Back in action

for the time being.

Work:
I was extremely busy at work after taking on a new client in mid December last year. We had to put in a lot of time working with the new shareholder and director who had just taken over the company and was trying to weed out previous ties.

Chinese New Year
fell on 7 February this year. Tomorrow is the 15th day:

"Yuan Xiao - The Chinese Valentine's Day The 15th day is also being referred to as the Chinese Valentine's day. On this day, many single girls will gather at the riverside upstream to toss mandarin oranges into the river, with the hope that the right single men who await downstream, will pick up the oranges. It is believed that this act will bring the person to his/her right match. So it's no surprise the mandarin oranges will sell really well on that day.

Of course, Chinese who originated from different area of China might have different New Year tradition and practices. For instance, in Hong Kong, people believe that the first person who puts a joss stick into the temple's offering altar, will be having good luck for the rest of the year. You can imagine the crowd outside the temple at the dawn of the Lunar New Year. " (taken from here http://www.knowingfood.com/story/lunar_new_year.html)

In case anyone wants to know, we don't "seriously" throw oranges anymore.

American Idol Season 7-Men:
I think David Archuleta is just so good. Like what Simon said, "When you've got it, you've got it." He's so natural on stage and he's so young. He has a natural good singing voice but needs to work on his range. His low notes were a bit wobbly.

In the earlier round, I also liked David Cook and Michael Johns. I think Michael is pretty consistent but is feeling the pressure more now. He needs to have more confidence in himself to perform well. He can turn out to be very professional. I like David Cook's rocker voice and although he still sang well, he was not standing out much tonight.

I didn't manage to watch Jason Carlos in the preliminary but he sounds good in this round. We'll see how he goes from here.

Meme:
David M has tagged me for a game "Plans for 2008" http://dmascellani.livejournal.com/65391.html, which I shall be posting soon. Stay tune.

Mid-Autumn Festival

This year, Mid-Autumn Festival fell on September 25.

My mother who was a Buddhist up until about six years before her death, used to celebrate all Chinese festivals, minor or major. Since the rest of the family are Catholics we celebrated these festivals not with prayers to the Chinese Gods but with a gathering of all the family members having dinner together. We would have a small feast of fish, mixed vegetables, lotus root soup and the traditional steamed chicken. Of course, on Mid-Autumn day, we would have mooncake for desert, washed down with Chinese tea.

Since my mother's passing, my family now only celebrate major festivals like Chinese New Year and Winter Solstice which are cultural events rather than religious ones. My father's more incline towards western food and so missing a Chinese feast or two is no big deal to him. My mother was the one who planted my Chinese roots deep into the ground.

Well, to make up for the feast we did not have, we did eat many mooncakes before and on Mid-Autumn day.


Mid-Autumn Festival

Mid-Autumn Festival (wiki)

mooncakes

mooncakes