Tang Yuan

I cooked some tang yuan today, actually I boiled them coz they are pre-made. For those of you who do not know, tang yuan is sweet Chinese dumpling, a hot dessert…you can have it plain, or with fillings like black sesame or peanut.
Tang yuans are round and smooth…thus the Chinese also believe that eating tang yuan have the meaning of sweet reunion. It is common to see them served up during Chinese new year on yuan siao – the 15th day, winter solstice, and weddings.
It is more meaningful to have it together with your family…but I am having it alone in dubai this evening, while silently hoping to have a reunion in sin with my family soon. 4 days seemed like years right now…
Tang yuan also brought back memories of my Ah Ma. I was only little then. During festive seasons, she will drag me and bro out of bed early in the morning to go to the markets to buy the ingredients to make these dumplings at home. She will do most of the mixing, and my main duty is to roll them into balls and make them as round and even as possible. She usually make white and pink ones, half with peanut fillings and half plain, then she will cook them in pot with ginger, rock sugar and pandan leaves. She will always give me a little scolding because my dumplings will always look bigger and uglier with time after the initial enthusiasm wore away and was replaced with restlessness. Still, we always have a good time during that couple of hours.
I like tang yuan, especially the black sesame ones. I have not had homemade tang yuan for a long time now since Ah Ma passed away, so I normally get the frozen pre-made ones from supermarkets or order them from the dessert stalls when I am in HongKong. I enjoyed the texture especially, so smooth and silky. I must learn how to make them myself someday, so I can prepare it with my family, making the symbolism of it all the more meaningful and significant.
After a bowl of tang yuan, I feel slightly better. Perhaps it’s just a little sugar rush, but I am grateful…my mood is grateful, for now.

This little girl reminds me of me a lot...I used to just do that

My favourite tang yuan with black sesame

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Happy Rat Year to all!
Let’s take it from Mickey and Minnie living in Disneyland and cultivate your own magical moments to sprinkle along the year ahead. I know I will try to…since mum’s already conveying the advice doled out by a famed feng shui master for us horses…the key is tolerance and only more tolerance, plus control, for 2008!

I am in dubai, bathed, moisturized, and in my new pyjamas(akin to my ultra-late discovery of frothy bubble baths, I never realize that silk/satin PJs not only feel really really good against the skin, it’s really enjoyable sliding around on the bedsheets too!).
This is the 1st time since I first came to dubai six years ago that I missed Chinese New Year in Singapore. I did not get the exact dates of the leave that I bidded for so will only start my vacation from the 12th. I got a bit silly and refused to resign to fate until after midnight tonight that I am indeed stuck in dubai to herald in the year of the rat. I have exhausted all options and resources that I can wring from my mind during the last couple of weeks trying to swap flights around to somehow land self in Singapore around 6th-8th Feb, even if it means operating a flight back. Sadly, it was not meant to be either way.
Called mummy first to convey my well wishes. No reunion dinner happening in our house this year coz they are waiting for me to be back for a belated one. Feel responsible for the damper of coz, as much as I also acknowledge that some things are not within my control. Coziness is especially scarce this evening when my mind is used to expect being with the family gathering around the table enjoying steamboat dinner. Knowing the rest of the family is missing that kind of warmth makes me feel worse. To add icing on the cake, dubai weather has be mercilessly cold during the last couple of days…yeah rubbing it in further huh…
Also realize she is at home spending the first hours of the lunar new year alone. It upsets me considerably since I have managed to make it back to Singapore during the last consecutive 5 years to keep her company during the most significant holiday to her while bro and wife were out. Yet this year, when I am most complacent and confident that I will get my leave because of seniority, I failed her when I least expected. I can only offer my voice through the phone…and mummy is somehow more contented than I am…
As we chatted, mummy reminded me that I must wear green tomorrow. Straight orders from the queen. Apparently, we horses are going to have a rather challenging year ahead to say the least, and feng shui experts have advised that wearing green on the first day of lunar new year will somehow help ‘cool’ the calamities ahead or sort of take the edge off a little. Apart from mum, also hear the same from bro and a few friends about the green, making it harder to try to push that info into oblivion. I wished even more to be in Singapore now so I can pick out all the ‘horses’ donning their greens and grins when we go around the island with the festive visitings. Most of us may not believe it totally and faithfully, but I guess most of us will also take it with a pinch of salt and try to incorporate a pinch of green just in case…I know I will have to, and will too.

Now, some consolations…
Took self off cairo flight on 7th - the big day…amazing how much better I feel instanteously after that…tremendous load off mind and body…as sleeping’s been so out of whack lately plus nursing an over-cluttered mind.
Had a rather satisfying shopping spree to fill some emotional voids during the afternoon…also my official lunar new year shopping to attempt to get into the mood like every year, though the malls here certainly have no CNY decorations whatsoever and no familiar Chinese New Year songs playing everywhere you go (yes I do miss them especially lately…). My credit card though is feeling very warm and cosy from the damages done during the spree, albeit a last minute 3-hour one. Good thing dubai is currently hosting her shopping festival, and the buy of the lot has to be this tuxedo style jacket from Karen Millen that oozes masculinity, feminity, sensuality, and sexuality altogether…went into a little panick mode when can’t find something green I like enough to buy until the last 10 minutes…also got bath and bubble balls for indulging into my current favourite therapy, to name a few purchases.

Dinner…friends are right, better to join forces than stay in alone, thus met up with some fellow Singaporeans and Hongkies, made up by friends to acquaintances to strangers united by same race and roots on this special day…it’s our closest thing to a family reunion dinner, ‘pseudo’ to speak…there are 13 of us, and we had our own little private room too with plasma TV showing Chinese serials to special concerts featuring some familiar celebrities, which is kind of nice and fuzzy in a weird but comforting way. The fixed menu for the evening on this special occasion boasts more than 20 dishes! I have pictures to justify, though I may miss a couple of them coz I was also busy pigging out…the dishes kept rolling in I thought at one stage if they will keep serving different dishes until midnight or something. Honestly, in reflection, I could not remember the last time I tried more than 20 dishes in a go…almost feel like an emperor! It was an enjoyable evening, and I am glad that I was invited…only guilt now is I somehow had a reunion dinner when my family totally missed out because of me.

I am now staring at the new green dress that I will wear when I wake up, along with matching accessories. But don’t worry I did not go OTT…
So, bye bye piggy - see you in twelve years’ time, and hello mousey – please be nice…

Off-load

In my job, if you are sick, you can offload yourself and go home.
If a passenger is sick, he/she may get offloaded from the flight depending on severity of the case.
If a bag is too big, it gets offloaded to the cargo.
Offloading happens all the time, so flights can move on, can take off.
Am finding very hard to ‘offload’ myself to others lately. When asked what is wrong by well meaning friends and loved ones, I find myself at a loss for words to articulate my feelings. I go blank, no idea of how or where to start talking. I ended up brushing the topic off sometimes. Other times if I attempted to start somewhere, it gets lost in translation, or lame, or weird.
I don’t like that.
Mum always say to me to share any woes that come along the way, coz they are better out than in.
I have seemed to have lost but all the ability to do that. Such a simple thing, to talk your troubles out, but I may as well have lost my tongue.

Feelings of misplacement are intensifying. Continually trying to learn how to cope, to find my real place in life…stop being diagonal in this parallel universe, subjecting self to be in all’s way.

You there, thanks for being so patient the other day amid my frustrations and temper tantrums. Thanks for the virtual hugs, they are as good as they can be considering the mass physical distance between us. Sometimes hugs do best when words are scarce to find.
So here, I want to give you a big bear hug. I am still a cuddle-pot.
For all my friends, a big bear hug from me to you as well.
Please do not feel like you have to tread carefully around me.

Please do not let me breed any further awkwardness.
I am trying to get out of this constipated phase…