Lost in February

How come February gets the least number of days but is littered with important dates like Valentine’s Day, Chinese Lunar New Year and for me,Vicky’s Birthday? Amidst all the rush, excitement and enjoyment, time tends to speed up, and before you even rip off ‘January’ from the calendar, you realised that all 28 days of February are up.

I know it’s only the middle of February now, but trust me, after you plunge head long into the Lunar New Year celebrations, you’ll only sober up with a few days of the month left to go. That also means for me that my final month in my present company will be up in a jiffy.

How I spent Valentine’s Day? No flowers this year. Vicky balks at the overpriced bouquets and decides that she can do without them. I silently (but gratefully) agree. So we ended up having Japanese food for dinner. After dinner we dropped by at a Flower Shop, make that Fake Plastic Flowers, and chose a bunch of hydrangeas plus an assortment of other flowers for the house. Not sure whether the other fellow passengers in the train thought that Vicky had received some cheap plastic flowers for Valentine. For the record, the plastic flowers and vase that we bought would have cost around the same as that for a bouquet of dozen fresh roses on that day.

Later today, my company will be having their last Chinese New Year lunch. They decided to be slightly more generous this year, since it will be our final time, by choosing to have it at Tung Lok. But food aside, I guess this will be the last official gathering for us. It must certainly be a sentimental moment for many who has tossed countless plates of Yu Sheng through the years. We have one worker who has been with us for 25 years, that’s more than half his lifetime, and suddenly he will find himself peering at a very different future, not the kind he is used waking up to every morning.

It will be a rush to get to JB after lunch as I have a bus to catch at 5.15pm. I’m really looking forward to this Chinese New Year celebrations after a rather subdued Christmas. New Year, new luck? The Dog Year didn’t appear as bad as predicted and Pig Year promises even better times. But I never got myself stuck with the annual horoscope predictions before as I believe that we make our own luck. Will stick to that thought this year too.

Will be back to Singapore only on the 25^th. Hopefully recharged, for new challenges awaits. But before that, there’s our Housewarming to organise. Got to split the friends and relatives as our small Four Room unit can’t hold that many people. We have fixed the one for friends on Sunday, 4^th March. Was considering catering until we found a willing cook. This will keep us busy when we come back.

Ok for now here’s wishing all a Happy Chinese New Year and may you 'nian nian you yu' !

Bullock Cart Water

Why do you need a Chinatown in a country where the majority is overwhelmingly Chinese? The Malays might have Geylang Serai and the Indians have Little India, but why do the Chinese deserve an additional little nook to call their own?

To answer that, you just have to look at how the rest of Singapore is transforming to understand that there is a dire need to reserve an area where the Chinese culture and architecture can be preserved. What better place then the traditional bastion of Chinese activity and industry. Sadly, in the midst of upgrading old estates and creating New World wonders, there just isn’t much place for the old to thrive.

Just mention Chinatown and people will conjure up images of old Chinese shophouses, cheap clothings and CDs, the famous Frog Leg Porridge Shop, Old Men playing Chinese Chess and Checkers (Dam), and not forgetting the infamous Yangtze Cinema with its brightly painted risque posters. And as the Chinese Lunar New Year approaches, people are thronging down to the annual attraction of the Night Markets.

Covering an area of crisscrossing short streets, the Night Market greatly resembles the Petaling Street in KL, minus the counterfeit goods of course. In its stead, there are scores of stalls peddling Taiwan snacks (you can satisfy your daily sugar fix just by helping yourself to the free samples), Melon Seeds and Nuts, CNY decoration, Pomelos, Authentic Traditional Costumes and Spring Blossoms. A lone Ramly Burger stall even found its way into the happy mix.

With the prevailing cool evening weather and absence of rain, Chinatown is definitely a good place to experience the festive spirit.

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Chinatown’s local name - Niu Che Shui (Bullock Cart Water) arose from the fact that each household at that time had to collect fresh water from the wells in Ann Siang Hill and Spring Street, using bullock-drawn carts.

To Greener Fields

I'm finally moving out of the company. Tendered my resignation on Monday and the countdown begins. Minus the one week break for CNY, I have about three weeks left in the company.

Got the new job offer only last Friday. The swiftness of the offer sort of surprised me as I only started job hunting in January. As for the job, it is quite a shift from my current one, like moving from micro to macro mode. And it may involve some travelling. Well one thing's for sure, got to buck up on my Mandarin.

Feel like a sailor jumping ship, from a sinking ship actually. So when I leave, my colleagues have to cover my workload. It has been like this for awhile since they stopped hiring last year. Good luck to them. It's definitely not easy motivating yourself to accept more work when you've got nothing to work for, save the salary at the end of the month. That is motivation enough for people to work harder, searching through the Saturday Recruit Section, to get themselves out to somewhere drier fast.