Reunion Dinner and CNY traditions

It has been 17 years since I last celebrated a Chinese New Year reunion dinner here. I've forgotten much of the superstition and customs that go along with it since then.

To understand how Chinese superstition works one needs to understand the language itself. You see, Chinese relies heavily on a tones, that is, a single syllable has different meanings depending on how it is said. For example, the number four is pronounced "say" as is the word Chinese word for "death." The first is pronounced with a flat tone and the second in a rising tone. For this reason, the number four is deemed unlucky and many Chinese folk avoid having it in license plates and house numbers. In contrast, the number eight sounds like the Chinese word for prosperity and therefore is auspicious (that's the word they're throwing around here). This is the reason you see a lot of Chinese people with "888" license plates.

Still with me?

So much of the Chinese New Year superstition is based on this concept. To give New Year's example, hair is another word that's phonetically similar to prosperity. To cut ones hair after the new year is to cut off ones prosperity. Many Chinese people, including myself, go for haircuts prior to the new year, often paying a premium for it.

A lot of the Chinese New Year food contain hidden meaning in their names as well. The meal starts with Yee Sang (which sounds like prosperity, or so I'm told). The dish consists of raw fish (in our case, jellyfish) and some crunchy colourful noodles (supposed to represent health and wealth). Everybody has to take part in tossing the salad with their chopsticks and we all have to yell "Lo Hei" which also has something to do with prosperity and longevity.

It's sort of fun taking part in all this stuff after having been separated from it for so long.

Bahasa Malaysia

Because Malaysia was a British colony prior to its independence in 1957, its mother tongue, Bahasa Malaysia borrows a number of nouns from the English language. For example:

"Teh" in Bahasa means "Tea" and its counterpart "kopi" means "coffee"
"Teksi" is "Taxi"
"Kolej" is "College"
"Stesen Bas" is "Bus Station"

I'll let you figure these ones out:
Motosikal
Basikal
Doktor
Penisilin *snicker*

Now that you've had some practice, please translate this one for me:

Loose Ends and Miscellany

(fig.1) As requested, this is what a manskirt looks like. I left my face off to avoid potential threat of blackmail: (fig.2) A photo of my anti-leech socks, also by request. The instructions say you have to tuck your pant legs into the top elastic so the leeches can't get in. The white fabric is supposedly thick enough so that they can't bite through. I've heard stories of people coming back from long jungle treks to find their feet black with leeches. I'll take looking like a dork over that any time. On a sidenote, isn't our foot model sexy (except for the mosquito bites)? A quick google search for "peacock tail, wings, body of a cow, Hinduism" reveals that Hot Cow from a couple of posts back is Kamadhenu, the cow of wishes or desires. There’s a nice write up on the topic in Wikipedia.

The third floor of the wet market is just a parkade. Boring but functional.

(fig.3)The state of customer service in Malaysia?
(fig.4)Get your...
(tee-hee)

(fig.5)I remember using this brand of toothpaste when I was a kid. The brand name has since changed for the sake of political correctness. Try to guess what it was (hint - the 'L' used to be a 'K' and the the company logo is a black guy.

Note:"All Shiny White" formula FTW.

CNY

Chinese New Year celebrations are in full swing here in KL. Little red lanterns are hung in the shopping malls with care, red and gold decorations are visible at every turn, New Year's (for the lack of a better term) carols are blaring on PA systems everywhere. Think Christmas with all the commercialization and none of the fake Santas (I'll start believing again when I get my pony - your move, fat man).

This year's favourite new year's song (so I'm inclined to believe - I hear it everywhere) is a traditional piece as sung by a pair of five year olds. For the uninitiated, the song is cutesy poo and nonsensical, almost heartwarming. Problem is, it gets stale when it's looped over and over again. After a couple of choruses of "Gong xi, gong xi gong xi ni," in their high pitched, off key voices and one begins to wonder if infanticide rates are expected to rise prior to the new year.

The family is doing its annual reunion dinner on Saturday, which will be a good opportunity to catch up on old times. My late grandfather used to hire a lion dance to bless the house when I was a kid. I think this year's going to be a bit subdued now that everyone is grown up. Nevertheless, I hear there's going to be quite a dinner and there will probably be a good number of Ang Pow (Chinese red packets full of money) too - I think I may be too old to qualify for them though.

Batu Caves

Lonely Planet placed the bus stop for the Intrakota #11D to Batu Caves at a place called "Medan Pasar." It's clearly labeled on the Chinatown map as point #88. Twenty minutes of pacing back and forth found me a few blocks away at the real bus stop. For future reference, Intrakota buses don't actually have Intrakota markings. They are instead painted with a "Metrobus" logo.

The half hour bus ride took me from Kuala Lumpur's city center all the way to the outskirts of town, allowing me to see a good portion of the city and a couple of outlying kampungs (rural villages).

This was one of the sights along the way:

At the top of a 272 step climb (each one is numbered for your convenience), the Batu Caves are home to a Hindu temple, a gift shop some chickens, a cute but shy kitten and an unruly group of monkeys (they don't like Korean tourists). The climb wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared although my legs turned to jelly near the end. Further up in the temple, one can opt to go through a ceremony with a Hindu holy man (a blessing?). At the end of it, you get a nice dab of red paint on your forehead. Forgive my ignorance but I don't know what this signifies. I didn't go through with the motions though a couple of people from a Korean tour group did.

A few random shots from the caves:






I apologize for my cultural insensitivity but this is either one attractive cow or a not so attractive lady:

Anybody care to enlighten me on this one?

Cheese It, It's the Fuzz

I stumbled my way into Jalan Petaling (Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown) in hopes of getting a brand new Rolex (of the $10 variety). My timing on this one was a bit off, unfortunately, because the government started cracking down on fake watches last week. The cops were out in full force, making their presence known to all vendors, errant and otherwise. There were at least half a dozen policemen patrolling the hundred meter stretch, which I felt was a bit of overkill.

So instead of a new timepiece, I picked up the following:
1 x Billabong shirt
1 x Diesel shirt
1 x "Police Germany" LED flashlight
1 x Multi-tool
1 x pair of anti-leech socks

The whole day, including the above, meals and transportation must have cost me about $30 CAD. I'm glad things are cheap here because I'm running on a very limited budget.

Skeeters

One mosquito bite
Two mosquito bites
Three mosquito bites
…(I'll skip this middle part - you get the idea)
Twenty seven mosquito bites.

Twenty seven mosquito bites while I slept last night.

Ah ah ah.

I'm going to have to head to the town center later for some bug repellant.

Public Service Announcement

A quick note - blogspot and pocket pc's don't interface as well as I had hoped so I can't really respond to comments/make blog posts as frequently as I probably should. I just found a quick fix for the latter, though it doesn't support photo uploads.

I set up anonymous comments just before I left so feel free to drop me a line. I'll get pretty 'ronery' when I kick off from my grandma's place mid next week and it'd be nice to hear from you.

It's Hot as Balls

That is to say, it's humid as well.

I sort of miss living in a cooler climate because you can always put on more clothing when it gets cold. Unfortunately, the opposite can't be applied as effectively when it gets hot. You see, there are these things called "public decency laws."