This Precious Life

Can you guess what this is? It is in the picture below. :)

A few days before the Chinese New Year, Mum decked the house with festive decorations.

As this celebrates the year of the cow (ox, if you prefer), a golden cow is included.

A golden cow with too many mandarins in its belly. Tsk tsk.

You know what’s so special about CNY in my hometown? Even the Indian owner of an Indian restaurant here have decked out his place with CNY decorations.

On the eve of CNY, it is customary for family members who have migrated far and wide or near or not at all to return to Grandma’s place for the traditional Reunion Dinner.

You wouldn’t dare think of not returning home for the Reunion Dinner because if you do, the national petroleum company will make you feel guilty. Every year, Petronas will release a CNY advertisement.

This year, my family’s Reunion Dinner was held at our place in Melaka so Grandma made the one-hour journey over.

Along with a cousin…

or two…

or more.

Here, my cousin Soo Lee is regaling us with her adventure of diving in Bali, including a dangerous moment where a shark snatched her camera! :) May be not my words exactly. If you ask another cousin, he/she might say it was more like the camera strap got loose so it plunged into the deep dark oceanic water.

For the Reunion Dinner, we had bubbling Chinese Steamboat.

Everyone stayed for the night so my bedroom was crammed with relatives on the bed and on the floor on mattresses.

I slept on my parents’ King-sized bed that night, along with two other cousins. It was very hot and cosy. Mother and Father gave up their bed for us, they slept on couches.

CNY is always exhilarating, thanks to Grandma for having 7 children who fruited 22 grandchildren and then some great-grandchildren.

The next day, more cousins arrived and so did HighwayBlogger, Nadnut and CNeil!

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