Sitting, counting, waiting

Today is Federal Territory Day, a state holiday for the Federal Territories (Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya) in Malaysia. As there will be many people in shopping malls today buying new clothes, new shoes, new bags and other goodies in preparation for Chinese New Year, I spent the day at home to avoid the crowd.

Even garden centers and plant nurseries will not be spared by the crowd. Many are shopping for CNY plants such as 四季橘 sìjìjú (citrus madurensis/calamondin) and 金钱树 jīnqiánshù (zamioculcas zamiifolia). There are many other popular CNY plants. As long as the name of the plants in chinese or the colour or the shape of the leaves/plants can be somehow linked to good luck, wealth, prosperity, good fortune, gold, being fruitful, or any auspicious meaning at all, one can be sure that the plant will be heavily marketed as CNY plants with expensive pricetags. I am all for plants and I don't care about the symbolism or why people buy them. As long as there are plants around, I am happy.


For this CNY, there will be no new clothes and shoes for me because I have decided not to buy any new clothes and shoes for the year 2010 until all the clothes that I have (not that I have many) are all worn out. This year I adopt the motto of reduce, reuse and recycle. So not buying new clothes fall under the category of reduce and reuse. One of the guidelines to reduce waste at home is to "buy only what you need". And I have decided that I do not need any new clothes because I can reuse my existing clothes for CNY.

But I still need to buy some CNY goodies for my parents-in-law and elder sister-in-law. I buy the same type of things for them every previous year and since I hear no complaints from them, I will be buying them the same things this year too. So right now I am sitting at home, counting down the days to Chinese New Year, and waiting for people to go back to work so that I can shop in more favourable conditions.