I’ve just gotten back from Penang yesterday. Well, since classes have started today, Chinese New Year celebrations were kinda rushed. But here’s a wordy and lengthy recap (that no one except those really interested in my life will bother to read)

Traffic Jam!

We left on Friday evening. Originally, we had planned to leave in the morning, but due to unforeseen circumstances (actually, they were pretty much foreseeable, but “unforeseen circumstances” is a better literary device), we left in the evening, at 9.00 p.m.. At 1.00 a.m., we had not yet left the state of Selangor. After Tanjung Malim, however, traffic became clear, and we reached my grandmother’s house at 4.00 a.m.. As you could have guessed… I was the one driving. It was a horrendous driving experience, sitting in the car for over 7 hours. Well, at least it is a notch better than last year, where we drove 10 hours back. Travelling at night seemed to be a better option too, for Tigara (my pet cat). She didn’t make any noise at all when we were on the road.

CNY Eve, Phone Quirks and Reunion Dinner

The following morning was Chinese New Year’s eve - meaning that Reunion Dinner would be held later that night. I woke up a tad too early, and found myself extremely bored (cue to Xingyi: grimace). In the end, I ended up following my mother to the local mall (har har… if you could call it a mall) and tagged along for extremely boring stuff, inclusive of shopping for shoes for my sister. It was then, I discovered my phone battery was dead and dying, and I had forgotten to bring back my charger. So after a few text messages and a few MMSes, it went completely dead. I was feeling kinda elated actually… the amount of Happy Chinese New Year messages were frankly, quite ridiculous, and extremely tiresome to reply them all (and it was some 6 hours to midnight! Thank goodness my phone died by 7 p.m.).

And also, before my phone died, I found another quirk with my phone. It wouldn’t send MMSes correctly - it’d always send a second or third copy out to people in different contact groups. Hence, I got some very brash, angry reply from a very very Malay friend whom apparently got offended by a picture of a live pig (this is the year of the pig according to us Chinese). Oddly… hours later, he would send me a Happy Chinese New Year greeting with an ASCII pig teddy bear in it.

Reunion Dinner was a silent affair. Unlike previous years, my mom had sprained her arm (sprains seem to spread in my family) and didn’t cook the dinner. Nonetheless, dinner was excellent. My aunt had brought back a gigantic live marble goby (fish name translation courtesy of Ray Mun) and it was cooked for dinner. Naturally, being grossed out by my grandmother’s maid killing the fish, I decided to eat only a token amount. In fact, I pretty much stayed almost vegetarian for the rest of the trip.

First Day Lunch, Reactions and Ang Paus

Right… Then came the Big Day itself (so big that it warrants its own Capital Letters). I had woken up late. After breakfast, my sister spent 2 hours bathing and making up, only to realize that Tigara needed to go to the toilet. So, effectively, she had bathed and made up just to clean up after the cat! What a hoot! Anyhow, we went to my maternal grandmother’s house at about noon - the most happening place every Chinese New Year.

Despite that my maternal grandfather had just passed away last October, the mood in the house was anything but sombre. Lunch was was superb (but I mostly stayed off the meat). So… just like what I did 2 years back, I am going to once again, post a picture of this year’s New Year Lunch, complete with numeration and description of foods:

Chinese New Year Lunch Menu:

1. Chicken Curry
2. Thai-style Assam (Sour Plum) Prawns
3. Luo Han Zhai - Stir Fried Mixed Vegetables (Chinese: 罗汉斋 - translates literally to food for the Arhats)
4. Roast Duck Dunked in Gravy (Hokkien: Lor Ark)
5. Achar (a kind of spicy salad, common only to local baba and nyonya cultures)
6. Chicken Feet Kerabu (Thai style salad)
7. Braised Pork in Soy Sauce
8. Stir-fried Squid Salad

Not in picture (food on another table):

9. Lor Bak (meat wrapped in soy paper… eated with the chilli sauce)
10. Stir-fried Tofu
11. Kuan Chien (yam wrapped in soy paper and fried)
12. Kiam Chai Ark (a kind of extremely delicious and addictive duck soup that contains various herbs and vegetables)
13. Fried Mushrooms (they looked like meat…and taste extremely weird)
14. Pie Tees.

I ate a bit of everything (potatoes in the curry, etc etc), except the chicken feet kerabu. It was um… scary. I don’t fancy chicken feet, but many people think they are delicacies not to be missed.

On my extreme roundness this year, there were few relatives whom I met who instantly commented: “Wow, Chewxy, you’re fat this year“. Some, on the other hand, are more subtle, come up with comments like: “You haven’t been exercising much have you?“. But perhaps the friendliest (or most PC) of all is: “Wah, Chewxy, looking very prosperous this year, eh?” Not that I mind… I need the exercise anyways. My target is nearly there… 2 weeks and 4 kilos gone. The bad habit of staying up late reading and snacking in the middle of the night, really gotta go.

This year seemed to be the year of the young. I never knew I had so many cousins or younger relatives - all new born. But a few of my relatives elected not to come this year, based on the assumption that my grandmother would not celebrate. Hah! This meant that this year’s ang pau (red packet) income will be significantly less than last year’s (about 90 people turned up last year, as opposed to 60+ this year) hmmm…

Mahjong Madness!

After lunch, my attention turned to mahjong. I’ve been lamenting half of last year to Shyuing, Irene and gang that I didn’t know how to play mahjong despite having attempted to learn for some 8 years already. So, this time, I watched those who were playing. After about an hour or so of watching a game, I decided that I’ve known how to play, so I settled down on another table to play. To be frank, mahjong is another game that can be studied according to game theory. After watching a while, it isn’t hard to deduce what tiles the player opposite you has. If anything, it’s a very much tougher version of poker (because you have more than just 52 cards or 4 suites, and a complicated scoring method). It’s all just a serial probability and combinatorics. Nothing too hard there. Concentration in a game is a must. I spent some later games documenting my play with a camera, and it ended that I lost badly (while I had been doing okay in previous rounds)

Obviously not doing very well…

Luck is involved in mahjong only during draws and opening hands. It is not unlike driving a car, or taking a bus. And to those who think Mahjong is about gambling, you’re dead wrong. The “money” or the chips used is mainly for point counting, not betting. Nobody bets anything, in fact, so it could hardly be called gambling. But I must admit, it’s an addictive game. I whiled away my afternoon on the mahjong table. And to think that it was a game without monetary stakes, lol. I must have missed more opportunity to gleam more ang paus (red packets) from other relatives who might not have noticed me at the mahjong table. Argh damn. Well.. that’s the opportunity cost of gaining the knowledge of playing mahjong.

Aftermath…

After the first day, the second and third days were spent visiting other relatives in Penang et. al. Then it was time to come back here. Last year I had a week-and-a-half long holiday (came back because Pretty Swallow was ill and wanted to see me), and this year… 4 days of holidays. And I have a QBM 101 assignment to hand in tomorrow.

Tigara made noise all the way back from Penang to KL. And it was a speedy trip (3 hours). Time to charge my phone (I turned on my phone and at least 20 SMSes appeared, not including expired SMSes that I will never receive) and go . Meanwhile, cfgt, u238 and George are headed back to Australia… while I check my email to find another 60 emails in the inbox. ho-hum.

You can view my Chinese New Year gallery here.

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