Fishy Blessing

Xing Nien Kuai Le... Nien Nien You Yue!!!

The second statement is something new I picked up from a sermon I heard in my hometown church during the CNY. Allow me to share an excerpt with you: In all your years may you always have "more than enough" in abundance of blessing!!! The interplay of words for the "Yue" or Fish should be of significance to us as Christians because Fish essentially signifies Christianity (since the time of the early Christians). Plus Fish is also significant because we are called to be Fishers of Men. And if you take the greek word for Fish which is "Ichthus", it's actually an anagram for greek "Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter" which translated to English means "Jesus Christ the Son of God, Saviour". So "Nien Nien You Yue" also means "May every year, you have Jesus Christ the Son of God, Saviour". Cool eh? So during CNY I went round greeting everyone with "Nien Nien You Yue" which has a double and more significant meaning now to me.

As you probably guess, we had a great time with family and friends over the hols and a good shopping spree in KL after we left KK. It has been an eventful CNY because actually just before CNY, my grandad (my dad's dad) passed away peacefully in his sleep. So our family was generally a little more emotional and reflective than usual this time. (I didn't get to attend the funeral, though). Being Christians, we didn't really let all the pantang stuff get in the way of celebrations. So we gave out ang pow as usual. Only change is that my mom moved the dates of the open house later so it's not so close to the funeral day (2nd day instead of 1st day). So part of our family dialogue revolved around death and beyond. Which was surprisingly refreshing.

(I write my thoughts on my grandad in a separate entry later)

I really do enjoy the entire CNY chink-chonk thing.... even though I am a complete BANANA... the whole RED deco, the tong-chiang music, and the FOOD, glorious food. The food alone is enough to make anyone want to switch races to become Chinese. It's better than the big deal ang-moh's make at Christmas (in my humble opinion of course). I thought I might have been just happy because of the ang-pows, but now that I cam pass the ang-pow receiving stage I know now for sure that it has a deeper meaning than that. And how can you resist everyone greeting you with good wishes of weath, health, plumpness and good fortune to each other. My next project will be to learn how to say all those tacky Chinese good wishes and greetings.... which will be especially useful at those Lou-Sang or Yee-Sang sessions. I must expand my vocab beyond just "Gong Xi Fa Cai..."(...Hong Pau Na Lai, I can't say the latter any more now).

OK, post-CNY celebratons: I shall mention a few words on the spoils from my shopping spree in KL... I won't mention MH's stuff which is mainly computer, hardware and tools stuff... but for me I was especially pleased with 2 new pairs shoes I got at NOSE which is a new shoe shop I highly recommend. Great selection and price is reasonable. I almost bought 3, but I decided to reign myself in. One pair was pretty yellow sandals which was similar to the one Sarah Jessica Parker wore on the episode that Miranda gave birth to her baby boy (the one which Miranda's water broke and spilled all over... yup, that one). The other were purple velvet wedged heels. Both pretty. I also bought 1 symetric cut blouse from a new local Malaysian designer Donna C @ Sungei Wang. 2 more blouses from French Blues @ Sunway. 1 M.A.C. lipliner in their bestseller colour "Spice". I also got a haircut which set me back RM100 from "A Cut Above" salon @ Sunway. I almost regretted doing it as I watched my lovely mane being harvested, but hubby said it looked real cute and chic, so I decided I would believe him on this.

Sadly, I was not able to go as crazy in my shopping in Singapore as we were tied up with cafe business (which was perfectly fine as well as I love working with this business). But I did manage to buy one B/W vintage print dress from Zara @ Orchard and a pair of tweed fabric shoes from Charles & Keith (I love Charles & Keith, they never disappoint me).

Unfortunately, we didn't take many photos this time round. But I will post whatever I have as soon as I can.