Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year, or the lunar new year, is a huge celebration in Singapore, lasting for two weeks.  This year it began on Sunday, February 10.  Before the new year begins, you see the signs of it all over Singapore.

Countdown to the new year in a grocery store

Above the guy's head are the number of days, hours, minutes,
and seconds until the new year begins.

This year is "the year of the snake," and this snake was at the Singapore Zoo.

A snake above the street in Chinatown

When Chinese New Year begins, so do the "visitations."  People have "reunion dinners" where they get together with family; and friends and church people visit each other throughout the two weeks as well.  Wherever you go, you bring two oranges with you to give to the host--and the host gives you two oranges in exchange.  Another thing you bring are "ang pow," or red packets.  Inside these envelopes are money, ranging from a few dollars for friends to higher amounts for close family.  These are given by married couples to single people and children.  So when we went visiting, our kids would receive red packets, and my husband and I would hand them out.

Ang pow

We were happy to be able to share our first Chinese New Year experience with our friend Jeff Kotman!  We were invited to the homes of a couple families from church.  At the first home, dinner began with the mixing of a Chinese salad.  After all the ingredients were ready (first picture below), we were all given big chopsticks and mixed the salad together (second picture).  We attended this dinner with another family from church, and some friends of the family who hosted us.

The meal

The people with whom we shared our first Chinese New Year dinner

At the second home we went to, we sang some Chinese songs.  The tunes were unfamiliar, and so were the words, even if they were written out for us in regular letters (as opposed to Chinese characters), but we tried to sing them anyway. :-)

Angela and Yoon Chuan explaining the meaning of the words before we sang

On Saturday, February 16, the church had its own Chinese New Year visitation.  Members were invited to one of two homes, and then all met together at church afterwards.  As with Christmas caroling, this is used as a method of evangelism, so that those who host the visitation can have their unchurched family members present.  At the house we went to, we sang, shared some food, and heard an "exhortation" by my husband.  He gave a different speech at church, where we also sang a few songs and then had lunch together.

When we were leaving church, the following sight met our eyes.  It was accompanied with loud music, similar to what I heard when I was home from church the next day...trying to listen to the P.R. Psalm Choir, which was very much drowned out! :-)

At midnight that same Sunday night, we started smelling smoke.  Around each building here there are barrels used for burning offerings to ancestors.  Those who practice this type of idolatry believe that anything they burn here will go to their ancestors in the afterlife.  So they burn paper cars, paper iPads, paper houses, paper servants, you name it--and they believe their relative receives the reality of those things in the afterlife. When we started smelling smoke on Sunday, we looked outside, and the burn barrels were surrounded by people, with the fires roaring.  This time, instead of ancestor worshipers, it was some Hokkien people (a particular Chinese ethnic group), who use the ninth day of the new year to burn offerings, especially sugarcane, to their god, the Jade Emperor of Heaven. We had to shut our windows, because the smoke made our flat hazy inside, and when my husband went for a walk the next day, he saw many piles of ashes.

A couple of other random notes about Chinese New Year:  First, it is a time for buying new things.  People will clean their houses well, and buy new household supplies as well as a lot of new clothing.  Secondly, a popular food during Chinese New Year is bak kwa.  I've heard that bak kwa is eaten year round but is more expensive during Chinese New Year because it is so popular at that time.  It tastes quite a bit like bacon, except it's "chewier," and it really is good!

So we have experienced our first Chinese New Year.  I was told today that in the seventh month of this lunar year, the above-mentioned burn barrels will again be in full use, because that is the month that "ghosts" come back, and those who worship their ancestors have to keep the ghosts away, or at least make them happy.  There are performances held, where the front row of seating is left open so the ghosts can sit there; and people are afraid to let their kids go swimming because the ghosts might do something to them.  It seems we have a lot to learn yet while we live here!

Junction 8

A couple posts ago I told you about our neighborhood.  We can get some groceries right in our neighborhood, but for most things I go to the nearest mall, Junction 8 (or "J8"). Junction 8 is a mall four stories tall, plus a basement, and in and around it are many fast food restaurants, coffee shops, the post office, some banks, the library, three grocery stores, the nearest bus interchange, and the nearest MRT (train) station.

To get there we first walk for maybe five minutes to the bus stop.  The covered area a little ways up the street here is our bus stop.  Three different buses stop here, and all of them end up at the Junction 8 bus interchange only two stops later, so we can get on any of them.

The next couple pictures show the bus interchange.  There is a drop-off area ("alighting only"), and then the buses drive to the center of the interchange and park until it's time to start their next route.  The second picture shows where we wait for the buses to take us home.  There are three pick-up areas like this, with three buses coming to each one.  You "queue" between the railings marked for the bus you are waiting for.  For example, Bus 54 has its own line, Bus 410G has its own, and Bus 56 has its own.  Those are the three that will take us closest to home.  There are screens telling us which bus will be leaving at which time, so we can choose the one coming the soonest and get in line for that one.

The following picture shows the Bishan Library, right across the street from Junction 8.  It is four stories tall, plus the basement.  The basement level is entirely dedicated to kids' books, so we have a great selection!  We miss some of the books we were used to, but there are many like we would find in our U.S. libraries, and the kids still have plenty to read!  The yellow, blue, and green "boxes" sticking out from the building are little reading areas where people can sit to study or read.  We usually only go to the basement, but the few times we've gone to other levels, the kids love to sit in those windows and read!

The first two pictures below were taken right outside the bus interchange.  Everywhere there are idols!  The third picture below was taken in the parking garage of J8.  We found a parking spot one day in the corner of the lowest level--and in that corner was an offering left to some ancestor or god.  We shouldn't be surprised anymore, but somehow we still were!

Of the three grocery stores, I usually shop at the one right inside the mall, on the basement level.  It is the busiest, which I don't like so much, but it also has the best selection of food.  It can be very difficult to find some foods here, so I need all the selection I can get! :-)  One of the other stores is open to the outside, as you can see in the picture below.  I post this because this is quite typical of things in Singapore.  They don't have to worry about cold weather, and the awnings outside are big enough to protect the stores from the rain.  The second picture shows some of the fish selection in one of the stores.

A few weeks ago the kids and I were shopping on the third floor of the mall and found this playground. It was called the "Roof Garden," and I wish I had better pictures of the garden itself.  It was beautiful!  We just went through a little doorway out of the mall, and the kids had a great break from shopping for a little while!

When it is time to go home, we wait for one of the buses and take it two stops until we are close to our building.  We are carrying our purchases in a backpack or on the stroller handles.  The first picture below I took from our bus stop going home.  Our flat is in the building behind the farthest building in the distance, straight ahead.  So you have some idea of how far we have to walk.  I think it looks worse than it really is...either that, or we are just used to it!

Finally, here are a few pictures of one of the stores preparing for Chinese New Year.  That is going on right now and will be the subject of my next post, Lord willing!

A Wedding

This past Saturday our church celebrated a very special event:  the wedding of Paul Liu and Anthea Lin, both members of CERC.  After only one wedding I still have a lot to learn about Chinese weddings, but I thought I would share a little bit of what I have learned, and some pictures.

The wedding day begins early for the wedding party.  The groom goes to the bride's house (Paul got there at 7:15 a.m.), where her bridesmaids are waiting to let him in.  However, he is not allowed in until he has completed certain "tasks," which might include eating strange foods, juggling, or whatever else.  Once he has completed all those tasks, he is allowed to see the bride.

The following picture (isn't it BEAUTIFUL?!) was right outside the door of church when we arrived.  I wondered how that could be! Someone told me that a couple months before the wedding, the couple gets together, dressed for their wedding day, and has a big photo shoot.

Our Megan was asked to be a flower girl in this wedding, along with another little girl named Dazzire.  She was very nervous beforehand but did a great job and had a good time!  

The bride does not come to church until the wedding is ready to begin.  The attendants and groom were already at the front of church, along with my husband, who sat down at the front probably 20 minutes before the wedding began.  He was supposed to be with an emcee, but that man got sick on the day of the wedding, so my husband did the whole thing himself.  That, of course, is normal in the U.S., but here there are additional parts to the ceremony that the emcee normally would have done.

When the bride had arrived and was ready to go, my husband announced something like, "Will everyone please arise for the glorious entrance of the bride."  We all stood up as the pageboy (ringbearer), flower girls, maid of honor, and the bride and her father walked down the aisle.  The bride came a bit after the others, but with the same music and not completely on her own like in U.S. weddings.

The "pageboy" is the groom's brother, Given.

We have the giving away of the bride at that point, but in this wedding it was later.  In the middle of the ceremony the question was asked, "Who gives this woman to this man in marriage?" and the father raised his hand.

During the ceremony they had the signing of the marriage license.  In the U.S. this is done with the best man and maid of honor as the official witnesses of the wedding.  Here it is usually the parents, especially the fathers.  However, because Pastor Lau has been in the hospital for several weeks, including on the wedding day, the mothers signed the marriage license.  (The difference in last name between Pastor Lau and his son Paul Liu has something to do with the Chinese characters that make up that name.)  The pastor of First Evangelical Reformed Church, Pastor Chong Nam Tuck, had to sign this license and pronounce the couple husband and wife, as my husband is still not licensed by the government to perform marriages in Singapore.  I believe there are two months out of the year that he can request this and receive his license from the government.

After the recessional, the couple immediately re-entered the sanctuary, being introduced as "Mr. & Mrs. Paul Liu" and warmly welcomed by the audience.  Then the marriage form was finished, another song was sung by the audience, the youth of CERC sang a song, and the couple gave speeches of thanks.

Following the ceremony there were a number of pictures taken of the couple with different groups of people: his family, her family, their parents' friends and colleagues, his friends, her friends, people from Covenant ERC, people from First ERC, and people from other churches.  After pictures there was a luncheon at church.  From the way it was set up I was guessing it was similar to our wedding receptions, but I can't say, because I had left for the airport to pick up our friend Jeff Kotman!

Besides that luncheon, there is a big wedding dinner at night.  This is typically an 8-10 course meal, served with much fanfare.  It really was neat to watch the servers come out to serve the first course, with all the lights off, music playing loudly, and a colorful little light blinking on each tray of food as the servers arranged themselves all around the room.  Each course is placed in the center of the table, and the 8-10 people at that table all reach in with their chopsticks to take whatever food they want.

The above picture shows the first course, which included a number of small things.  Most had long names, so I won't repeat them all here, but the little squares were some delicious pork; clockwise from that is "marinated sea blubber" (jellyfish), "roasted suckling piglet sliced crackling skin," and a chilled scallops with fresh fruit combination.  Somewhere in there is spicy cold chicken too.

The second course--scallops and cuttlefish with greens in chili sauce

(Oh, sure, and someone is digging in with a spoon after I told you we used chopsticks! :-) )

The fifth course--deep-fried fish

The wedding was a major event in the life of the congregation.  We were glad we could experience it with them.  We wish the couple God's richest blessings on their marriage!