Why you didn't Call me?

I don't know if this happens in other cultures? For us Chinese, we were taught from young to 'call' an older person (ie : grandparents or aunties, uncles) when we see them.

"Call' here is to acknowledge and greet the presence of a person of higher status.

For example, when we go to my grandma's house, the young children have to be first to greet the older folks : "Por-Por", "Kung-Kung", "Ah-Yi" etc. Woe to the child who forgot to call, or if the greeting was not heard!

Our parents will get "How come your girl don't know how to call ah? You never teach ah?" (There are many variation to the admonishment!) I used to feel very angry, especially when I did call/greet/acknowledge the elders, but they didn't hear me because they were playing mahjong or chit-chatting. And when we were kids, "Children are to be seen, and not heard" was still the norm.

Now that we are parents ourselves, we passed on this practice to our children. History does repeat itself. Now it's us who gets the "You young generation don't know how to teach your children to call."

I'll always remind my kids: "Hey, call Por-por ah"
Or when an aunt walks: in "Kids, call Ah-Yi"

Today, my uncle said to Jeremy "Hey boy, you  didn't call me ah?"

Jeremy ignored him, and of course I tried to 'teach him his manners' :
"Jeremy, you didn't call Kau-Kung? You must call you know."

Jeremy sulkily replied "I got call! He is the one who didn't call me back!"

Yee Sang and Wikipedia

One of my constant readers wants me to set the record straight. She cannot believe that the Chinese New Year 'Yee Sang' originates from Singapore as reported in : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusheng.

She went on to further inform me not to believe everything I read in wikipedia!

It did occur to me before that since anyone can contribute and edit anything on wikipedia, some jokers could have purposely mislead those seeking information on the WWW. (err.... my own son depended heavily on Wikipedia for his researches!!)

So... coming back to Yee Sang. According to many people this practice of tossing of the Yee Sang is relatively new and is a KL-Cantonese invention/practice. Which could be true, for I certainly can't remember having yee-sang when I was a kid [and I was a kid not too long ago! :-D ]

I tried searching the web about it. Can't find much relevant info. Most mentioned something about how raw fish was usually served on the 7th day of CNY to commemorate the goddess Nu Wa created humankind on the 7th day (RenRi) I didn't know that!

 

So... did the modern Yee Sang originates from Singapore as claimed by Wikipedia? Or the person who wrote that had no idea that this Yee Sang has long been enjoyed here in KL.

 

Anyway ... whoever created the Yee Sang  thank you!! I really love this dish, especially the one served at Aoyama Restaurant in Sri Hartamas. My Sis took us there several years ago, and since thn, it's been our yearly ritual to gather around the plate of delicious sashimi - Yee Sang style. Y-U-M-M-Y !!!!!

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Chinese New Year

It's been a sweltering hot Chinese New Year.

It seems hotter than the previous CNY. Every year is hotter than the last. Global warming? Yar, that's what everyone's telling me.


Chinese New Year is quite different this year. Found myself blinking back tears many times, missing my Pa. Time has moved on. Yes, it gets easier, but sill missing him......

I had a great time going for get-togethers with family and friends. As on any festivity, we EAT, EAT and EAT some more!

Ate Yee Sang 7 times already this year!!  (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusheng, this practice started in Singapore)

This is the 'Must Have' during Chinese New Year.

The sumptious 8 course Chinese Dinner is as usual too much. Too much rich, meaty food and not enough vegetables.

   Gathering my courage, I stepped on the weighing scales!!!! OMG!!!!

 
 


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14 Feb 2010

Certainly very auspicious :

It's

and

and

What to give him?

Delete the Grass

Jeremy and Jo were helpimg me do gardening. So much fun getting our hands dirty!

I told Jeremy to dig a big, big hole so that we could plant a tree. Initially Jeremy couldn't make a hole as the ground was covered with grass.

"Can you please delete some grass?" he asked.

Someone is playing way too much Farmville !!






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Home Schooling

I found out about Homeschooling in 2005. The concept intrigued me, and I've been researching it since then.

Going against the educational norm is scary. However, the rapidly-deteriorating public school system made it easy for us to made the decision to 'Homeschool' Damian when he finishes UPSR (Year 6, primary school).

Of course there are many good teachers in our public schools, but the numbers of ineffective, non-performing teachers are even higher. My kids have been subjected to veiled sarcastic remarks regarding their intelligence and they have learnt that the colour of their skin is a factor in many things. (We have always stressed the importance of respecting other races, but they have starting questioning how come a certain race do not reciprocate?)

And it's a well-known fact that teachers who are supposed to teach Maths and Science in English could barely speak the language themselves!! (Well... since the government has decided to revert the teaching of Maths and science in BM, and thus setting our country back by at least another 50 years, this issue of teachers not being able to converse in English is solved!!! hahaha)

So.... homeschooling. And why did we wait until Damian is 13? We just wanted him to experience 'normal' public school life. Yes, he learnt a lot and did very well... and that's largely due to the fact that he's a good student and like studying. But when he did the placement test, his score is that of a 11 year old or Grade 5.

So he has to to start Grade 6 in Jan 2010 (altho he should be Grade 7!) Being the competitive boy he is, Damian is certainly not happy to be placed in Grade 6. The beauty of this homeschooling program is that you can go at your own pace. You can be faster or slower according to your capabilities. There's a 14 year old who's in Grade 3, and a 12 year old already in Grade 8!!

Damian plans to finish Grade 6 by April and then start Grade 7 (his actual Grade). And then he'll aim for Grade 8 by the end of the year. How's that for goal setting?

He's doing the Alpha Omega Program : 5 subjects:
Language Arts (English),
Maths,
Science,
History and Geography and
Bible Knowledge

All the topics are so interesting. They study World History & Geography as opposed to just Kajian Tempatan or Tamadun Islam ( and make 'Katak di bawah Tempurung' of us all).

Homeschooling takes many forms. One is to keep the child at home with parental guidance and marking of work, self-tests and assessments. This way is not for me la. Anyway Damian likes social interaction.

The other one is to send the child to a 'center', where 'supervisors' guide and mark the work done. There's no actual blackboard teaching involved. Anytime the child does not understand the material, he can ask the supervisor for help and explaination. Damian's school has around 80 students from Grade 1 to Grade 12. He's able to make some friends (of different ages). This center also has an 'Sports Day' once a week, extra activities like 'Show and Tell', craftwork and camps.

It's been 6 weeks since school started, and Damian is enjoying himself. He does have to get use to not having 300 other same-age students around in a crowded school of more than 1000 people. He does have to get use to not having school-politics, public peer-presures and disgruntled teachers, but learning is so much more fun now.


Read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling
http://homeschooljewel.com/blog/2009/11/homeschoolers-and-self-directed-learning/
http://gracehomeschooling.blogspot.com/ (damian is not in this school, but the curiculum is the same)



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My Kids are Great

Havent posted anything new for so long coz I was at a Training in Singapore last week. Just got back on Monday, then the internet was down. Ok, I'm back online now.

Came home to this :

Sweet eh? I should go away more often :-P

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