Last weekend (Feb. 12-14) was a holiday weekend here--and no, I'm not talking about Valentine's Day, whose normally tenuous but noticeable appeal in the Lion City was quashed by a holiday of the truest sort. I speak, of course, of Chinese New Year, a holiday which inspires Singaporeans of all stripes to think of the true meaning of the season--wait, what is the meaning of Chinese New Year, you ask? Well, besides the fact that it's a New Year (which doesn't really apply anymore, now that everything runs on the Western calendar)--not much of anything really. The main event is having parties and family reunions. Think of a combination of regular New Year and Thanksgiving...
Oranges and red packets, two of the pillars of CNY.
What Chinese New Year means to Singaporeans, as far as I can tell:
1) Repaying your debts (which also means nagging people who owe you money to pay you back),
2) Cleaning your house and putting potted plants outside3) Buying new clothes
4) Buying and cooking unimaginable amounts of food
5) Buying pretty much everything else as well, no matter how unimaginably crowded every single mall is
6) Seeing relatives, if they live in Singapore (or maybe Malaysia or Australia). Otherwise, meh.
7) Red Packets! i.e. getting free money (if you're a "kid"--kid meaning "unmarried")
8) Money that you have to give to all your relatives' kids and all your kid's friends (once you're married)
9) Oranges.
Yup, I think that just about covers it.
Me, really enjoying this Red Packet thing :)
This is a bowl of Long Life Noodles, the traditional dish that you eat on New Year's morning. It's pretty good--chicken soup with noodles and wood ear mushrooms and fried hard-boiled eggs--mmm, look at that yummy egg. Yes, I did say fried and hard-boiled. They hard-boil it first and then fry it so it has that nice crisp coating. Then they put it in the soup so the yolk's all soft an awesome. Mmmmm....
Dan's uncle and cousin came into town from Melbourne for a week or so, so our CNY basically consisted of all of us eating several huge meals and lots of special New Year's cookies and chips (pineapples tarts--awesome! Google them...) We also went to my friend Katherine's house, which is near Chinatown, and overlooked/overheard the big celebrations, but I did not attend. It sounded too much like a parade. (Shudder.) But here are some of the beautiful New Year's decorations in Chinatown!However, for lunch on New Year's Day we went out, because Merry had basically been cooking nonstop for days, and can you guess where we went? I'll give you a hint, here's their logo:
...
Indian food! Good guess! (Did you think that was a Italian man tossing a pizza? Yes, so did I. And I continue to think so every time I see the sign...)
Because of course none of the Chinese people were working and most restaurants were closed. So we went to our favorite prata restaurant down the street. Prata is a type of round Indian flatbread kind of like a pita, but fried. Hence the pizza-esque logo.
And of course, we did have a small shout-out to Valentine's Day. Dan got me the Glee soundtrack (YAY) and a specialty Lavender-flavored chocolate bar from the Chocolate Research Facility. I made him an American breakfast (bacon, omelettes, pancakes) and a cake!
Please don't judge me poorly on my cake-making skills. The first time you try to flip, frost, and decorate a cake in a non-airconditioned, tropical environment, you will understand my pain. Basically, the cake doesn't stay together well (notice the horizontal crater cleverly disguised by frosting and the word "Valentine's" in the middle) and the frosting melts off. I had to keep the cake refrigerated at all times or else those chocolate chips would have slid right off the edges...We were going to have a Valentine's Day lunch, but what with a late American breakfast one day and prata the next, we ran out of time.
I think I ate half that cake, all on my own...
ReplyDelete--Dan