Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year - Year of the Rat. Coincidentally, it is also my son's 16th birthday.
We wore our new clothes and brought two oranges to my in-laws' place to 'bai nian'. My brothers and sisters-in-laws plus their children were already there. We gave 'ang pow' to all the children as well as my parents-in-laws. This year, the ang pows were especially colourful. Besides the usual red, we also have gold and yellow ang pows.
This year, my youngest sister-in-law (my husband's brother's wife) became the 'assistant cook'. She deep-fried all the stuff that needed to be deep fried. My father-in-law stir-fried bee hoon, spinach with abolone, etc. My sister-in-law even made a mango pudding and some jelly. They looked really pretty and I suggested that she took snapshots of them before the rest 'attack' the food. So she used her telephone to take photos of the puddings.
The men gathered to talk about their favourite topic - politics. The women also had their little talk in one of the bedrooms. We admired each others' new outfits and took turns to examine and ooh-and-aah over my sister-in-law's 'Hilly' handbag.
I asked my nephews and nieces about studying in polytechnics. Only one nephew completed junior college and is most probably going to the local university after his stint of National Service. Another niece is finishing her external degree after having worked for a few years after finishing polytechnic. They are good kids.
Then the teenagers sat down to a game of mahjong. One nephew played electronic games while another read the last instalment of "Harry Potter". This bored my youngest nephew who will be 11 years old this year. So he busied himself entertaining others. He had already prepared some 'lucky draw tickets'. He wrote some words and blanked them out with correction tape. For example, when my ticket was held against the light, I could read 'altitude'. He used a piece of paper rolled up as a loud hailer and said the winning ticket is 'altitude' so I got to choose a prize from amongst an array of paint-brushes. I gamely chose one and was further rewarded with a fortune cookie which I promptly ate. Inside the cookie was a piece of paper with four digits - implying that we should bet on 4-D!
I am so glad for this yearly get-together. We see each other's children growing up. We exchange tips. We eat together. We play together. Basically, we support each other. We are family!
6:24 PM
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