CNY

Happy Chinese New Year to everybody. Yet my disappointment, this year's CNY has not been an exception, the celebration atmosphere and the spirit of gaity have been slipping away, largely due to the stagnant Malaysian economy and the ban on firecrackers. Nevertheless, CNY has never failed to be unforgettable, just like the 3a.m. firecrackers that woke me up for 4 straight night. They arte illegal, of course.

CNY was all routine to me, spring cleaning, bake cookies, decorate, pray and have the all important reunion dinner on New Year's Eve, but the fun started at the first day of CNY, when, after all the painstaking spring cleaning for the last few days, i still miraculously woke up at 8, but i did a stupid thing by wishing my father by saying, "PaPa, Happy CHINESE New Year".

Like a wily fox that he always is, he said," Son, being a Chinese, we don't wish another Chinese a Happy Chinese New Year, We wishes Him/her Happy New Year, stupid."

OUCH!

How can i forget such a new year!!!!What a way to kick stat my new year.

Which partially explains why my neighbour's house nearly caught fire.

My neighbour is a good man A successful young man at his 30's, he is polite and steadfast in Chinese cultures and traditions, which to me is a pluspoint. The tragedy struck when after praying to the Tian Gong on 2 make wooden table as a makeshift altar in the morning, with all the incense, josssticks and stuffs, my neighbour and his family left their house unattended. I didn't see it but base on my analysis and experience, he must have placed his incense too deep into the bronze urn, which can result smouldering of the incense stick, much like a peat fire. It orcurs when the part of the incense that was meant to be burned got underneath the ash in the urn, so the spark of fire on top of the top end of the incense will finally make its way underneath the ash, generating enough heat to start a smoulder.As the urn was bronze, and there were a lot of burn materials (especially taking note of my neighbour's amount of josssticks and incense used when he was ushering the god of wealth) , the urn acted like an iron, and the heat finally consume the tables. It causes much smoke due to incomplete combustion(lack of oxygen causes carbon monoxide) but nobody realises it except us because he had just built a large gate that block all visibility of the front compound from the outside, so most of my neighbours probably thought some devoted nutcase been praying for 4D numbers.

The fire could have gotten much worse if my father didn't douse the fire in time.

Therefore, I urge people to be more careful when you pray. For instance, you can place a tile or glass in between the urn and the table, or use a ceremic urn instead of bronze as it doesn't conduct heat that much. Or else, you can also renovate your house and build more neighbour-friendly-cum-burglar-friendly gates and fences so that other people will always have a clue on what you are doing.

Then, on the 4th day of CNY, I went out for a movie with Wen Sern, Zentrox and Jeff. We watched Fearless in Berjaya Times Square. It is a very nice movie, pretty original storyline, and highly recommended if you ever is a Chinese. The whole KL was so traffic free that we took a taxi. Zentrox's sole came off from one of his sandal and all of us was glad to repair it for him with a cellotape, ala-mummy style.