Chinese New Year – Page 5 – Peter Tan

Ang Pau – Red Packet

If one has an account with a bank, there is hardly a need to buy empty ang pau anymore nowadays as banks will distribute them just before the festive season. Other businesses that give out empty ang pau to their customers are departmental stores, insurance companies and jewellery shops. It is also included in the cartons of soft drinks that are usually served to guests during the fifteen days of celebration.

I remember receiving ang pau with motifs of cute children carrying a big fish or some other traditional auspicious Chinese imageries as a teenager. Ang pau with these designs are hard to come by nowadays. Luckily Mum was a hoarder. There is stash a of unused ang pau with these traditional motifs that she kept in a chocolate box. I would open up the box whenever I am in Penang just to reminisce the good old times when Chinese New Year was the happiest occasion of the year.

I Am Too Old For This Already

First ang pau for 2007.

From Serenity To A Madding Crowd

Cirrocumulus clouds.

This beautiful sight greeted us as we emerged from Sunset Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit yesterday. This cloud formation is called the altocumulus and supposedly warns of impending rain; nevertheless, still an amazing spectacle. That reminded me of the sand ripples at the bottom of the seabed which had fascinated me as a child.

Uncle Paul, who had come back from Malacca with his family to celebrate the Chinese New Year here, suggested that we have dinner at the Gurney Drive hawkers? corner. The traffic congestion five kilometres away from our destination portended the state of things to come.

Gurney Drive hawker centre.

Gurney Drive is not the place to go to during festive holidays. Traffic came to a crawl as we entered the beachfront. Parking space was hard to come and Peter, my cousin, had to wait a while to get one. The hawker?s corner was packed to the brim but Uncle Paul who had arrived earlier than us had a table waiting for us. The food was cut-throat expensive. I did not eat much as nothing caught my fancy.

Gurney Drive by night.

We adjourned to the promenade after we had finished our food. It was equally crowded there. There were makeshift stalls selling fireworks. Children and adults were lighting all kinds of sparklers, roman candles, rockets and missiles that lit up the night sky in a pyrotechnic of colours and explosions. That was also a hazardous place to be with merrymakers recklessly hurling firecrackers all over the place, notwithstanding the acrid fumes that filled the air. We left a short while later and got stuck in another traffic jam on the way back.