Gong Xi Fa Cai

...or in other words, Happy Chinese New Year (more literally wishing you prosperity in the new year)! January 26 and 27 brought in the Chinese New Year and with it some new experiences for us. Every night, and even through the days, there are firecrackers and fireworks going off - never mind that they are illegal! Last night there was a party at our apartment and there were fireworks going off right outside our window! Many people here find that they have difficulty sleeping during CNY because of the fireworks, but we haven't found it to be much of a problem - perhaps because we're up so high.

Chinese New Year's dinner with some new friends. The Khoo family hosted both us and another family relatively new to Penang. Kim went all out in preparing an authentic Chinese dinner for us - appetizers of chicken wings and spring rolls, main dishes of fried rice with shrimp, a noodle salad with many kinds of seafood and a special breaded scallops dish. Dessert was a molded tapioca pudding with syrup and coconut milk...very good!


We happened to be at this dinner on Bob's birthday, so when Kim found out she pulled together a birthday cake for Bob and we all sang - badly - for him!

This is the Khoo family, including their little dog Buddy who had on his Chinese New Year outfit!



All the Chinese children love the tradition called 'ang pow' - literally, red envelope. It is custom for married people to give unmarried people a red envelope containing money for CNY. So Josh and Rachel were given envelopes by the Khoo's as we left their home - kind of a fun thing for them!!

So, that was our first CNY experience. Not that it's over, though. CNY goes on for weeks, with different days having different significances for different groups, so we are sure to continue hearing the firecrackers for a while yet! While we were out this afternoon we saw a dragon dance happening in one restaurant. The Chinese take off many days from work for this celebration, so many places are still closed. The longer you can stay closed, the more wealthy you are deemed to be, so there are still many NOT open-for-business places today.

That's all for this time!

Karin


Comments

Unknown said…
Karin,

Great posts. It is great to be able to experience your adventure through your postings.

God bless you all as you journey by His lead.

Brad
January 29, 2009 at 6:55 AM
Anda said…
That is pretty great experiencing Chinese New Years in Penang. Josh and Rachel seem to be fitting in well and enjoying the culture.

you are all in my Prayers and I look forward to hearing more and more about your adventures, and the journey God has you on.

From what I can see, their has been a lot of answered prayer and thanksgiving.

May God continue to bless you and your family. Thank you for obeying and honoring him.
February 2, 2009 at 8:50 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hike to Turtle Beach ( and just a little side note to say that Rachel is the Best!!!)

Image
(and just a little side note to say that Rachel loves to hijack other people's blogs!) On the morning of Good Friday we joined some new friends (Lisa and her children Julia and Daniel) for a hike to Turtle Beach. As is every day, it was hot, but we all enjoyed it a lot. Entering the park - the 'office' took our names and information like they do for all who take this hike. Good to know someone will come looking for you if you don't come back!! Not all of the hike was a nice paved path like this though! This picture is sideways - sorry! The incredibly tall and straight trees in the jungle were amazing. Isn't this tree so cool? It looks like the camouflage clothes you can buy - but it's courtesy of the Master Designer Himself!! We saw them all along the path. We stopped in one steep part to get a picture - we're pretty hot and sweaty by this time! Hanging bridge with the ocean on the right and a freshwater lake (though it was pretty dried up) on the left. Josh...
Read more

Penang Skies

Image
We get such beautiful skies here in Penang and I wanted to give you a glimpse of some of them.... Sunrises are so beautiful - our camera is full of them! Sunsets too - WOW! God's creative beauty is amazing! And we love watching the storms roll in. The texture of the water changes and from our 16th floor apartment we can almost see the wall of rain as it comes our way. We're into the rainy season now (some say, anyway) so we're having rain nearly every day. I am very much appreciating how it cools the air down, even a little bit. From beautiful Penang! Karin
Read more

Settling into life in Penang

Image
Well, it's been two weeks since we arrived and we are beginning to feel somewhat settled. Many have requested photos and asked questions so I hope that this post will give you a feel for our journey so far. We arrived at Calgary International Airport on January 6 at 4:30 pm. We checked our 10 bags in with no problems and then spent some time with friends and families who had come to see us off. THANK YOU to all our loved ones who came to see us off. There were many tears, but it meant so much to us that you all made the time to come. (We're also so thankful to those who helped us in so many ways the last few days - hosting us in their home, running last minute errands, taking responsibility for some 'stuff' we had to get out of our house...it seemed that the list of final jobs would never end!) Our total flight time was somewhere around 30 hours and all four of our flights went as planned. We were so grateful that the two longest flights were fairly empty; we all got a ...
Read more