Chinese New Year in Malaysia

I am home!!

After two CNYs in London, I have decided to celebrate this year's CNY in Malaysia.

I meant to write earlier but just couldn't find the time. The first two days were spent recovering from jet lag, traveling and meeting relatives and friends.

I have been eating since coming home. I have always liked CNY because of the myriad of cookies, BBQ meat and mandarin oranges on the living hall table. I remember as a kid I was always looking forward to two things. Angpaos (red packet with money) and the strawberry flavoured cream-filled "love-letters". Nowadays, I have two CNY love-letter wishes; health and peace. With health, I can achieve anything. With peace, everyone else could.

CNY eve reunion dinner

Of course the most important element of CNY is reuniting with everyone in the family. I was very happy meeting my two grandmothers, uncles and aunts, and cousins and catching up on news of our families.

Catching up

One thing I am struggling is to control eating at every house that I go to visit. In a day like yesterday, I could be visiting up to three places during lunch time and I could end up having three lunches before realising I have overeaten! Thing is, how could you control eating when everything is different and you would want to try everyone of them!

Just because an Australian is called an Aussie

This week Prince Harry has gotten himself into trouble again. He was caught in video uttering racial remarks to his Asian colleague when he was training in Sandhurst.

As far as I know, Malaysians are a respectful lot. We are very mindful of our words when it comes to mingling with friends of other races. However, we fare quite badly when it comes to different nationalities.

I would apportion the biggest blame to ignorance. In Malaysia, Bangladeshi workers are called Bangla and Pakistani Paki. In the UK, Paki is a very offensive term to not only the Pakistani people but also Indians. It is as rude as calling me a Cina-pek.

But are we the only nation like that? Hong Kong people came to mind immediately. Malaysians to Hong Kong people are known as "Malai" people. Even though this is not a derogatory remark, calling us a Malai is a misnomer. Again, it's just ignorance.

Malai (or Malay) is one of the races in Malaysia. There are also Chinese, Indian, Kadazan, Iban and other ethnic minorities. Therefore calling a Malaysian "Malai" is like calling a Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish, an English. The safe term would be British. Likewise, Malaysia should be Malaysian or even if you need to canton-ise it, it should be "Ma-lai-sai-ah".

Malaysians to Hong Kong people are just as bad. We call Hong Kong people Hongkies, which is an offensive term to some. Even Raymond's latest blog post has that! That too is attributed to ignorance.

Then again, I've always asked HK friends if there is a shorter term for Hong Kong people. Hong Kong-er? Hong Kong-ese?

Oh well maybe there are things we just can't extrapolate. Just because Taiwan people are called Taiwanese, does not mean Hong Kong people are called Hong Kong-ese. Likewise, just because an Australian is called an Aussie, doesn't mean Hong Kong people are called Hongkie or a Pakistani Paki!

Calvin & Susie saw the financial crisis coming

I like reading Calvin & Hobbes.

Today I received an email with an attachment of the cartoon that was said to be 15 years old.

Somehow I can't help but draw parallels to the global financial crisis and the US bailout of the automobile companies with the conversation between Calvin and Susie.

Interesting Three

In an unusual moment last Sunday I spoke to the priest after mass. As far as I could remember, the last time I spoke to a priest was seven months ago when I introduced my mother to the priest in Cambridge.

Last Sunday's talk was about the three wise men. The presentation of the sermon was so real I could see the cloud of imagination hovering on top of my head. Anything that's interesting makes me ask questions.

The priest told that the three wise men came from Europe, Africa and Asia. That was news to me.

At that point I could imagine a white, black and Asian men standing in front of a baby and congratulating Mary and Joseph.

But I had questions.

At a time when the internet and phone haven't existed, how did they arrange to meet together to see the baby? When I arrange to meet up with friends in a tube station, we could even end up in different sections or exits of the station! What more, Europe, Africa and Asia are continents apart!

According to the priest, they were astrologers who have calculated the precise time and location of the birth time of Christ. So they may have met on the way since they were heading towards the same direction and location.


There may be more than three since they couldn't be only three astrologers in the world at the time? More than a thousand even? And maybe there were several thousand astrologers who arrived later?

Possibly. But the three were the first.

Were they summoned by their emperors or kings to search for the baby?

No. Astrologers at that time were highly respected in the society. They were also very rich. Like anyone who's good in what they do, they set out to find this unusual star. Since they were rich, they can travel as far as they wanted.

Yes but since you said they were highly respected in the society, can I say they were also influential in the society? So they may have access to the emperors/kings. Am I also right to assume they may have spoken about the baby to the king. Then, they were asked to look for the newborn Christ, as they too wanted to know? After all, if someone intelligent discovered something big, wouldn't they want to tell the king?

Yes you could be right. Not much history has been written about the three of them. And very possibly they went back to tell their kings about what they saw. And being respectable in the society, the people believed the three wise men. This could be the point of time when Christianity actually started in Europe, Africa and Asia; not after the death but birth of Christ.

What about Herod? How did they end up with Herod in the bible, if they didn't serve him?

They were like ambassadors coming from different countries. When they entered the country, they had to call on the emperor as a sign of respect, just like when you enter someone's house. The emperor at the time was Herod. So, they probably spoke over dinner/lunch/breakfast (or golf??) about what they were there after. So when Herod heard about their work, he felt threatened by the fact that a "new king" was born. But he didn't want to let his intentions known. He asked them to tell him the location of the baby so he too could pay homage to the family. Later, the three wise men were told in a dream not to do as told. They fled the country after meeting Jesus and the family.

So the three have already met before meeting Herod. These guys must have been bored to death not understanding each other's language! Oh well, I supposed they could, since they knew each other's work.

The priest laughed and said: Am sure they did! Story had it that they met again in Christmas (I don't think it was 25th December), after the death of Christ to commemorate him. They were 120 years old when they met. To live that long in those days was a miracle. So you can imagine the three were pretty fit and healthy.

I am just amazed they can arrange to meet again. How did they do that?

Well, when today's technologies haven't existed, people will have to find a way. History had it that they met and died in Cologne. There's a cathedral in Cologne with their remains.

Cologne?? That's so strange. What were they doing there?

No one knows.

Were they meant to go somewhere? Christ was ascended into heaven on the third day of his death. Maybe they spotted something new but couldn't make it in time to tell us the story?

Now I wonder what that was.

Frozen

In a walking tour in London three months ago, I was told that in winter Londoners used to ice-skate on River Thames. It was difficult to believe and imagine as the Thames is too wide and deep to be frozen.

The Thames is three times the width of Sungai Klang, which made the story even harder to buy.

London is now at its coldest winter snap with temperatures dipping below -10deg C.

When I passed by Trafalgar Square on Sunday, the fountains were frozen. It was rather unusual. Certainly something I thought would never happen because the fountains were wide and deep.

The frozen fountain

The functioning fountain

Now I can imagine Londoners ice-skating on the River Thames 150 years ago.

Happy New Year 2009!!!

A video presentation of the new year countdown in London...