Tag: chinese culture

The Hokkiens Are Having A Blast

It is called the Hokkien New Year in Melaka where the Hokkiens arrived some 500 or 600 years ago. The Pai Ti Kong tradition lives on. It will be a blast midnight tonight. Keep your pets indoor.

Tonight, the Hokkiens will set off enough firecrackers and fireworks to make the world think North Korea launched some nuclear weapons. It’s the ‘coming out from hiding in sugar cane plantation” syndrome.
Don’t let your cats and dogs out tonight as they may be bewildered and wander off until lost.

A girl waiting for the apex of the Pai Ti Kong Festival. At midnight, there’ll be a bonfire of joss paper and firecrackers to celebrate the Jade Emperor God’s birthday. In the meantime, three giant joss sticks
burn in front of a table laden with food and fruits. The home offerings were flanked by two tall sugar cane stalks.

Olympus OM-D, ISO 500, f1.4, 1/60 sec.

#paitikong #hokkien #fujian #culture #melaka #tradition #history #malacca #chinesefestival #taoism

That Face You Make

While rummaging through the old photos of Lap Chun from last year, I found some unpublished ones.

One of the monkeys who grabbed a balancing egg from me discovered raw egg is hard to swallow. The face one may make at the mamak when the “sentengah masak” (half-boiled) eggs are too raw.

The old world monkeys or macaques are mischievous and aggressive. Be careful around them as some may run off with your camera bag. This one eventually crouch forward and licked the spilled egg yolk clean.

Sony A7R, ISO 2500, f9, 1/250

#lapchun #lichun #monkeys #egg

Understanding The Chinese Psyche

It is a Hokkien (Fujian dialect) term you will hear a lot during Chinese New Year. It goes with the Chinese obsession with prosperity and luck in the form of riches via a windfall. Chinese folks like to gamble, be it at home card games, on mahjong tables or at casinos. So “huat” is like a clarion call and a good luck greeting.

It is not exclusive to Chinese New Year, though. I remember when the deities at the Nine Emperor Gods festival were paraded, every joss stick toting devotee was shouting “Huat Ah!” at the top of their lungs. So was the crowd when the ominous looking Hell Keeper’s deity was lifted for burning during Por Tor or the climax of the Hungry Ghost month.
Huat means ‘to prosper’ as in Fatt in Cantonese. So Huat Ah!

Sony A7R, ISO 160, f4, 1/250 sec

#culture #custom #chinese #hokkien #fujian #huat #prosper #neg #twilight #sunset

Dongzhi 2016

The soup or syrup turned cloudy when I stirred it. Greenish contamination from the natural pandan (screwpine) colouring, I wanted to add Ribena cordial to it. In the end, I went with my mom’s suggestion of adding Nescafe and evaporated milk.

Happy Winter Solstice 2016 today. Also known as the Dōngzhì Festival or Tang Chuek or Kor Tung in Chinese culture.

Panasonic Lumix GM-1, ISO 200, f6.3, 1/160 sec.

#foodphototography #dongzhi #tangyuan #chinesefestival #chineseculture #wintersolstice #lumix

Nine Emperor Gods Festival Procession In Jinjang – Part 6

For a moment, I thought it was my friend Emily Lowe. The Ipoh journalist and Ipoh-centric blogger is also the webmaster of the Nine Empeor Gods’ Kew Ong Tai Tay Temple in Ipoh.

Jeez! What are the requirements for a webmaster these days? As it turned out, it wasn’t Emily for she is fearful of a pin prick.

Funny thing is that I was playing with her metal spike laid out on a table earlier. Surprised they didn’t do any form of sterilization except to pour liberal doses of cold water when the spikes, knives and spears are inserted into the cheek. Anybody knows why cold water is used, except maybe to numb the skin?

The original Ampang Temple is like a modern day Mega Church. Apart from donations and other forms of temple tax, everything from parking to hawker space is monetized.

I have been writing about this unusual mix of religion and commerce for years. Their mega success in becoming a mega cash cow inspired many similarly-themed temples in many other towns and areas.

Think of the original temple as the popular Line Clear and Nasi Vanggey nasi kandar restauants. They spawned many unofficial and unsanctioned outlets elsewhere, all hoping to cash in.

It is not an easy act to follow though. The Ampang temple plough back some of their revenue into charitable acts such as a public kidney dialysis centre, old folk homes and donations to schools.

Sony Alpha a7R, ISO 2500, f4, 1/80 sec.