Sunday, April 13, 2008

What I Did during CNY Part 3

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This is probably running a little late, as Chinese New Year was almost 2 months ago but I'm the kind of person who likes to finish of what I started. This is the last and final chapter of my Chinese New Year activities this year and i must saw it really feels good to look back at these photos and blog about them.

It was the last week of CNY, and in the spirit of this season we wanted to visit our friends (and of course collect red packets in the process). Yet the shortage of time drove us to go suicidal in an attempt to visit over 15 houses, BY FOOT in a single day, spanning over a distance of more than 30 kilometres as recorded by my N95. Read on to see for yourself what CNY is all about, and what we did during the last few days of the season.

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We went through all sorts of terrain from house to house, including this abandoned construction area

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My friend (loy shine) trying to keep his cool in the heat of the Malaysian sun

Probably wasn't such a good idea for a bunch of teenagers to walk in a place like this, but hey it was the shortest route available, that counts right? ; )

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All was good until we came across a bad omen...

A dead rat in The Year Of The Rat?!?! How ironic..

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Later that day I went over to my grandma's for prayers.

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What's Chinese New Year without a little erhmm... Cards with money thrown in?

You get the idea.. i got myself a little extra pocket money that day. For those of you who don't know what the white tiles are, it is called Mahjong. Unlike the mobile and computer Solitaire Mahjong games which involves matching up tiles, this is the real deal. This is the traditional MahJong game that has been played by Chinese for centuries.

It is pretty much like cards but engraved on little tiles instead. The objective of the games is to get your tiles in a certain sequence (different sequences carry different points, and different cash value), by drawing new tiles and getting rid of the ones you don't want. Each player can take the tiles thrown by other players (under certain circumstances), so each player has to think carefully before throwing out a tile. Many different strategies mean the game and status quo of the tiles can change at any moment, thus making the game more interesting.

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Justin staring in disbelief as I won and his pocket money turned into mine ;-)

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The Chinese (including myself in the red shirt) are very superstitious and prayers is a must during this festive season

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More symbolic than gambling, the colour red and loud noises from fire crackers was originally said to scare away bad spirits in the olden days and is still continued today. The story goes that there was a monster terrifying a Chinese town every new year, and finally the villagers managed to scare it away with the bright red coloured cloths and loud fire crackers. Today, rather than scaring away monsters, the chinese believe this will get rid of bad luck and bring us good luck to embrace the coming new year.

You'll notice there's no shortage of food on the table which is actually offerings to our ancestors and the Gods in the heavens.

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No, we're not trying to contribute to global warming or start a camp fire, that's just part of the offerings as well.

Well, so that's pretty much what i did during this year's Chinese New Year season. For those who dont celebrate CNY, i hope this has brought some light as to what Malaysians do to celebrate CNY. I am sure people all around the world celebrate differently, so why not head over to the Comments section or cBox on your right to share the way your celebrated Chinese New Year this year.

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