before cny

I took leave from work and flew back to Singapore to spend Chinese New Year (some call it Lunar New Year or Spring Festival) with my family. I chose to arrive a few days before CNY so that I could help Mum with the preparations and to get my hair and last minute CNY clothes/shoes shopping done.

For the second year running, I was entrusted with the most sacred task of preparing ang pows (red packets with a token sum of money that married couples give out to the juniors as part of their CNY well wishes for them) for Mum. These were to be given out to the young guests - mostly friends of my Bro's - that would be gathering at our place for the annual gambling ritual on day 2.


Unlike last year when I was handed a stack of $2 notes, I was given $10 notes this time for the above-mentioned sacred task. A sign of recovery from the GFC perhaps?


Bro suggested we use red envelopes with different company logos and colours instead of the usual practice of sticking to one particular design to make the whole ang pow receiving exercise more interesting for the recipients.


Halfway through my assignment, there's still another lot of red packets to prepare. Don't they look pretty all lined up?

We also had to get ready the very popular CNY snacks such as bak kwa (barbequed pork with a texture quite similar to beef jerky), pineapple tarts in various shapes and sizes, almond cookies, love letters or kuih kapit (crispy thin egg rolls) just to name a few. This year's snack table even had a selection of alcoholic drinks. I was a little taken aback by the sheer number of beers - uncountable crates of them! - that I had to transfer, a few cans each time, from the store room to the eski box out in the corridor.


This is just a small portion of the snacks that went on display on CNY eve. (I am nibbling on a piece of bak kwa and munching on almond chips as I type this entry now at 1.35am on the 13th day of CNY.)

I had one last task to complete before we sat down for the reunion family meal: put up the CNY deco. This has always been my responsibility year after year. Due to the lack of time to go shopping in Chinatown, we made do with whatever ornaments Mum bought on her most recent trip to the market.


Brightly coloured ornaments are usually put up at strategic locations in the house to liven up the CNY atmosphere and which symbolise good health, prosperity, and other positive wishes for the household.

We had a steamboat (hotpot) reunion lunch at home instead of dinner. Besides me and my immediate family, Bro's girlfriend, Bro's good friend from Indonesia, an uncle from Mum's side of the family and our current tenant who is a senior hairstylist with Kimage joined us at the round table.

Speaking of our tenant, we arranged a line-up of the Pak-and-related family members for a pre-CNY haircut by our very own inhouse stylist right after the lunch at a makeshift salon in the middle of our humble living room. I got to go second and requested for a trim of the dried and damaged hair ends, more layers to introduce volume to my usually flat hair and a much shorter fringe. I was extremely satisfied with the result and have already secured a follow up appointment for a colour session at home before I leave for Sydney!


Left: there were mandarin oranges displayed everywhere in the house.
Right: one of two gigantic pots of curry chicken, a standard CNY dish for our family.


Fried beehoon (rice vermicelli) with a whole baby abalone at the side; we usually eat the beehoon with the curry. Yums!


Boiling chicken based soup with lots of veges and meat/fish balls thrown in; ready for us to cook our scallops, fish, abalone, prawns, sliced beef, liver, quail's eggs, different types of mushrooms etc in!


Left: Bro trying to cook one small slice of champignon mushroom in the boiling stock.
Right: Mr Kimage hairstylist taking the first prawn to the boil.


Left: Bro chatting animatedly with his friend while waiting for the food to be ready.
Right: Bro engulfed by the steam arising from the pot of boiling broth. Check out the plate of sliced abalone positioned right in front of him. How scheming.

The family adjourned to my grandparents' place for reunion round two - dinner that evening while I retired to bed with a massive headache and four panadols.