Psalms from my Heart

When it rains, it pours. That is a fact. Recently I have been wondering where I am going to get a calendar for the new year from. Yesterday, Anne passed to me one that came in the mail all the way from England. Today there was another large envelope in my mailbox. And yes, it is another wall calendar. It is a gift from Rosalynn called Psalms from my Heart. There is a different verse from the Book of Psalms for each calendar month superimposed into lovely photographs of flowers. Ros, thanks a whole lot. This is a very meaningful gift for the new year.

A Surprise from England


Anne brought this for me when she came with Adel just now. It is a large envelope that was sent to me care of Monsignor Stephen Liew at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit. That was the first time anyone had sent me a mail through the Monsignor or the church.

Inside was a calendar and a Christmas card signed Tan and Shelagh. I looked at the return address and it was from LS. This month by month calendar produced by the St. John’s Hospice contains some lovely landscapes captured by local photographers there. Thank you both of you. And I was just wondering where I am going to get a 2005 calendar from.

* Scans of the beautiful landscapes are in the Gallery.

Dong Zhi at Tan Kongsi

The Eng Chuan Tong Tan Kongsi (Tan Clan Association) celebrated the Dong Zhi (Winter Solstice Festival) with a dinner cum karaoke just now. Like last year, my neighbours with the Tan surname, Soon Leong and wife, Mr. Tan and I, attended the function. More than three hundred clansmen and their family were there. It was an eight-course dinner that began promptly at 8pm. Clan gatherings like this is a good way to renew kinships and forge new ones. Although I attended the same function last year, it was still an awesome experience to be among so many clansmen at the same place and time.


Eng Chuan Tong Tan Kongsi at Halaman Seh Tan, Penang.


The ornate Tan Kongsi granite facade.


The ancestral altar.


Tan and Tan and Tan and Tan …