This is my fun garden where I explore the thoughts and feelings of my happenings or events around me, and also for my friends and future friends (also currently known as strangers) to get to know me and my favourite things. I will also bring upon reviews of movies, books or DVDs that I have watched and would like to share with everyone.
We have all sorts of special days to help remind us to thank that special person in our life, be it Fathers Day, Mothers Day, Christmas, Vesak Day etc. Valentine's Day can be seen as a marketer's dream exclusively for lovers, but I think it could also be extended to everyone that we love.
I am very lucky to be able to share my life with a very special man, but I also wanted my single friends to know that just because you do not have someone special, it doesn't mean that you cannot celebrate your love. Just look around and you will see that though you may not have that someone special, you actually have many special ones.
Regardless of whether you are a Richard Gere fan, here is a special rose, just for you. Happy Valentine's Day, my dear friends.
I was too young for the historic JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country", or Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, but I was there for possibly one of Australia's most significant events this morning.
Delivered with eloquence, empathy and hope for the Aborigines Stolen Generation, Australia's Prime Minister Mr Kevin Rudd's "Sorry" speech was a moving experience for me. We were allowed to take time off work to gather at an auditorium for this historic moment and it was absolutely magical. Non-indigenous Australians - Caucasians, Asians, Middle Eastern people all gathering and sharing this moving apology and uniting as one Australian.
Today is a proud day for all Australians because we have moved forward. Moved past pride, and immaturity usually characterised by both sides of the governments, and working together as one. In a world where we are increasingly taught to divide, claim and think only of ourselves as individuals, this is an important lesson.
Even though there is still much to be accomplished, it is still a significant step towards a better, more loving and accepting world. A seed has been planted ...
For more information and full speech, please clicklink.
There are things that I like and dislike about Chinese New Year. Like most people, I look forward to the gathering of loved ones, the cheerfulness, the newness of everything and the glorious food. What I hate are the Chinese New Year songs which I thank God I only have to listen to during the day or week of Chinese New Year and the fact that the city becomes a ghost town for three days to a week before life recovers.
I am amazed that my friends, Leslie and Zing take the time from their busy work to travel back to Singapore to spend Chinese New Year with their family. It is their ritual. Unfortunately, I do not share the same enthusiasm though I get numerous invites from my family and relatives hoping to see me back to celebrate Chinese New Year "next year" whenever they see me.
Mum says that it is a wonderful time to catch up with everyone and have all the delicacies that are only available during this festive season. Like chocolate eggs and hot cross buns associated with Easter, we know that they are now usually available all year round, though the festivities add an extra flavour and excuse to binge.
Growing up, Chinese New Year always meant new clothes, new bed spreads, and love all around the house. I remember that we would be made to work like maids in the lead up and on the night before the actual day, we will be on all fours, wiping the floors right after Reunion dinner. Unfortunately, Mum didn't believe in mops because the floor wouldn't be clean enough, so "merrily" we did the chores, because we knew that the goodies would come after that.
Mum would always be busy with prayers during the entire night and after our chores, we would flop down onto the sofa and "enjoy" the variety program sprinkled with new interpretations of old Chinese New Year classics, the lion or dragon dances, and the occasional special guest star, none of which really interest me too much. We will try to stay up as late as possible because there was this superstition that the later the children went to bed the longer your parents would live. Not surprisingly, it was the only night that my parents never complained about us not going to bed. As I grew older, I ended up going out for midnight movies after doing my chores with my buddies though that ended after a few years because it started becoming too tiring trying to stay awake the next day at my relatives' house.
That was the best bit. Gathering, meeting, greeting and sometimes avoiding. Avoiding the questions that come when young about "How well did you do at school?" and later in life about the inevitable "When are you getting married?". It's like the only icebreaker because that it's all they seem to be capable of asking, instead of "So, what's going on in your life?" and not coupling with "Any girl(boy) friend yet?"
Society places too much emphasis on the equation between marriage and happiness and the direct proportion of each leading to an elixir of life, like enlightenment. Life focuses on telling us to search for the Right one, forgetting that relationships are really difficult things to handle. If we focus only on looking, and not the other skills of loving, caring, listening, and empathising, how can any union work?
Anyway, this is a post on CNY. So backtracking a little, this year, I did something different. For the first time in ten years, I posted CNY cards. Not only to my parents, which is the only ritual I follow, but to my uncles and aunties who have watched me grow up and taken care of me all these years. I used to just greet them happiness and prosperity over the phone during the day but I thought I might add that extra touch this year. I had no idea how they may respond, but it was rather overwhelming, when I spoke to all of them on the day itself, and they thanked me and also told me how happy they were to receive the card. It was a nice gesture and it made me feel warm and fuzzy.
I guess that to me, was my way of connecting with them, and showing that in spite of my absence, I have not forgotten them all. It was also my way towards showing my gratitude towards them for their love all my life and especially this past decade (Yes, it has been that long), and maybe a little forgiveness for not being there with them all.
I could tell that Mum was rather proud too, which made me feel good, but a phone call later made me feel for the first time that maybe she did really want to spend CNY with me. In a sombre voice, she lamented how she felt hurt whenever she thought about the "poor" life I led when I was a student, studying and working at the same time. And how I am such a poor thing now because she is not there to look after me. I let her share this because it was her way of expressing her "sorrows", but all mothers have to learn to let go at some point.
Coming here and doing all that was tough, but it made me sit up, learn and be strong. I could never have learned as much about life, if I didn't have those experiences, and I think it made me a better human being. One of my biggest regret is that my sister never had a chance to live a couple of months all by herself before she got married and learn to be more independent and stronger in life. I can only stand by her and be strong for her, as much as she will allow me.
It was one of the toughest periods of my life but I proved to myself that I could do it if I believed in myself strong enough. I let her know all that, except the bit about my regret, so that hopefully she would feel better about herself, but I guess, mothers will always want to be mothers.
I spend CNY nowadays with my different group of friends. I may have to work on the day itself but I can still indulge in my little customs that may not involve everybody. I am happy, and I guess that is the most important thing of all. As long as the spirit of CNY lives in my heart, then no matter where I am, the memories of me celebrating with my family and relatives will always be with me.
Lastly, I am going to end this on a special and happy note by sharing one of the very few, maybe the single CNY song I can withstand listening to. A very happy Chinese New Year too all. May all of you be blessed with love, happiness and prosperity!
