let lemons be angry

Another chinese new year, and a happy one. No photos, because with big clan families like mine, photos are a great feat of coordination, and we want to keep the number of cameras to a bare minimum. So we let the same uncles take photos. And all these years, believe you me, I have never seen the photos. But i think they would all look the same. We pose in the same places, in the same arrangements.

I love change and tradition equally. Much as I may groan with the cousins during the long chinese new year proceedings, it would be a pity if things changed. If we didn't stop by the aunties' houses to see them still in their pyjamas, cooking curry and sandwiches. If we didn't go to the jalan tuakong house in its original 1950s shape and sit around waiting for each other to arrive so dinner can begin. If we didn't play group games afterwards. If we didn't have fried nian gao and pineapple tarts (someday these things won't just appear in tupperware on the table; we'd have to make them to eat them!). If we didn't take huge group photos.