry guys, no offend okay). Let me keep to myself the reason of me not to choose them but I can share one of the reasons here.

I’m not really fair type of skin, my color more to the original Malay girl, tan color to be exact. So if I married to Chinese guy, the percentage for me to have the baby with fair complexion is higher. Simple reason but concrete! Hehehe.

Okey, back to the story. I tried my best to convince my dad even I knew it was really hard to do it. So I make an effort to use the other way round and brought my bf to meet the rest of my family first. If they like him, my job will be much easier. So thank God, they like him especially my elders sister. Normally my parents will listen and approve whatever my sister said. To deal with her is much more trouble-free than my parents. In this kind of situation, to make used all the available resources is essential.

Thus I brought him back to kampong during Hari Raya even I knew that my dad will kill me instead. Once in the while to gamble and take a step that you will regret for the rest of your life, could give you a different perspective. At least I was trying than doing nothing. My bf also plays an important role as an actor in this conflict drama even you can see his face turn white in front of my dad. If we had a trophy for the best actor of the year, he will definitely win it.

At first, when my parents saw him, they didn’t say anything except just give ‘who-the-hell-he-think-he-is’ smile and went straight to the room. I was nervous and I lose count to my heart beat already. If the doctor was around, he must be surprise to see my BP goes up and I fainted with the blue face. Touch wood!

But the miracle happened during the dinner, my dad started to have a conversation with my bf. From the food introduction to the current issues, all made my nerves even stress. I think, my dad just trying his best to respect the guest during Hari Raya.

From the moment, my parents slowly like him and he really made my day. Thank God to accept my prayer throughout the Ramadan. I had never missed to pray that God will open my parents’ eyes to see the truth about our love. We are no longer young, we can’t wait any longer to build a family and live happily ever after. We just need the blessing from the elders and let us drive our life to where and how it will turn to be.

I’ll never forget this Ramadan and Aidilfitri as the beginning of my life. Mom & Dad, I’ll make you proud to my choice and this is the first and the last, I’m hoping.

Don't ask me why this picture turn that way.

He learnt to wear Pelikat