For Chinese New Year, the celebrations start the night before, aka Chinese New Year end. Mum always cook a big feast and we all dig in with gusto. There were only the 4 of us at home this year so Mum didn't go too overboard.
Must have dishes:
- Fried Noodles
- Fried Flat Noodles
- Fish (Fish in Chinese is Yu which also sounds like the word for left over in Chinese. So having a fish dish on CNY Eve signifies having something aka money leftover at the end of the year..geddit?)
My plate... yum yumm:
Mother also gives us a red packet on CNY Eve.
Friends and relatives also come visiting throughout the first 3 days of CNY so everyone prepares snacks and drinks ready for the visitors. We were leaving for China the next day but the ritual had to be observed. Viv had gone off with her latest boyfriend so I had to fend for myself. Sniff Sniff....
The butter biscuits in the middle brought back particular memories - Mel used to bake these in our little toy-sized oven when she was in her late teens (many many many moons ago) and we would gather aorund the table waiting eagerly to try the piping hot (and deadly calorific) biscuits. I also cut up slices of the cakes that Mum bought and put in some lollies etc. No one was coming to visit so I manned up and ate most of this... heheheh.. the things I had to do.
People also like to let off fireworks and firecrackers at midnight to welcome in the New Year. We did our traditional thing of watching the free show from one of the balconies upstairs. Happy Chinese New Year, everyone.
On CNY morning, we always always always have this meal - chicken soup with noodles and a hard boiled egg. No one cooks chicken soup the way Mum can... yum.
We were flying off that night so we had time to go visit a few friends and relatives. The one stop we had to make was one of Mum and Dad's oldest friend's house. The wife makes the most amazing array of cakes every year. They are also quite rich which meant they attract a lot of unwelcomed attention. Eg:
People coming over to use their karaoke system freely... and killing a few neighbourhood pets in the process with their yowling....
Free-loading guests coming to stuff their faces with food, eg: Us.. hehe.
YUM!
We also had lunch there - an Indonesian lunch because the wife is Indonesian. Curry chicken, masak hitam, coconut rice etc.
So good.
Oh and before we left, this dance troupe also came in for a visit. There were a lot of random groups of people there and they were basically there for an angpow. Check out the uniform.
They all wore white shoes. I took a sneaky pic of one of the more adventurous ones. Nice!
We then went home to pack up and go to the airport.
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