Pre-CNY: 1 Feb
除夕
It's been a long time since I've taken a walk in the nurseries with the family in the wake of the new year. This year we made our annual pilgrimage to the Hougang nurseries with my nippon uncle and auntie to admire the flowers in bloom, haggle over pricey kumquat pots, natter over birdlike flowers and marvel at the variety of wares on display. Mom had already done all her shopping as always, so while she admired the orchids and crysanthemums all round, she was secretly gleeful that all her pots were 'so much better'.
初二
this time around in Tangkak, we met up with the entire family and as always, there is always some sort of dvd marathon ongoing, this time it was the Romance of Three Kingdoms. We may have missed the lion dance, but we definitely didn't get left out of the very exciting evening of lighting precarious sky lanterns (孔明灯). These were precarious only because there were lots of electric wires criss crossing across the Malaysian sky and we were trying not to set any wires on fire!
CNY in the Quek side of the family has more or less come to a standstill of sorts, with only the average height of the family increasing (due to numerous adolescent cousins), so I've skipped a narration of our 30 year old routine. Yes 30. The Seng family however welcomed a new addition to the family and I met the latest darling, tiny little Fanrong for the first time. My mother, her maternal instincts ever so present, was literally drooling all over the baby so much so that we were literally mopping it off the floor.
Lastly, the Sengs do, as always reminisce about their days in the old shop house where my grandfather and uncle ran a dental practice until they both retired. It's a cold characterless furniture shop these days, its old grand lustre long forgotten. The painted words of 精美 so faded that we couldn't even tell if it was the correct back door. We pass this door daily and often can't help but cling on to the memories of the zinc roof, steep stairs, the musty smell of incense, the charcoal stove, the breezy balcony where my grandmother used to sit and smoke the afternoons away, and of course the incessnat crows of the cockerals at the back of the kitchen that often appeared on our plates the day following our arrival. Yes, my grandmother used to kill a chicken and a duck whenever we came back to Tangkak. As they used to say, 女儿回到娘家了 . That said, neither I don't miss the toads that used to appear in the bathroom at midnight though, not one bit. Frankly, I would wager that my mom feels the same.
