CNY -- Round Things & Square Things

Two Melons Intricately Carved with Dragons

  Can't get enough of this Chinese New Year!  It's actually a 15-day period, so I'll be able to write about it for days to come, and I probably will! 


      Anyway, we went off to spend the first few days of it on the nearby Malaysian resort island of Langkawi, which was totally caught up in the festive atmosphere.  

A beautiful round thing

     It was only 108 km from our doorstep to the Westin Resort & Spa, where we stayed. But, since we flew there, it felt like we'd gone miles and miles away and were in a whole 'nother country (except that our cell phones still worked because we were still in Malaysia.)  

Square pools & CNY Dinner Set-up

 The Westin has a wonderful swimming area that's half pool and half natural spring.  Very fun to lounge around, especially if you have a sunburn, because there are lots of little nooks and crannies to hide from the sun in.  But they also have two square pools, the one on the left above being the kiddies' pool and the one on the right featuring a swim-up bar, which makes it so very easy to spend money and stay pleasantly tipsy.  (You just sign on your room tab.)  The night of the gala Chinese New Year dinner, they set up tables all around the kiddie pool and provided a lovely candlelit buffet dinner, complete with entertainment at poolside.   Very "cruise-ship-esque" but fun!

Yee Sang -- Chinese raw fish salad 

         Another round thing was this traditional Chinese salad served on New Year's Eve.  It's called "Yee Sang" and it contains various foods that are considered symbolic of abundance, prosperity and vigor. (THE key word for CNY seems to be "prosperity"!)


    And lastly in the "round" department, on the morning breakfast buffet, there were lots of elaborately carved watermelons with messages and here's one for you:

2012 (or 4709 in the Chinese Calendar)

The Eve of Chinese New Year

     Who's this old fellow below?  A Chinese Father Christmas?  Kind of.  He's the God of Prosperity, wandering the Petronas Towers shopping center handing out candies.  That mall also had the gaudiest, goldest dragon stage you could ever imagine.  It was huge and people stopped on the first, second and third floors to take pictures of it, including me!  I think during the performances, something comes out of the drum below the dragon.


    I saw something in the paper today about various customs (or actually superstitions) that are observed by the Chinese (at least the ones in Malaysia) at this season.  For example, you're not supposed to wash your hair for the first few days after Chinese New Year -- it's something about not washing out the good luck.  For the same reason, you're not supposed to sweep or dust the house in the early days of the new year.  All of that is to be done before the event, just like in Japan.  Today, in fact, "the boys" (actually grown yardmen with families of their own, probably) were busy, busy, BUSY giving our condominium some end-of-the-year finishing touches.  They were painting the walls around the complex, bleaching the sidewalks and lots of other nice extra things.

    As is always the case here in Penang, the hotels get into the act in a big way, and our favorite, the G Hotel, had done one of the best lobby displays I've seen so far.  And here it is!


    














      So, where do all these decorations come from?  Well, some are done on-site, like the lobby of the G Hotel, where they went to incredible lengths to make things red. (You're not supposed to wear black or white, and everyone tries to wear red or gold, even if it's underwear!) Anyway, here they are at the G, changing the lobby lights from white to red.

    And ordinary people and shopkeepers?  Well, they evidently go to shops like this one to buy their festive decorations.


    It's all very different from the mostly-subdued way the Japanese decorate for their New Year's celebrations.  But you've just gotta love them all, not only because they're beautiful, but because of all the love and excitement that goes into holiday preparations, whatever the country.

Cow's Milk--Good or Bad?

    Today Hubby and I were out having fish and chips at the nearby mall when I noticed a little media frenzy outside the establishment.  Being me,  I just had to go and and see what all the fuss was about.  I was expecting to see a local dignitary or some hiphop boys spinning on their heads.  Instead, there was this sedate little group of happy families with small children holding up big signs.  A closer look showed that their cause was a woman's right to breastfeed in public.


    They had handmade signs that promoted breastfeeding and the ladies were demonstrating their enthusiasm by doing just that in public.  The babies weren't cooperating, though; they didn't appear to be very hungry.  (You can show the baby a breast, but you cannot make him drink.)  The husbands were highly supportive, however, proudly looking on as their wives breastfed, or tried to, right there in the middle of the mall.  They all appeared to be Chinese, by the way.  I suspect that Muslim mothers wouldn't even consider that, though I don't know for certain.
  

   The signs they were holding were the most interesting part for me.  One said, "I don't want to eat in the toilet.  Do you?"  (I guess that's where mothers have to go now in order to breastfeed.)  Another read, "Breastfeeding is not obscene!!!"   And there was a third, all in Chinese kanji except for the word "baby,"  that apparently said something like this:


    Baby cows should eat cow's milk,
    Baby people should eat people milk.


     And those folks were definitely putting their money where their babies' mouths were.  


     Oddly enough, this is the second time in 24 hours that I've heard references to cow's milk not being good for people.  Yesterday I chatted at length with a fellow who was discussing calcium.  He said, "Look around this big room.  Do you see any baby cows?"  Duh!  Of course I said, "No."  And then he said, "No calves here, and yet lots of people in this room drink milk to stave off osteoporosis.  They don't know that taking in too much calcium by way of cow's milk may actually cause osteoporosis rather than prevent it."  (You could google it if you wanted more info on that.)  


    Considering that chocolate milk is probably my favorite beverage of all time, I was sad to hear such news!   Well, I guess I've milked this subject for all it's worth, so it's time to mooove on!    




    

Holidays Galore!

Chinese Lion Head

Before, Xmas Tree, Now, CNY Tree!

    Well, yesterday was Jan. 8 and the Catholic church next door seemed very reluctant to let Christmas disappear into memory.   They sang (with great gusto) one Christmas carol after another!  The most ironic was "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!"  Looking back, all over Penang, that seemed to be THE most popular of the Christmas songs.  Is it because it's not a religious song or maybe it's just wishful thinking, since many Malaysians have never seen the fluffy white stuff.  The congregation finished off with "We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a HAPPY NEW YEEEAAR !  


        Malaysians seem to really get into Chinese New Year, and all other holidays as well, though sometimes they get mixed up a bit, at least where Hubby works.  Above are their Lion Dance head and their transformed Christmas tree.


      Christmas in Penang was quite flashy, but Chinese New Year is even more so.  Everywhere you look, you see masses of red -- red lanterns, red trees, red cards, red everything.  And what isn't red, is pink--cherry blossom pink.  




          As for their multi-purpose manger scene. . . .?  Recently it became a Chinese New Year display -- just like that!   Remember that manger scene that changed every day or two?  Well, now it has become a Chinese New Year Manger.  (The original palm frond roof is covered with "ang pow", the little envelopes, usually red, that are used for giving money to others, especially during the Chinese New Year season.)

Once a manger scene, now a CNY display

    This year people get two days off for Chinese New Year -- Jan. 23 and 24th.  And there are another 2-3 holidays in early February--national days, Muslim and Hindu religious days and such.  Malaysians are fond of tacking their annual leave onto these days to create long strings of days off.  Good for them, but bad for their employers and  productivity in general. The paper said recently that "Malaysians enjoy over 50 national, school and state holidays a year."  This puts Malaysia among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of the number of public holidays.  Too bad I'm retired now and don't have to take advantage of them.  Anyway,


HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOOOOOOU !!!

Swimmin' in Penang -- Hotel Style

Foreign Maid at Work

    First, my apologies to friends and family in cold climes.  I'm NOT writing this to rub it in that Penang is tropical and the temps are around 88 degrees F. or about 31 degrees C. every day.  Honestly, I'm not!  It's just a fact of life and in this new year, I'm going to embrace it, not fight it.  My New Year's resolution is "Swim more, weigh less!"   So, I've been paying more attention to pools and swimmers than ever before.  


    We spent the New Year's holidays by "traveling" to the G Hotel, which is about a block and a half from our abode.  There are too many reasons to explain why we did such a silly thing, but one is that they've been doing ear-shattering renovations in the unit next to ours for about three weeks now. (Isn't there some sort of statute of limitations on how long they can subject us to noise-and-dust pollution?  Unfortunately, I guess not!)   Anyway, our "trip" to the G Hotel was partly sentimental and partly to escape the dust and constant jack-hammering  on the other side of our bedroom wall.  Instead, we exchanged it for ear-splitting New Year's Eve revelry from Gurney Plaza, 19 floors below our room.  How sound does travel when you're trying to sleep!)


    But back to swimming . . . . one thing you often see at hotel pools is extended families (usually Chinese) with a little foreign maid (or two) in attendance.  You can always recognize the maid because she's wearing what we used to call pedal pushers (short pants) and she has a towel wrapped around her neck, ready to dry off the child she cares for.  And her eyes are trained on that child at all times-- they never even flicker elsewhere.  When the family emerges from the pool, if the parents have even bothered to go in, they dry themselves off and the maid takes care of the child.  That's how the other half lives!

Lucky Girl-- or Lucky Boys?

       Speaking of  Chinese families, I didn't dare take a picture, but I watched a little boy and his young mother splashing around in the baby pool.  The lad was 3-4 years old, I guess.  Grandma was hovering at the side of the pool and every minute or so, she'd call the little fellow over and stuff a cookie into his mouth.  It never stopped--not until the whole packet was gone!   "Man-boobs" and childhood obesity can't be far behind!


    Also in the pool was a trio of Malaysian young people.  The gal was modestly covered from head to toe in what I presume to be Muslim swimming garb.  Only her hands were showing and maybe her bare feet.  The message I took away was that you don't have to expose 95% of your body at the pool to attract the fellows.  In fact, there might be something to this notion of "What you can't see is more interesting than what you can." 


    And until I manage to shed about half of my own body weight, that's going to be my motto, too!  Something along the lines of  "If it ain't pretty, then don't show it off at poolside."  Let's see. . . . where can I get some Malaysian Muslim swimwear that would fit a lady like me?