24 Feb 2013 – Chinese Valentine’s Day!

Happy Birthday to Bjørn, father to my youngest grandchild Olai, who is here car shopping for his father’s Bday present which worn him out!! Asleep safely with paternal grandfather, John.

Sun: 15 and final day of the CNY celebrations is known in the Hokkien dialect as chap goh mei/十五暝, the fifteenth night. Rice dumplings tangyuan/汤圆, a sweet glutinous rice ball brewed in a soup, are eaten this day. Like them only when filled with back sesame paste. Candles are lit outside houses as a way to guide wayward spirits home.

In SIN & Malaysia, this day is celebrated by individuals seeking for a love partner, Chinese version of Valentine’s Day! Normally, single women would write their contact number on mandarin oranges and throw it in a river or a lake while single men would collect them and eat the oranges. Sweet ones mean compatibility 🙂

Hitchcock****based on Stephen Rebello’s 1998 non-fiction book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho tracks how Hitchcock decides to make a horror movie. No studio wanted to finance him so he mortgage his house to make Psycho. The film centres on the relationship between Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren).

Being a big fan of Hitchcock, enjoyed this movie. Psycho is the best horror suspense movie ever made and directed.  Not a fan of horror movies but this one stuck in the memory, not for the horror but for the suspense.

The shower scene brought back memories from the early 1960s when I needed someone to sit by the bathroom door for a week after watching the movie! Also some unhappy memories, JFK assassination/1963, father flying off with mother to London where she underwent major surgery but returning to fight a painful losing battle to cancer.

Safe Haven**when Katie appears in small town Southport/NC, questions about her past were raised. She was determined to avoid people until a series of events draws her to Alex, a widower with two young children; and another with her single neighbour, Jo  As she falls in love, she struggles with the dark secret that still haunts and terrifies her.

With Jo’s support, Katie eventually realizes that she must choose a life of transient safety or one of riskier rewards. And I chose this ‘cheesy’ movie for the Carolinas low country landscape where I look forward to visiting again!

A bunch of teenagers sat in front and were giggling when ever the make-out scene appeared. Quite annoying but we were probably just as annoying, if not more when we were at that same stage 🙂 🙂 🙂

Sat: appreciations to nieces PatLynn & SueLynn for including me for their dinner at Guan Hoe Soon Restaurant*** where authentic Peranakan cuisine has been served since 1953 which makes this place the oldest nonya restaurant in SIN. 

This is talent with photography by Nick Selway…
Enjoy the last weekend to the CNY celebrations.
Seize the day or wave!

We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being – Hermann Hesse