.Tuesday, January 27, 2009 ' 10:22 PM Y
pon...and...zi
Once again, it was the New Year's Eve, the once in a year event where the whole family would gather together to have a reunion dinner. This year, the reunion dinner was held at my house.
The day started out bright and sunny, my mum had woken me up early as we had to attend church. In case you do not know , i am a christian. I have this bad habit, halfway through church, i would doze off and miss out completely on what they were teaching. Today, since it was new year's eve, i decided to keep myself awake throughout church. I had the 'bright' idea of making use of a chewing gum throughout church. indeed, my idea 'worked', i had almost dozed off a few times, however, because of the chewing gum, i bit my tongue and woke up each time i almost dozed off.
anyways, i rushed home right after church to prepare for the reunion dinner at night.
I am a very good boy, helping my parents whenever they need help.
I returned home, played the computer for a while, followed by helping my mother with the preparation of the dishes.
There is another tradition where we have to eat this beehoon in soup dish for lunch during new year's eve, the dish is called "cha-hong". Actually, i am not really sure what does it signify, however, i think i have heard my mother mention before that it signifies longevity and prosperity, because beehoon is long and smooth.The whole family gathered at my house during lunchtime and we slurped up bowls of "cha-hong", sucking up every single strand of beehoon, we loved it so much because it was cooked by my grandmother, the best cook in the family.
After lunch, we played some games like scrabble, monopoly and many others together and really, we had a time of our life, i laughed so hard that tears started streaming down my eyes, haha!
Time flies quickly when you are having fun, before long, it was night and we had our wonderful steamboat reunion dinner. The table was spreaded with dishes, ranging from vegetables to meat, frozen food to seafood...Mmmm, thinking of it makes me drool, it was such a wonderful meal! we shared 2 steamboat pots, my brother and I dropped fish balls and meatballs into the soup and had a competition to see whose fish ball gets cooked first. It is really a childish game, but since it was New Year's Eve, we did not care . We did not spend the whole time eating, if not we will be bored to death. Instead, we took turns to sit around the table to eat. it is not that there is not enough tables and chairs, but that we wanted to eat and have fun. I remember, i played with my baby cousin, chasing him around the house, he is really cute, however he is also really fierce, i remember how he shouted and screamed when his brother left him at a corner... really scary.
My mother had also made some dumplings, they were truly delicious and we really loved them, i have placed a picture of it here
As we were eating, my whole family started laughing, I was stunned, wondering, what were they laughing at. My aunt, who has recovered from her laughter said," I think you are the one who ate the most fish balls and meat balls, we were picturing all the different balls floating in your stomach." After that , she laughed again, this time, I laughed too.
We took about 4 hours to finish our dinner, by the time we finished, it was about 11pm. While the rest of the family was enjoying themselves after the dinner,i, the most helpful and obedient boy helped my mother and grandmother with the cleaning up of the table. Eating was fun, Cleaning up is not, as a matter of fact, it is disgusting!!!
We had a short story telling session after dinner in our study room, my grandmother, uncle and some other of my relatives shared about their past, their personal life experiences and also the lessons they learned. The whole room was filled with "ooos" and "ahhhhs" and we really enjoyed ourselves.
before long, it was 12am already, we bid each other farewell with happy faces, knowing the fact that we were going to meet the next day to eat breakfast together. after they left, my whole family quickly went to bed with smiling faces, looking forward to the next day. In our heart, the next day was a long day and we believe that we are going to enjoy ourselves.
From this, i learnt that family bonding is important, though privacy is also important, however if a family is not bonded for a long time, they will tend to isolate themselves from each other and the word family will never exist. families are important, we must treasure them.
