KIONG HEE, KIONG HEE

SO, HOW WAS YOUR CHINESE NEW YEAR?

From the long silence you'll probably have gathered that mine was pretty hectic, what with family coming up from KL so there was all the preparation for guests, let alone the normal stuff for Chinese New Year: cleaning, cooking, money worries! To be frank, this is one time of year (apart from Christmas) I can do without - it's just such a stressful time. Like Christmas, Chinese New Year is really most enjoyable when you're a kid - it's the only time you get to have all the fun - new clothes, good food, lots of cookies and cakes and of course lovely dosh (money) - without all the hassle. For adults though it's another matter.

And here's when I go into my usual rant about how at such times the pressure is almost always on the women of the family: the shopping, marketing, planning the menu, preparing the food to be cooked (granted nowadays the donkey work is probably done by an Indon maid, but not everyone is lucky enough to have one) ... then there's the cooking of the food itself, serving it then of course the washing up.

And that's just the Reunion Dinner the night before! One hasn't even mentioned the pre-CNY lead-up - the cookies to be made (or bought, as the case may be ..!), ensuring that there's enough to go around family, friends and business associates; the new clothes to be made (or bought, again as the case may be); the money taken out of the bank in readiness for the myriad ang pows to be given out - and let's not mention the fear of being robbed - and then the preparing of the ang pows.

Now that's an interesting subject all of its own, as from what were token gestures of good luck, where one gave small sums of money in pairs (never in singles or odd numbers) e.g. it was quite common to receive RM1.10 when I was a kid; if you got RM10 you were considered very lucky, let alone the odd RM50 note which was indeed a rarity! Nowadays, it's become a case of one-upmanship: see how pretty the ang pow that I use is, let alone the size of what's in it and how thick the wad of RM100 notes is. No longer are RM1 notes used, and the RM10 is about the norm, although I have seen the odd RM12 ang pows around.

Of course, DINKies are probably the ones who lose out in this case - these Dual Income/No Kids, being married, have to hand out angpows but don't have the opportunity to receive any ... yet! As for those WITH kids, there's the "let's-see-how-much-you-gave-my-child-and-I'll-return-same-plus-a-bit-more" attitude - only on hearsay of course. One would NEVER stoop so low ... not all the time, anyway!!

Anyway I digress. Going back to the Reunion Night, I'm lucky that my mother is still fit enough to want to take on the burden of this ritual, and as she's a good cook (or rather her Indon maid has been taught well) we were all treated to a slap-up nyonya meal of Otak Otak, Curry Molly, Tau Eu Bak, Jiu Hoo Char and of course the must-have Kiam Chai Ark Soup - thoroughly enjoyed it all, and the fact that I had to drink a few gallons of water that night to ease my raging thirst didn't deter from it at all! Then there are the two days of New Year to be got through, and all the ensuing meals to go along with them. You can't keep serving the same dishes all the time, but there's only so much space in your fridge!

Hope you had as good a New Year as I did. Kiong Hee Huat Chai once more. I'm really looking forward to settling down to 2010 now that the year-end and year-beginning festivities are finally out of the way. That is, after I come back from Singapore next week - but then that's another story!