*~Life in a Cocoon~*: Chinese New Year (Part 1)

Music: The Postal Service - Such Great Heights Mood: Rainy & hot at the same time

I once dug out an old local comic book, duly signed by the famous cartoonist himself, Lat to my dad. The cartoonist illustrated families would chase chickens all over the kampung for a sumptuous Chinese New Year feast; children used to stand on tables close to the pendaflour lights to guess their ang pow collections while the adults mah-jong away; young and old kids playing home made firecrackers as huge as lemang after dinner; everyone would stay up to anticipate firecrackers that will go off altogether at 12am.

Gone were the good old days. How to play firecrackers when you couldn't find it around pasar malam anymore unless you get them the illegal way? How to throw mandarin oranges into lakes when the government thought that this is mere pollution? How to let off sky lanterns (孔明灯) when the same group of loonies thought they are dangerous to aircrafts?

Bannings aside, how many posted and hand written new year cards have you received lately? It has been conveniently replaced by forwarded SMSes- Next time, count your friends by counting the SMSes you received that year. How many of us have decided to go travelling instead of troublesome visitations all over the country? I'll meekly put my hand up, mine started 3 years ago.

We used to drive up North to Parit Buntar on CNY Eve, stayed for two nights then back to KL, then drive down South to Muar for another one night. There used to be a merry number of us celebrating with grandparents. As all of them were deceased, families moved over to KL and gatherings seemed more and more like a mission impossible. From then on, our family celebrated CNY by going for short local getaways. We have promised the relatives up South for a visit this year, I think dad slacked off and I thought he even felt glad that he wasn't feeling too well to escape driving back in this hot spell.

Since most relatives down South have shifted to KL, we decided to host a reunion dinner this time.

It has to be the best way to test whether your cooking skills have excel or fallen backwards since our relatives were a brutally honest lot. They loved the black pepper chicken but pointed out the half cooked deep fried meat rolls (肉羹). The maid who cooks everyday made the former whereas mum who reduced cooking lately made the latter. Anyway she's able to find excuse by complaining she wanted to stuff the rolls with as much meat as possible but the skin was too thick and bla bla bla she went...