Gong Xi Fa Cai 2016

 1. Spring cleaning ✓
 2. Bake cookies ✓
 3. Shop for new clothes ✓
 4. Ang Pows ✓
 5. Stock freezer with large prawns ✓
 6. Stock up on mandarin oranges ✓

With only a day more to the Chinese Lunar Year, I am quite done with most of the preparations. I really should have a longer list but being Malaysian and Catholic, I do away with many of the practices especially the taboos observed and the non-Christian rituals of the festival.

SPRING CLEANING
While spring cleaning is done to get rid off all the bad luck gathered in the previous year, I do it because it's a good reason to get Hubby and the boys to clean the house from top to bottom once a year. I think that's the only time Josh cleans his room!

COOKIES AND MANDARIN ORANGES
Cookies and mandarin oranges are exchanged as gifts with family and friends throughout the 15 days of the Chinese Lunar Year, kinda like gifting during Christmas. Who doesn't love cookies or mandarin oranges?!!!  Besides, these oranges do not grow in Malaysia and we get to enjoy the fruit only when they are available, that is, once a year during the Chinese Lunar Year. Mandarin oranges are homophonous with "gold" and are an auspicious symbol.

NEW CLOTHES
New clothing symbolizes a new start to the year. l can still recall the difficulty of falling asleep on the eve of the Chinese new year with our neatly folded new clothes that Mom would place at the foot of our beds when we were little.  We were so full of anticipation and excitement for the following big day, eager to parade around in our new cloths when we received our ang pows. I am the second child in a family of three girls and save for special occasions, my clothes were mostly hand-me-downs from my elder sister and cousins so you can imagine what this meant to me.

ANG POW
As a kid, receiving "Ang Pow" was the highlight of the Chinese Lunar Year for me!  It's the one thing that all Malaysians, regardless of race and creed, associate the Chinese New Year with beyond mandarin oranges! "Ang Pow" are those little red envelopes containing money handed out  as Chinese New Year gifts. Folding and slipping crisp new RM$5 and RM10 bills into red envelopes is a pleasure that's hard to describe. I guess there is as much joy in giving as in receiving. The wide smile on the recipient's face is priceless! It is a small yet  thoughtful gesture of thanks and gratitude to the people you encounter daily - the friendly janitor, the helpful security guard, the patient check-out girl in your neighbourhood grocer, the mailman, etc.

And if you are wondering about item #5, that's because large prawns always skyrock to a ridiculous price about 2 weeks before the Chinese Lunar Year due to the spike in demand as people rush to stock up on the essential item for the dinner table during the festivities. You would probably ask, "Why prawns?"  That's because prawn, "HA" in Cantonese, is a homophonic pun for laughter.
Ha! Ha! Prawn suppliers must be laughing their way to the bank!



I will be on a blogging break for the Chinese Lunar Year so until then........

HAVE A VERY HAPPY MONKEY YEAR!!

GONG XI FA CAI

Chinese Lunar Year Cookies

Fu Dogs?

In my previous post  "Upside Down Fortune", bloggy pally Lin @ Duck And Wheel With String asked, "Veronica, I've heard of Fu Dogs....how is Fu connected with them??"

I've never heard of "Fu Dogs" until Lin mentioned them!  Neither has my all-knowing aunt nor my mom-in-law! Or my Malaysian Chinese friends! I even asked my son's Chinese teacher and she was just as clueless!  Finally, an American Chinese cousin explained that a "Fu Dog" is actually a Chinese guardian LION! Chinese guardian lions, known as Shishi or Imperial Guardian Lions, are  INCORRECTLY called "Fu Dogs" in the West. Chinese reference to the guardian lion is seldom prefixed with " Fu" (佛 or 福), and more importantly never referred to as "dogs". In other words, "Fu dog" is a misnomer.

Over here, on our side of the pond, I have seen these majestic lions guarding the entrances of Chinese offices, temples, hotels, malls, etc. but never quite knew the symbolic elements they stood for until today. I had always thought they were merely ornamental.

Sharing what I've just learnt.

Traditionally made from bronze , the lions guarded imperial palaces and temples in China, always in pairs (yin and yang). These sculptures originally served as totems for the elite, due to their cost, but they have been reproduced cheaply and universally in modern times. Interestingly, you can tell the owner's status by the number of bumps (curly hair) on the lion's head - the more the bumps, the higher the owner's rank!

You can also identify the gender of the lion by what’s beneath the paws: the male (yang)  rests its right paw on a ball, symbolizing supremacy over Earth.

image credit -  https://travelinheels.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/shishi-or-chinese-guardian-lions/

The female (yin) has her left paw on a playful cub that is on its back, representing nurture.

https://travelinheels.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/shishi-or-chinese-guardian-lions/

image credit - http://talltales.me

Traditionally, the male lion is placed on the right side of a building or dwelling it stands before, and the female will be on the left side. The male of the pair is said to guard the structure, while the female protects the interior of the place and its worshipping believers or inhabitants.

image credit - http://www.houzz.com/

Fu dog ornaments, with their striking, often colorful appearance, have become a favorite of decorators in the West.

image credit - http://decor8blog.com

This week's cookies

Upside Down Fortune

Chinese Lucky Knot Cookies with the character "Fu". The one in the middle is inverted.

I was clearing out my closet when I found a lucky knot with a Chinese character on it. Though I can speak 2 dialects of Chinese, I can't read or write the language. Following the strokes, I tried to reproduce the character on my phone using the Pleco Chinese character recognition app but it could not recognize the character. Dang! I had to seek the assistance of my very traditional aunt who is constantly on my back for my illiteracy. Rolling her eyes at me, she turned the knot upside down and  explained that the character was an inverted "Fu" (fortune)! No wonder the app couldn't recognize it!  I had written it upside down!   Who knew!  I was curious about the reason behind the inversion but I quickly disappeared before she had the opportunity to launch into another long tirade about how disgraceful I am for being a Chinese and not knowing the language.

 I googled for more information and here's what I learned

 A long, long time ago, in ancient China, a servant was putting up the character "Fu" (福) on the door in a rich man's dwelling to herald the arrival of the Spring Festival. However, this servant was illiterate and did not know the word "Fu". He inadvertently placed the character upside down on the door. This made the  master of the house very angry and he wanted to give the poor servant a good whooping.  Just then, another quick-thinking servant told the master that the occurrence must have been a sign of prosperity "arriving" upon his household. His words calmed the master and in fact, made him very happy. Now, why then did the servant say that?
That's because the Chinese are big on homophones and the character for "inverted"  (倒) nearly sounds the same as  "Dao" (到) meaning "arrive". Therefore, the phrase an "upside-down Fú" sounds nearly identical to the phrase "Good Fortune Arrives".
From then on, "Fu" is pasted upside-down  on all doors in every household as the inverted "Fu" translates into a wish for prosperity to descend upon a dwelling.

Another interesting version to share.

It is said that the emperor Zhu Yuanzhang once used the character "Fu" as a cryptic code when he marked someone to be killed.
One such person who knew too many secrets about the royal court was on the emperor's hit list.The assassin was to kill that person with the indication of a character “Fu” hung on his door.
The kindhearted wife of the emperor, Empress Ma,  could not bear to kill people and she worried that the insistence of their killing people would lead to broad and severe repercussions.
To thwart her husband's plan, she gave everyone the order to hang the character “Fu” on their doors. Interestingly, an illiterate family hung the “Fu” upside down by mistake. Confused by the "Fu' on all the doors,  the assassin was not able to identify his target. On hearing this, the emperor was enraged. In his fury, he ordered to kill the goof who hung the “Fu” upside down.

To avert the situation, the clever empress remarked that the inverted "Fu"  had an interesting meaning “Fudao”(福倒) which was homophonous  with that of “luck was on my side.” The Emperor was placated and the victim was spared.

Thus, besides praying for prosperity, the "Fu' is hung upside down in memory of the kind and wise Empress Ma.

Year Of The Monkey

Monkey Cookies for Chinese New Year 2016

Despair not if your New Year's resolutions are not coming along nicely 'cos you're in luck!  With the Chinese new year just round the corner, here's your second chance for a do-over.

We're 15 days away from the Chinese lunar year and 2016 heralds The Year Of The Monkey. If you're into Chinese hocus-pocus, the Monkey Year is predicted to be a rather challenging year ahead for those born in the year of the tiger. Grrrrrrr!  Yep, I am a tigress!

My HORRORscope reads, "Tigers won't have such a great year when it comes to health and luck, because the Tiger is the enemy of the Monkey. "There are forces on your chart that will test your motivation and resolve."

Truth be told, I'm a little disturbed by the negative prediction but I am NOT going to let that affect me. I am thinking of Katy Perry's song "ROAR".

"I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire
'Cause I am a champion and you're gonna hear me roar
Louder, louder than a lion
'Cause I am a champion and you're gonna hear me roar"



Bring on 2016! You're gonna hear me ROOOOOOOOAR-OR-OR-OR-OR!

Malacca

Hi pallies! I'm back. Hope y'all  had a great Christmas and a wonderful start to the new year.
We spent 2016 in Malacca (Melaka in Malay), a state located in the southern region of Peninsular Malaysia. It was a last minute decision as we all wanted a short weekend getaway before school reopens on January 4th. It had been quite a while since our last family vacation. Now that Josh is in college, his semester breaks and Rodney's school term breaks are no longer concurrent.

A little info about Malacca to share.

The story of Malacca a.k.a "The Historic City of Malaysia" begins with the legendary tale of a Sumatran prince named Parameswara who was out hunting one day and while resting under a tree, witnessed one of his dogs cornering a mousedeer. The mousedeer in its defence attacked the dog and even forced it into a river. So taken up by the courage of the wee creature, the prince decided on the spot to found a city on the ground he was sitting on. Hence, Malacca was born. Many claimed that the prince took this name from the 'Melaka' tree that was shading him. The year was 1400.

Parameswara established the Sultanate Of Malacca and the kingdom flourished under 8 sultans until it fell into the hands of the Portugese in 1511, followed by the Dutch in 1641, and then handed over to the British in 1795. Malacca went briefly under the rule of the Japanese in 1942-1945 during World War II.  In 1957,  Malaysia (known as Malaya then) gained its independence from the British.

The ruins of the A Famosa Portuguese fort, an iconic landmark of Malacca

Me and Josh. Excuse the sloppy dressing! I had to untuck my shirt and unbutton my jeans after stuffing myself with Satay Celup! Burp!

The Stadthuys

Malacca's most unmistakable landmark. This red town hall dates back to 1650 and is believed to be the oldest Dutch building in the East. The building was erected after Malacca was captured by the Dutch in 1641, and is a reproduction of the former Stadhuis (town hall) of the Frisian town of Hoorn in the Netherlands. Today it serves as a museum complex.

The Statue of St. Francis Xavier

Notice the missing right hand. In 1952, a statue of the Jesuit priest from Spain was erected in front of the ruins of St Paul's church in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of his sojourn in Malacca. A day after the statue was consecrated, a large casuarina tree fell on it, breaking off its right arm. Incidentally, the right forearm of St. Francis Xavier was detached in 1614 as a relic!

Satay Celup

No trip to Malacca is complete if you haven't tried their Satay Celup. Celup in Malay translates as "dunk" so Satay Celup is basically skewered seafood. meat or vegetables that are dunked in a pot of boiling peanut sauce. Think Malaysian fondue!

And you can't say you've been to Malacca if you missed out their chicken rice balls!

The rice balls are just rice shaped into ping-pong sized balls but they are more flavourful than ordinary rice and have a sticky texture, kinda like sushi.

We had a great time in Malacca but the boys and I would really have preferred a beach vacation.  Yep, I think I am going to add that to my 2016 list.