CNY activities

The countdown continues. 7 more days to go before the CNY celebration ends. My top 3 CNY activities are eating, eating and eating.

Instead of going to the restaurant for "lau sheng" (捞生), my family prefer to eat home cooked food so my mother and sister made vegetarian "yu sheng" (鱼生) from the existing food they have at home. They managed to come up with the following ingredients for the dish - shredded white radish, shredded carrot, pomelo sacs, shredded cucumber, shredded chinese pear, home preserved vinegared shredded ginger, chopped peanuts, and sesame seeds. They even went to the extent of making their own crispy and crunchy crackers (薄脆) from scratch which turned out to be extremely crunchy and delicious. Their hard work paid off because all six of us have fun tossing the "yu sheng" and eating the yummylicious and healthy home made vegetarian "yu sheng". I hope my "lau sheng" this time counts because I was tossing the salad with the chopsticks in my right hand and snapping photos of the "lau sheng" with my point-and-shoot camera in my left hand. Not fully participating to toss the highest.


My mother and sister even made some time to bake a few types of cookies. When I was staying at home, I used to help my sister with the baking. Now I just help her with the eating.


When I was about 4 years old and my sister 8, we used to play "pretend baking" where we made an oven from a cardboard box and for the cookies, we drew various colourful patterns on mini pancake cookies on art paper and cut them out to put into the oven. Just for old times' sake and in celebration of our younger play days together, my sister baked the following cookies. They looked exactly like some of the cookies I drew during those days but sad to say I did not get to taste them because my sister can't stop herself from gobbling all of them up since they reminded her so much of her younger eating days. So 7 more days to go before my eating spree can officially stop.

One more day to CNY!

It seems that this food is a must during CNY. As it is, I have to join the queue and wait patiently for my turn. I don't eat this at all but just need to get one packet for my parents-in-laws. Can't buy it early as it cannot be kept for a long time unless I get the vacuum packed ones which my parents-in-laws do not like. So I have to queue.

Here's wishing everyone (who celebrates CNY) a very happy Chinese New Year! For the rest, happy holidays! Enjoy yourselves but don't eat too much! ;-)

Colourful shooting stars

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, during Chinese New Year, my father would buy many types of fireworks. My favourite firework is the Roman Candle that shoots flaming colourful stars into the sky, one at a time.
As we were young, we were afraid of the sparks so while my father went to the garden to light up the Roman candle, we would hide safely behind the window, waiting in trepidation for the colourful display of sparkling and dancing stars.

Then we would watch in wonder and awe as each star shoots out of the tube and arcs through the dark sky leaving a colourful trail behind it. We would also count the shooting stars as there would be a pause between each shot.

There was one time, the Roman candle fell on its side and shot flaming balls into our house. The flaming balls hit the walls and ricochet off them making it seemed like the flames were everywhere. It was such a terrifying moment. We jumped onto the sofa and screamed our heads off. Luckily our house was not burned down.

Remembering this incident, I can understand why consumer fireworks are banned. Worldwide, there have been many injuries and fires caused by fireworks. So although fireworks leave me with many happy and memorable memories, I have not bought any fireworks. Come to think of it, I have also never lighted any fireworks till now and I do not intend to do so in the future.

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.

Losing my wisdom

In my mind, the year 2002 will always be associated with my teeth. That year, I suffered the most painful toothache I have ever experienced in my life. It was brought on by my wisdom tooth that had only partially erupted. The eruption caused an opening in the gum which allowed bacteria to enter around the tooth in front of the wisdom tooth and caused an infection.

I have to eat antibiotics and wait for the infection to heal before removing my wisdom tooth. Luckily, the extraction of wisdom teeth was covered by the private medical health insurance plans (Bupa UK) provided by my employer. I only had to pay GBP100.

The dental surgeon I consulted with advised me to remove all 4 wisdom teeth at one go. He asked me whether I prefer to do it under local anaesthesia or general anaesthesia. I asked him which one does he prefer. He said general anaesthesia so I agreed to it.

The operation was done as a day case. I checked into the hospital and was given a single private day room. The anesthesiologist visited me before the operation and asked me if I have any concerns. I told him that the previous time I went under general anaesthesia for an appendectomy, I vomited when I woke up. I also told him about my fear of anesthesia awareness where some people wake up during the operation, paralyzed but fully aware of their surroundings. He assured me that he will give me the correct dosage of drugs to ensure that both events do not happen.

I was given a combination of inhaled anesthetic gases and intravenous drugs and I promptly blacked out. For both times I underwent general anaesthesia, I was completed "out of it" - no dreams at all. It was just black out and came to. Nothing in between. I wonder if death is like that. Just black out and no coming back. Well, I digress.

Back to the removal of my wisdom teeth. When I came to, my whole jaw was sore and painful. I then slept until the drowsiness wore off. Then I was discharged from the hospital.

The recovery took a few months. The lower part of my face around my jaw swelled up big time. There were stitches in my mouth and it was painful. It was soup and porridge for me everyday for what seemed like eternity.

Before the surgery, I asked the dental surgeon to please keep my wisdom teeth intact when he removed them and he did. You can see for yourself, here they are:



They are so big. I can't believe that the teeth were fully formed and hidden in my gums. I still have them with me today. Perhaps I should string them up and wear them around my neck in order to keep my wisdom.

Mine, Yours, Ours

In my early days of marriage, I have often wonder how other double-income married couples manage their money. After talking to a few friends, I find that anything goes as long as both parties are happy about it. Here are some of the methods:

1. Popular Method.

Have a joint account for household expenses.
Each of them holds a separate individual account for personal use.
The challenging thing here then is to decide how much each contributes to the joint account.

Does each person deposit:
a. an equal amount (e.g. each person deposits RM600 monthly) or,
b. the same percentage of his/her net income (e.g. each person deposits 30% of his/her net income monthly) or
c. as much as/as little as he/she likes
into the joint account?

Then the other question is what are the items classified under household expenses.

If the husband wants to replace the old but functioning TV with a state-of-the-art TV, can this expense be considered part of household expenses and be paid out of the joint account? If not and if the husband is unwilling to fork out money from his own personal account but yet he is forced to do so due to his desire for the new TV, does he have the right to disallow his wife from using this new TV?

If the wife likes to eat out but the husband does not but gives in to her, who pays for the expensive meal? The joint account or each pays for his/her own meal or should the wife pay for both because she is the one who wants to eat out.

These are some of the things brought up by my friends as examples of the many things to decide in this method.

2. Share and Share Alike.

In this method, there is only one joint account. Everything goes into this account and all expenses come out of this account. At a glance, this is the easiest method to manage but then it is rather difficult to control who uses how much.

3. Wife = Financial Controller.

The husband puts everything he has into a joint account whereas his wife maintains her own personal account. The wife has the final say on what expenses get paid out of the joint account. This is the method used by my maternal grandmother but I don't think this method is popular with husbands nowadays. I have not come across anyone telling me the reverse where the husband is the financial controller. Perhaps this is because I only ask the wives.

4. Each to Each's Own.

Each of them has his/her own individual personal account. No joint account at all. They then decide who will pay for what. Surprisingly a few of my married friends use this method.

So the above are the four methods that I can recall. Does anyone have any other methods to share?

The most important thing here is that both parties must be willing to be honest with each other and to discuss about each spending and saving habits. No point having separate accounts but poor financial management and then needing one's spouse to bail one out in times of financial difficulties.

A new pet for 2010

My spouse bought me a pet for the new year. I chose it myself. When it gets dirty, I will give it a bath. Here it is (isn't it cute?):

Yes, it is a bag. It is to be my always-carry-bag. I always carry only one bag for almost all occasions. The bag has to have many compartments with zip fasteners. I used my previous bag almost everyday for 10 years until the colour of the leather faded away and the stitches attaching its handles to its body slowly became undone. It was my constant companion and sturdily carried many heavy loads for me. It has even gone through 4 winters with me in UK. That bag was also given to me by my spouse who was my boyfriend then.

In loving memory of my previous bag which has served me well, here are some photos of me and the bag. Photos below (right to left): taken in 1997 when I first visited Tokyo and in 1998 when my employer sent me to Hong Kong to participate in a project meeting.

Photos above (left to right): Bag came along with me to Shanghai in 2003, look at how the colour has faded (at my coursemates graduation in 2006), please don't ask me why I contorted my body that way while hanging onto the bag for dear life at the Doi Inthanon National Park in Chiang Mai (2007).

I really have many fond memories of the bag but sad to say although I wanted to keep it for the rest of my life for its sentimental value, I only kept it for another 2 years. I had to throw it away while clearing my things at the end of last year as part of my decluttering exercise.

I hope this bag will serve me for just as long as my previous bag. It does look a bit big on me (middle photo below) but then I like my bag to be able to contain many things. It even has a removable compartment for my netbook.

There are other colour choices as well such as sweet pink or refreshing green but I chose brown for its earth tone. I have started using it on 1 Jan 2010. Let's see whether I am still using it on 1 Jan 2020.