back to the roots

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the longest-lasting Chinese traditions still being celebrated today. You wonder why someone would even blog about it, but here are my two cents' worth on this traditional festivity.

Take a walk along Clarke Quay recently and you'll find yourself surrounded by lights, music and people. And that is precisely the spirit of this Chinese tradition - a fun-filled gathering of people. You may well also read about the legend as you go along.

The story goes about Hou Yi, a tyrannical ruler who won the elixir of immortality for shooting 9 suns out of the sky with his bow. But his wife, Chang Er, knowing that the people's lives would remain miserable for all eternity if Hou Yi lived forever, drank the potion. The fluids made her lighter, and she floated up into the moon. Even today, Chinese like to think of the moon as home of Chang Er. Read...

So come the fifteen day of the eight lunar month, when the full moon hangs proudly up in the sky, all good friends and family gather. And how does it relate to the legend? Probably, people relate to legend to family or friends living abroad; being separated from their loved ones but reunited by one single moon.

Savour the cakes... with champagne

One of the reasons why such an ancient tradition still thrives in a modern world today is perhaps due to the blooming business from the mooncakes.

These traditional round cakes have a golden brown crust, a lotus-paste filling interior and sometimes coupled with one or two egg yolks in its centre.

The baked brown crust conventional mooncakes...

to the contemporary snow-skin mooncakes.

And they come with more flavours: the green tea paste, durian paste, yam paste... and ice cream mooncakes too. The hotel range of mooncakes: the mini snow skin moon cakes with champagne, rum, brandy or whisky filled truffles!

The traditional chinese tea is normally used to complement the traditional mooncakes, but with alcohol truffles mooncakes... perhaps we don't do that anymore.

You wonder how these piglet biscuits come about... but so do I. There are those in the shape of fish too... individually packaged in small plastic baskets, to symbolize fish being caught or piglets being bound for sale. Read...

From that to these... disney characters variety of the modern lot... we can't possibly cage them in a basket, can we?

And they don't taste exactly good as the good old piglets!

So there is every reason to get fat during this season, can we? Afterall, we can't turn down good dad and mum's kind intentions.

Come celebrate, my style

And who says we are too old for lanterns and candles?

Probably we can leave those battery-operated, lullaby-melody kitty, doraemon, ultraman lanterns for the babies, but why can't we go back to the roots and 'heat' things up with the traditional paper lanterns. Fire is, afterall, not child's play.

Most grew out of the playing with candles stage, except me. Being the youngest at home, I can't remember when it started... but sometimes, I am still stuck in the can't-grow-up and play-with-me shell. So one day, I happily grabbed my sisters and cousins along... to have my mini lighting parade, "灯笼会" as my dad called it.

We would light up our corridor with candles... like a nice alley with a sacred feel to it. So there you have it, my dad's potted plants "glorified" for a night. Of course, the intention of doing it indoors is to make it personal, homely, and also not to attract attention since we have well, passed that age. We still have neighbours' kids joining in once or twice due to curiosity. So this year, we did it right at 12 a.m.

As we grow older, ironically, the scale of our own celebration became smaller. We used to light up dad's 'tree' with paper lanterns, and there we have it... our very own lantern tree!

中秋节快乐！

big girls don't cry

big girls don't cry.

women or girls, we have that little girl in us. that little girl trying to grow up.

the little girl who throws tantrums. kicks up a fuss. gets jealous.

the little girl who hides herself in a corner to cry her heart out.

with every right to cry, just like a little girl.


everyone tells us that we have grown up.

we have to be sensible. be responsible.

no more crying.

that we gotta learn to pick ourselves up when we fall.

that we gotta learn to walk and stand up on our own.

that it's time to move on.


we all learn to put up a strong front even though our heart is bleeding.

we say we can do it. like all big girls now. like a woman, and sometimes like a man.


and when it's late at night, we ran to that tiny little corner in our room.

back to our little girl selves.

letting tears fall like noone else's business.

sobbing like a girl who has lost her precious toy.

wanting to hear all those tiny words of comfort said to a little girl who cries.

that it's alright. it'll be okay.

that it's okay to cry.


that little girl haunts us like a shadow, a phantom which appears only at night when there's noone watching. we let it out.


and when the sun rises the next day, the little girl disappears.

gone so suddenly.

like the way it came.


"you are still up so late at night... your little girl refuses to sleep?"

"I know. sometimes, she creeps out in the day too, doesn't she?"
"I shooed mine to sleep... no creeping out. not tonight."


Special dedication to all big girls:
we'll grow up, we know. slowly but surely. we don't know how long it'll take.
maybe 10 years or all our lives.
with that tiny little girl living in us, we try.

Big Girls Don't Cry - Fergie

I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to do with you
It's personal,
Myself and I
We've got some straightenin' out to do
And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But Ive got to get a move on with my life
Its time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry

The path that I'm walking
I must go alone
I must take the baby steps until I'm full grown
Fairytales don't always have a happy ending, do they
And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay...

But its time for me to go home
Its getting late, dark outside
I need to be with myself and center, clarity
Peace, Serenity ...

recipe of an apple crumble

Like any recipe, it takes effort to make a good crumble.

The chef's initial intention is to make the one eating it enjoy the whole dining experience.

A good chef notices when his diner looks unhappy and so, he intends to surprise creatively and drops a cheer-up note into the crumble.

Despite the chef's putting in heart and soul in making the dish to make him/her happy, the one eating it either says or does nothing which is très commun... or even at a point, questions the chef's intentions; accuses the chef of a food hazard or queries the chef why he would even poke his nose into his/her business.

The chef, of course, felt unappreciated.

One by one, they came, tasted and went away without a word.

The chef thought about himself and evaluated his own self-worth. Maybe, he wasn't cut to be a chef or a good chef. He saw no point in sharing his pleasure for cooking when there was no real audience.

So this is it, a world of unappreciative customers who have never paused to think or stop to wonder the effort put in and the intentions the maker himself has. And as a customer, did we take a moment to relish every single taste? Or did we give a pat on his shoulder when the chef has done well?

A good recipe is only valued if it is reciprocal; the chef who puts in his heart and soul, and the customer who appreciates and keeps coming back as a way of supporting the maker.

The job of the chef is tough, as like reality, but he continues to cook b'cos of his passion to serve and to delight others.


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There are no echoes in the mountains but ripples slowly disappearing into the waters.

cloudy sky

talk about drastic weather changes
i look through the glass panels surrounding me
the sky is barely blue today
blanketed by the white cottony clouds
some say
its just a cloudy day
think about recent news
listen
what the world is telling us
that the weather changes are real
they are happening now
but why has it been fallen on deaf ears
why do we live like we have a thousand more years

big big world

I have been hanging out with the crowd for too long,

I had since forgotten what it feels like to be on my own...

to be away from others,

to lose sight of myself in the middle of the streets,

to hear my own breathing, heartbeat and deep sighing,

to feel my own lonely existence with no contact with the outside world.

It is almost like I'm all alone in a foreign country. Yet feeling even more strange, lost and unfamiliar. How weird it it to feel that way right in a place we knew and called our home.

To feel so distant from those things you thought to be the dearest to you.


I have always been alone.


Feeling so small in a world so big.


In the Jukebox: Big Big World by Emilia

an anecdote

Some days ago, I was waiting for the lift when I saw my low-profile neighbours. The young daughter was narrating her school-time stories to her mum. To my horror, I overheard something that her mum said, "you can't trust your friends, they only want to get something out of you."

I was disgusted at her words. It struck me that I was fortunate that the person wasn't my mum; that I wasn't taught to think like that when I was young.

"How can anyone be taught not to trust," I thought. That is a horrible thing to do.

I looked at the child. She is young, naive and kind-hearted.

I hope she realised her mum is not always right; that we have to trust.