Chinese New Year

I went back to my hometown, Malacca, for 5 days. Arrived on the eve of the new year just in time for a little makan2 with my family. My dad is a Baba or a peranakan so in the past, whenever I use to bring my friends back for a little visit they always felt a little weird that a house full of Chinese speaks BM. And a pretty 'rojak' BM at that as we tend to use 'gua' and 'lu' to substitute aku and awak/engkau. Anyways, I've always been a little of a non-Baba in my family as I don't really like the traditional kuihs, I can't really take spicy food. I've only quite recently acquired a taste for them. When I was small I would avoid them as it would seem that I took a dry bath whenever I ate spicy food. I could always add a little extra flavour to my dishes with all that sweat streaming down my face. Ergh, that sounded a little disgusting...

Back to Chinese New Year this year. It was a subdued affair as my favourite Aunt, or at least the one that my family is closest to was ill. We always stay at her place whenever we go back to Malacca. She has a weak heart valve and she can't go for an op due to her advanced age (she's 75). She has been hanging on for the past year and it breaks my heart to see her looking so thin and frail. Sigh... But that's life I guess. Everyone's got to face old age and death sooner or later.

Kinda made me think about the measure of success in ones life. How do you measure it? For a Christian I guess it would be serving Him well and loving out neighbours.

What about the secular world? For some Chinese it would be to have attained a lot of wealth and having a good family. My personal opinion is this. I think I would measure my success in life by the number of people who actually loved me when I lived. Not just like, but LOVE. Mushy? A little. But nevertheless I think it to be true.

I keep wondering away from the topic...
Anyways, she was discharged on the eve of the new year so that she can be at home to celebrate with her family. At least that's nice. The damn doctor actually said this "I would like her to remain here for observation so that we can respond fast if she faces any complications. But I understand that it being Chinese New Year and all, she would like to be with her family. But if anything actually does happen to her, don't bring her back here as we are short of staff. All my colleagues took leaves and I'm one of the only doctors around. You can bring her back on Monday if anything happens". Seriously... what the hell?? Being a little old I think he's getting a little senile. Has he forgotten what the function of a hospital really is?

So my cousin lit up some firecrackers that night (to keep the tradition alive). It was pretty lively as quite a few houses along the street did the same. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Spent the next few days welcoming visitors (to my aunts house) and visiting some others. Strangely, my cousins didn't actually have lots of gambling sessions this year. I guess everyone is drifting apart as we get older.

Spent the midnight of the eighth day of Chinese New year with Choon Hui's family (my wife? fiancee? still a little confused... :D ). My gosh, Klang was at war. I was at the highway when it was midnight and I had a clear view of the Klang sky. At any one time for at least an hour there were at least 4 sets of fireworks being lit. Like I've mentioned to quite a number of people, every time one of them goes off i think RM10, RM10 RM10 RM50 RM50.... I think the ones that shoots up really high and explodes into many pretty little lights costs around RM600 per box. That's a bloody expensive minute of fun.