Chinese New Year Visiting

It was that time of the year where the family gets together and children get money from their relatives. It was Chinese New Year!

As a Chinese , the first thing to do was to give oranges to my parents. You must be wondering why we give fruits to our parents. Well, in cantonese, orange is pronounced as "kam" which sounds similar to the word for gold.


(Above) My cousin offering oranges.



(Above) Me offering oranges.



Therefore, when we give oranges to our parents, it represents wishing them prosperity for the new year.

The next thing we were supposed to do was to visit my grandparents house. Unfortunately, since both of my grandparents were DEAD , we went to the temple to pay our respects to them.

Well, most people would host a reunion party but we took the extra effort of visiting ALL of our relatives. It was like driving around the whole of singapore TWICE.

Most of the relatives we visited were not very familiar to me but oddly enough , they remembered my name and even my age!

To tell you the truth , most of the visits were quite boring for me as the adults would start talking about their own matters, leaving me and my cousins alone.
Most of my cousins are much older than me, some have even married! They too would start talking about their own things. With nothing much to do, I usually listen to my mp3 player or take a walk around the neighbourhood.


The last relative we had to visit was my first uncle . He's quite a friendly guy and pleasant to talk with. When we arrived at his place, his house was already packed with people so we had to sit outside. Our family must be really big because within 30 minutes , more guests arrived! I was surprised that we had so many relatives. It turns out that they were DISTANT relatives and couldn’t recognize most of our faces anyway.

After all the relatives had left, it was time for us to go for dinner. We stopped at a Peranakan restaurant and ordered Ayam Buahkeluak(Chicken) , Itek Sio(Duck) , Babi Ponteh(Pork) and a variety of delicious nyona favourites. After the meal, we say goodbye to my uncle and his family ( They came with us for dinner) and went our separate ways.

Back home when I finally opened all the hong paos I collected, I was amazed at how much money I received.


(Above) My Hong Paos!!!!!!

Having close to $300 was a good start to the year of the Ox!
After a great and tiring night, the whole family gathered in the living room for the countdown to the year of the Ox.

To the reader , I wish you a very happy Chinese New Year!

The first day of the sec1 camp!

Sometimes, words can trigger your mind to recall certain events or actions. When I hear the word "tiring" or "exhausting" , I think of last year's camp. I could still remember my first day in camp.

First , we assembled in the canteen and boarded the school bus to the camp. There were many new faces that time, which made me quite nervous. Once we had arrived at the camp we were assigned to our bunks first. My bunk number was 7. At about noon, we had our lunch , some kind of bean rice with asparagus and fish. In my opinion , it tasted horrible.

After we cleaned the tables unwillingly, it was time for our first activity, kayaking. At first it was difficult to row our boat but slowly we got the hang of it. In the middle of the sea, the instructor asked us to stand up on the kayaks. We managed to stand up for 2 seconds before plummeting down into the treacherous waters.

The instructor was extremely disappointed in us and those who had fallen in the water had to swim to shore. After kayaking, Mr. Khor had a "lesson" with us on what the symbols on the school flag represent. Though trying his best, Mr.Khor had FAILED to interest us in the lesson which lasted 2 hours long.

By the time we had finished, other classes were already half way through their dinner. We had no choice but to eat the leftovers. Once again, it tasted horrible but we were thankful as the peer leaders had nothing to eat!! I felt sorry for them and wondered why they came to the camp in the first place.

Well , I do hope that was everything that happened on the first day of camp as I can’t remember anything else! The Sec 1 camp was really tiring and some people even found it emotionally disturbing. However, the camp was useful as it helped us build up the stamina to study intensively for long hours and pay attention in class.

Therefore, I am grateful for those who organised the camp as well as the peer leaders for assisting us in……one way or another. That concludes my first day of the sec1 camp . I wonder what will happen in the sec 3 camp? I’ll just have to wait and see!