The Happy-Happy CNY report

Well it came and went, thank God. CNY I mean.

It went right according to how I thought it would go. First day of CNY we got the kids dressed and ready and prepared some red dates/longan tea. The kids hemmed and hawwed through the CNY greetings their father insisted they say - in Mandarin. Oh torture for Isaac but how fun to watch as they mangled the greetings. Then they served us tea and we would give them their red packets and intone the usual CNY greetings - sort of. Mine contained English phrases like - "get a good job going with the bowling!" and "work hard and do well for your PSLE!" - stuff like that - hardly the traditional stuff. But not KH, he was really going the whole hog - not that the kids really understood but that's fine - all in the CNY spirit.

Then duty done, we drove over and had lunch with my parents, my bro and my sis. The food was excellent as usual - ayam buah keluak, bakwan kepiting soup, stewed mushrooms and chicken with dried scallops and fatt choy and my mother's killer belachan. Bliss. The kids OD'ed on Cartoon Network. We played mahjong. The stakes were higher than usual (my bright reckless idea) - and I lost. Boo. My long-lost uncle came with his family members. I say long-lost because we have not seen them in years - at least 5 years? So it was with the awkward pleasantry of chatting with strangers that we had when we tried talking to our cousins.

Then at 6pm, we gathered at the ILs place. Dinner was chicken rice - yep. Steamboat and fishhead curry. And yes, after dinner, they all went for a walk and I went for mine. Yes, I think I was being a bit antisocial. :-)

I did like my walk though. My SIL's place is a sprawling old condominium complex which borders a private housing estate. Everyone else had gone to the playground. I put on a pair of flip-flops and checked out the tiny path leading from the garden of her maisonette that followed the perimeter of the condo grounds. I was alone, bearing a plastic cup of Coke, and I flip-flopped my way down the path. I liked to peep in at the houses I passed. Because of the foliage of the gardens and the shadows cast by the minimal lighting on the path, the occupants of the houses couldn't really see me but I could see them.

I saw families - lounging around, kids playing, babies crying. Someone clearing dishes. Expat kids entranced by Happy Feet on telly. Flourescent lit living rooms. Generally the ang-mos/expats seemed to have warmer lighting and living areas that appealed more to me. They had softer lighting, more lamps, more bookcases, packed with books, lovely wall hangings and the usual plethora of Asian art/sculptures of buddhas etc (though this bit is not quite my scene). One angmo garden even had lit tiki torches which I thought was a nice touch! The Chinese families I saw tended to have the harsher fluorescent lights, the stiffer wooden rosewood chairs, the white ceramic floors. The decor always seemed more functional than aesthetic. At certain points the path dipped and rose. One on side were the houses, on the other, the ground fell away to a small grassy valley and across the valley were the backyards of the private homes. Squares of light shone through from windows and open back doors, looking even starker when seen across the blackness of the valley. You could see people in the kitchens washing up, someone at a dining table. Dogs lifted their heads when I passed by as quietly as I could. One family kept chickens and they were roosting when I passed - on bamboo laundry poles perched on the usual metal stands. A toad hopped away from me. Lizards darted past on the walls. And at one point, I smelled the stale musky smell of a wild animal. The bushes in front of me rustled and I kept still. I don't know what animal it was and for an instant wondered about snakes in the bushes and tall grass flanking the tiny path. But the Coke steadied me and I walked on. I thought that being afraid was not a good idea since I believe animals do smell fear and are more likely to attack if so.

I liked my walk. I liked the solitude. I liked being an unseen voyeur into people's living rooms, wondering about the lives they led. When I returned, the house was still empty save for the maids cleaning up in the kitchen. So I settled down with a good book, MP3 plugged into my ears as I planned, and started to read.

They came back soon enough of course and the house was filled with noise and people again. Isaac's upper lip was swollen from a fall. In the living room, the younger kids played with the Wii, wildly swinging their arms while the babies like Owain and Trin watched and laughed. The BILs sat at the dining table talking. The MIL, SILs and KH played blackjack in the patio. The older teen girls (Gillian included!) huddled over a laptop in a room upstairs. The maids chatted in the kitchen. And I - curled up in an armchair - went to Italy with Elizabeth Gilbert in "Eat Pray Love" - which I have to say, is a great book! It describes, sometimes almost quite frighteningly similarly so, her state-of-mind and situation in life that eventually prompted her to get a divorce, live in Italy for 4 months to learn the language, enjoy the food and the pleasures of the land, and then move to an Ashram in India. She would eventually move to stay in Bali under the mentorship of a Balinese medicine man - but I have not gotten that far in the book yet.

The party on day 1 broke up at 11.30pm - thanks to me the party-pooper. I was tired and I just wanted to sleep in my own bed and get past the day.

Day 2 - anniversary day - was spent with my grandmother and my mother's relatives. The food was great - I cooked dried mee siam (which had good reviews from my mother and my aunt - high praise considering that they are my cooking gurus), and there on offer in the spread, was chili otak, chup-chye, my mother's chicken curry, and my aunt's stir fried chives with taukwa and prawns. Simple hearty stuff but so very good and satisfying.

I sat in the little spare room at the back yakking with Steph my cousin but who, at 19 felt more like a niece, about her poly graduation plans. It was NUS Law School or a life as a hermit for her, she declared. Very drama, but I think this is how it is when one was younger. In her I saw the impetousness, the fiery desire for something (and when one is young, it can be anything - law school, a bad boyfriend who is wrong for you etc) and the urge to get this and nothing else - I almost got a whiff of what I was like once upon a time - and maybe still am somewhere inside. And then Rachel was there, Marc's wife. She still looked shaky but I'm glad to hear that she's slowly - very slowly - picking up and that life is moving on. Inexorably, it always does. Even when you would prefer it would not, it does. I thought it was interesting that the three of us, clearly at different stages in our lives - one looking forward intensely to getting a place in NUS Law, another who just lost her soulmate, and me - standing on a cusp of being 40 and all that that implies - could sit around and talk and how there are similar threads in our circumstances we could all weave through and find a common place.

Later I played blackjack - and won $20!! Yay! Being banker helps. :-) Then we parted ways and on the spur of the moment, decided to go to Rita's house. It was nice to just spend time in the company of friends, relaxing, sitting around a dining table to talk. Our five kids as usual, blended right in with her five kids. The number of children around never fails to amaze me!

We had a lovely anniversary dinner - thanks to Ivan and Rita - at the SAF Yacht Club at Changi. Lovely setting - right in front was the sea and the scattered tankers and container ships in Singapore Anchorage, and a little beyond tiny twinkly yellow lights of a town - which we guess had to be Indonesia. At night these make the town look closer than it really looks in the day. Our two families - 16 of us in all plus helpers - sat down to dinner together. The food was good and the company great fun!

So how do I feel?

I liked our dinner. Having dinner with Rita and her family was loads more bearable and fun than having dinner with the ILs - and as expected, that was his initial plan - he had wanted to go over to his brother's house for dinner on Day 2. If you think I chafe at not having a romantic couple-only time with him - well I don't. I feel relieved in a way. At least with the chatter of children around and with Rita and Ivan there, we don't feel the strain of having to make conversation. Always very awkward feeling. But at the same time, I do wish that we could recapture some of that early feeling. Not asking for the grand actions - not a candlelight dinner, flowers etc - to me, thats just fluff. I'm just looking for the deeper connections.

Ah well. It came and went. And that's all there is, I guess.

So ends CNY 2008 too.