Happy Chinese New Year!
CNY reunion dinner was held at Sun Sun's place with a group of friends from OCF, so it was a really great night. Come to think of it, this is my second time away from home for CNY... the first time was when I first went over to Perth. My homestay parents had plans for the night (no, I obviously wasn't invited), and I was looking into spending a lonely night by myself, if it weren't for church friends who called me and asked if I wanted to go over to their place for dinner. In retrospect, it's quite miserable to imagine that I would have been all alone on what is considered an important tradition, especially for us Chinese... So this year, it was nice to spend CNY reunion dinner with friends, who really are our family overseas..
It was a potluck dinner, and the food was marvelous (undoubtedly, hehe). After a hearty and satisfying dinner, we played Articulate (which my team won, yay!) and then a round of Bang! which took quite awhile for the uninitiated to learn, but a really entertaining game once you get the hang of it. Sun Sun decorated her apartment with a bit of CNY decorations, which looked really nice, and she even bought one of those CNY karaoke DVDs, so we had to 'endure' the whole "dong dong qiang which I came back early to escape" (in Kingsley's words), the atmosphere certainly felt quite CNY-ish. Lol. One thing I do miss, though, was tossing the yu sheng, which was something my siblings and I use to laugh and enjoy over, as we try to outdo each other in seeing who tossed the highest.
The family (with the exception of Charles and I) went back to Ipoh a few days ago... my mom called me from my grandfather's place Wednesday night, after I reached home, and it was great just talking to my mom, but after I hung up, a yearning for home and just hearing her voice made me wish that I was with them... The parents are staying with my grandfather, and the younger two siblings decided to stay at my uncle's place... I wasn't too surprised to hear that. Haha. My mom told me that my grandfather (whom we call Ye Ye in the Cantonese dialect) can't walk anymore, since his legs are quite weak now... it's been a few years now since I've seen my relatives back in Ipoh. Xiao Ku (my father's youngest sister) visits Ye Ye three times a day to deliver meals... come to think of it, I haven't gone back to Ipoh since my grandmother's funeral..
But anyway, I'm thinking too much again. It's certainly different spending CNY away from home.. Being in a foreign land and all, the festivities are really different. It's not as 'in-your-face' (to put it blatantly) like back home, where a trip out will see you being blasted with noisy CNY music and red decorations everywhere you go. In fact, I'd say that if you weren't aware of it, then you wouldn't know at all.
It's a rather cold week, weather-wise. Not that I'm complaining. Summer's been surprisingly pleasant.
It's already the second month into the new year. How fast time is flying. And this year will already be my third year in uni. And I still have absolutely no freakin' idea about what I want to do after graduation. It should be cause for alarm. But I don't want to think about it yet. I've still got two years to go anyway. This five-year course may seem long, but in a way, I'm almost glad, because it means I don't have to worry... yet. It's scary, too, because if I was doing a straight degree, then I would have been graduating this year. (Okay, that IS scary.)
I really hope you all have a great CNY wherever you are! Miss you guys.
CNY reunion dinner was held at Sun Sun's place with a group of friends from OCF, so it was a really great night. Come to think of it, this is my second time away from home for CNY... the first time was when I first went over to Perth. My homestay parents had plans for the night (no, I obviously wasn't invited), and I was looking into spending a lonely night by myself, if it weren't for church friends who called me and asked if I wanted to go over to their place for dinner. In retrospect, it's quite miserable to imagine that I would have been all alone on what is considered an important tradition, especially for us Chinese... So this year, it was nice to spend CNY reunion dinner with friends, who really are our family overseas..
It was a potluck dinner, and the food was marvelous (undoubtedly, hehe). After a hearty and satisfying dinner, we played Articulate (which my team won, yay!) and then a round of Bang! which took quite awhile for the uninitiated to learn, but a really entertaining game once you get the hang of it. Sun Sun decorated her apartment with a bit of CNY decorations, which looked really nice, and she even bought one of those CNY karaoke DVDs, so we had to 'endure' the whole "dong dong qiang which I came back early to escape" (in Kingsley's words), the atmosphere certainly felt quite CNY-ish. Lol. One thing I do miss, though, was tossing the yu sheng, which was something my siblings and I use to laugh and enjoy over, as we try to outdo each other in seeing who tossed the highest.
The family (with the exception of Charles and I) went back to Ipoh a few days ago... my mom called me from my grandfather's place Wednesday night, after I reached home, and it was great just talking to my mom, but after I hung up, a yearning for home and just hearing her voice made me wish that I was with them... The parents are staying with my grandfather, and the younger two siblings decided to stay at my uncle's place... I wasn't too surprised to hear that. Haha. My mom told me that my grandfather (whom we call Ye Ye in the Cantonese dialect) can't walk anymore, since his legs are quite weak now... it's been a few years now since I've seen my relatives back in Ipoh. Xiao Ku (my father's youngest sister) visits Ye Ye three times a day to deliver meals... come to think of it, I haven't gone back to Ipoh since my grandmother's funeral..
But anyway, I'm thinking too much again. It's certainly different spending CNY away from home.. Being in a foreign land and all, the festivities are really different. It's not as 'in-your-face' (to put it blatantly) like back home, where a trip out will see you being blasted with noisy CNY music and red decorations everywhere you go. In fact, I'd say that if you weren't aware of it, then you wouldn't know at all.
It's a rather cold week, weather-wise. Not that I'm complaining. Summer's been surprisingly pleasant.
It's already the second month into the new year. How fast time is flying. And this year will already be my third year in uni. And I still have absolutely no freakin' idea about what I want to do after graduation. It should be cause for alarm. But I don't want to think about it yet. I've still got two years to go anyway. This five-year course may seem long, but in a way, I'm almost glad, because it means I don't have to worry... yet. It's scary, too, because if I was doing a straight degree, then I would have been graduating this year. (Okay, that IS scary.)
I really hope you all have a great CNY wherever you are! Miss you guys.
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