Not Just Another Pretty Face

Needless to say, I often ended up sick post-CNY due to overeating. T_T

It was also a time of lion dances at my grandparent's house, playing with fireworks with my cousins (before they were banned), happily eating fried prawns in batter with Del Monte tomato sauce (an essential family dish for reunion dinner) and watching in fascination when the adults gambled.

When I was a self-concious teenager, CNY was a time that I dreaded. It was a time when you have no choice but to visit houses of those yi ma ku cheh's that you meet only once a year and have them say, "Aiyo, you put on weight la, what has your mother been feeding you? Fei fei pak pak lo, ie literally, fat fat white white (doesn't an image of a white lobak pop into your mind?!)," or some other comment on your appearance along with what they think is a genial, benign smile but instead made me secretly yearn to punch their teeth out with my clenched fist as hard as I could. Instead, I usually pretended I didn't hear the comment and sank further into my protective cocoon of feigned oblivion, secretly nursing the wounds from their malicous comments.

In retrospect, their comments shouldn't really have mattered at all. But back then, they did. A lot more than I cared to admit to anyone.

This is also probably the reason why I always, since I started earning, make sure I look good during CNY and normally buy my new clothes way in advance. Perhaps, this is a subconsiously triggered self-confidence preservation mechanism.

When my grandfather was sick, CNY was a tense time. Tempers flared, moods were bleak and it seemed that a perpectual electric thunderstorm was raging outside my house. Without a hint at all that sunlight could penetrate the thick, black clouds and a rainbow would shine through. It was a time when I yearned to be anywhere else but home. I longed to return to the freedom and carefreeness of living on my own that I had already been given a taste of in college. And yet, I felt quietly guilty at being selfish. Outwardly, I remained an oasis of serenity and composure. But inwardly, I silently screamed cries for someone to help me comprehend the swirling turmoil of emotions welling up uncontrollably inside me and treatening to overwhelm my being.

When I was in Glasgow, CNY was great fun despite being miles away from home and the lack of festivities or public holidays. It was a time of home-cooked potluck meals, innovative rice-cooker-steamboat reunion dinners and an expensive 8-course dinner at Loong Foong a high-class Chinese restaurant along Sauchiehall Street. It was also the first time I experienced snow, falling feather-soft and quietly from the sky. A serenely happy time with still 6 months to go before graduation.

When I dyed my hair last CNY, I found myself thrust unwillingly to become the target of (well-meaning?) comments from relatives having never done something everyone deemed so radical and contrasting to my image before. It resulted in a huge quarrel with my mum over my "new la-la girl image" and a few sobbing midnight phone calls to friends that rather dampened the CNY cheer for me.

This year round, even as I haphazardly hurriedly pack my bags for my trip home to Ipoh, I await in trepidation of what lies in store for me in The Year of the Dog as a young, working professional.

In the least, I'm comforted by the thought that my mum cannot find any fault with my current hair colour- my natural dark brown shade. =D

GONG XI FATT CAI and a prosperous year ahead to all!!

posted by N.J.A.P.F. @ 9:07 PM