....AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Sunday, December 22, 2024
Saturday, December 21, 2024
Happy Dongzhi Festival
Today, 21st December is an auspicious day in the Chinese calendar. It's the Winter Solstice Festival or Dongzhi Festival.
I had almost forgotten about this festival until a friend reminded me. So this morning I bought some tang yuan for worship. My mum, if she were alive today, would have been very upset, even angry if I had forgotten about this festival! It has been celebrated for around 2,500 years and traditionally it is the time for families to come together to make (or buy if you can't make!) and eat tang yuan (glutimous rice balls), which are symbols of reunion and prosperity.
According to my research, the tradition of eating dumplings on Winter Solstice began when a physician named Zhang Zhongjing noticed that the poor were suffering from chilblains on their ears. He started making dumplings with lamb and other ingredients to distribute to the poor. (Lamb is thought to warm the body and strengthen it against the cold weather).
Incidentally, the elderly still insist that one is a year older right after the Dongzhi celebration instead of waiting for the Chinese New Year.
Well, don't let that spoil your day, enjoy your tang yuan! Whatever will be, will be.
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Christmas Blessings for All
Thursday, December 5, 2024
Monday, September 16, 2024
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival
Friday, September 6, 2024
All About Mooncakes
Top L to R: Custard, Pandan, Lotus Seed Paste with Single Egg Yolk, Lotus Seed Paste with Single Egg Yolk |
Lotus Seed Paste with Single Egg Yolk |
A friend has presented me with a box of delightful mooncakes of four different flavours. This once-a-year delicacy is always welcomed and enjoyed during the Mid-Autumn Festival which falls on 17th September this year. Mooncakes are best eaten in small wedges with Chinese tea - a perfect combination - and this time I found they're not too sweet! My friend told me she had bought them from a different shop this year and I guess their mooncake makers are aware of how health conscious people are today!
Here's a little writeup I saw in the net.
There is a folk tale about the overthrow of the Yuan dynasty facilitated by messages smuggled in moon cakes.
Mooncakes were used by revolutionaries in their effort to overthrow the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, eventually resulting in the establishment of the Ming dynasty. The idea is said to have been conceived by Zhu Yuanzhang and his advisor Liu Bowen, who circulated a rumor that a deadly plague was spreading and that the only way to prevent it was to eat special mooncakes, which would instantly revive and give special powers to the user. This prompted the quick distribution of mooncakes. The mooncakes contained a secret message: on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, kill the rulers.
Another method of hiding a message was to print it on the surfaces of mooncakes (which came in packages of four), as a simple puzzle or mosaic. To read the message, each of the four mooncakes was cut into four parts. The resulting 16 pieces were pieced together to reveal the message. The pieces of mooncakes were then eaten to destroy the message.
(Story courtesy of Wikipedia)
Enjoy your mooncakes everyone and don't worry, there won't be any secret messages inside!
Friday, August 30, 2024
Friday, August 16, 2024
Next Change: The Mid-Autumn Festival
My first moon biscuits for this year! Yummy!
And here are my first mooncakes for the year....three cute ones with red bean filling!
Yummy, yummy!
Saturday, July 6, 2024
Another Family Get Together
Top: Fried tofu with meat topping Bottom: Stingray and okra curry and bitter gourd with egg |
We hadn't met for over six months and I'm glad my cousin took the initiative to set up a lunch get together recently. Only four of us - an aunt, two cousins (sisters) and myself. and the venue was a Hakka restaurant which we often patronise. My cousin ordered a few of our favourite dishes (above), however, halfway through, the sky darkened and it looked like heavy rain was about to descend on us! We rushed out to our cars to get our umbrellas but it turned out to be a false alarm! The sun burst through in a short while and we were lucky to have a cool breeze fanning us as we ate. To conclude, we had a delightful chilled dessert - a mix of peach gum resin, shredded nutmeg, mint leaves and slices of lime and lemon. It was the first time we had tried it and it was really refreshing!
Dessert |
It's always good to chat over food that you like and we talked about everything, from cars to aching limbs! We shall have to do this more often!
Sunday, June 23, 2024
Xiamen - Here We Come!
(Also published in "Ramblings of a Nonya" by the blog author)
Episode 1
I didn't expect I would be travelling again after Covid-19 but the travel agency kept enticing me with pictures of exciting places to visit, and soon I found myself on board a Xiamen Air Boeing 737-800 bound for Xiamen!
I had just made a new passport (which is dying to go places) and with no visa fees for China at the moment, it seemed a waste if I didn't make a trip.
A friend said I should write snippets of my "adventure", so here's Episode 1.
The thing I enjoy most while travelling and staying in hotels is the buffet breakfast! There is always such a big spread of breakfast items from bread to congee, noodles to dumplings, pastries to fruits. The only problem was we didn't have much time to sit down and enjoy it at a leisurely pace because of our tight schedule.
It would take too long if I were to give an account of each day's travel, so I'm touching only on certain happenings.
It was on our trip to Mt. Wuyi that we had the greatest thrill of our lives. We went bamboo rafting on the Jiuquxi River (Nine Curves River) which flows through the gorges. The raft was made of several lengths of bamboo put together with about 6 bamboo chairs for people to sit on. It was helmed by two boatmen who each used a long bamboo pole to steer the raft through the water. The travel brochure said that we should sit back and enjoy the silence and charm of the cool, green surroundings and despite some apprehension though we wore life jackets, we soon relaxed as we wound our way through the gorge with its scenic mountains.
Then .... disaster struck! Our raft hit a rock, the boatmen were thrown off balance and we wobbled dangerously from side to side but thank God we didn't overturn! Water started surging in from all sides and we thought we were going to sink!
Our guide assured us not to worry as the boatmen were very experienced and knew how to get us out of this calamity. Sure enough one of them contacted someone through his mobile phone (which thankfully didn't fall into the water) and within five minutes, a rescue raft came, we switched over to it and continued safely on our journey down the river, our shoes soaking wet! I forgot to mention that when we were floundering in the water, the bamboo pole used by one of the boatmen fell from his hand and landed on my head - fortunately it was quite light otherwise I would have suffered from concussion!
Later, after we had landed on the other side, I wondered what karma put the three of us (myself, my aunt and our guide) in that particular raft, why it wasn't someone else? Were our Xiamen ancestors not pleased with us?? Just a thought that crossed my mind .....
Episode 4
One of the reasons I was keen on this trip was that I had always wanted to see the traditional "tulou" or earthen buildings unique to the Hakka clan in Fujian. These round buildings, sometimes rectangular, can house up to 800 people and are three to five stories high. We were told they were built between the 12th and 20th centuries. The cluster that we saw is only one of the many in various parts of Fujian.
Before visiting the "tulou", we had lunch at a small "coffee shop". The food was very good and we all enjoyed it. Actually we had been having good food since the start of the journey - no wonder everyone had put on weight!
Episode 5
There are a few memorable sights which we had the good fortune to see and I shall attempt to describe them.
Xiangzi Bridge
Monday, June 10, 2024
Return of the Patriotic Poet
It's the 5th day of the 5th lunar month - and it's Duanwu Jie AKA Dragon Boat Festival time! Glutinous rice dumplings which are associated with this festival are in plenty at the shops but they're not really my favourite and most of the time I opt for those made with brown rice, which are more kind to the tummy. This year, I remembered to wash my face at 12 p.m. sharp. The water that you get from the tap at this time is known as "Goh See" water and is said to give one a youthful and beautiful complexion, I certainly hope it works, haha!
Everyone knows the story of the Patriotic Poet but here's a video which I found to refresh the memory.
ENJOY YOUR DUMPLINGS EVERYONE!