Tradition…

It is the tradition for members of the family to have the reunion dinner together on Chinese New Year’s Eve. We did not have the chance last year as my missus and I flew over to Penang for a few days to spend the festive season there with my daughter who came over from Sungai Petani in Kedah. This year, we decided to stay back and so we were able to sit down with my parents at this very significant once-a-year meal.

We had one of those dinner “packages” from the Sweet Family Restaurant that I have posted about here and here, and among the items on the menu was this Five Treasures dish…

…and of course, their signature dish – the Philippine pork leg…

…and fried snowfish, fish being a must-have on the menu for every reunion dinner as in Chinese, the character sounds like “have” and hopefully, one will have a lot of material gains in the coming year…

…and herbal chicken, as well as this dish of prawns…

…and a plate of fried sharks’ fins with egg and stuff, a broccoli and mushroom dish and this pineapple tart-like dessert, but we were all way too full at the end of the dinner, so nobody wanted to eat it. That was why the clingwrap had not been removed…

My father bought some sea cucumber soup and Foochow fried noodles from the Y2K Restaurant which is, in fact, a pretty nice place to dine in Sibu but I have not had a chance to drop by and post on it yet.

My sister asked somebody in the kampung to cook our Malaysian delights – chicken curry…

…and ayam masak merah, another Malaysian curry-like dish…

I must say that I enjoyed the last two dishes a lot more than the other dishes so you can bet that I had more than just a few helpings.

For one thing, there was way too much food for the 5 of us – my parents, my sister and my missus and me. My daughter’s not home for the celebration and I can barely recall the last time my brother (and his family) in New Zealand was home for Chinese New Year. But anyway, with the few of us around, I guess my parents were delighted enough and in our small way, we had managed to keep tradition alive.

Then, of course, there is this tradition for which everybody would have to wait till 12 midnight. Well, I had no part in it! I went to sleep early and I did hear “the war” raging but I could not be bothered to get up to have a look. I can’t stand the noise and besides, the toxic fumes would make me feel asthmatic. I did get up though – at around 1 a.m. to look for something to eat, but it was all over by then. Anybody interested to see what had transpired in the witching hour can hop over to alexallied to have a look at his pics. This photo taken this morning shows the aftermath outside the house of one of the culprits…

This fella was obviously trying to keep clean and set off his firecrackers in his rubbish bin. Well, looking at the mess, it did not help much…and I can imagine where his good fortune would be going to in the coming year – into the rubbish bin! ROTFLMAO!!!

Anyway, I’ll just mind my own business and once again, here’s wishing one and all a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year!