Happy Chinese New Year 2008

Happy New Year to all! May u have a good rat year ahead!


This year is the start of a new year in the Chinese Zodiac Calendar and the humble beginnings of the Rat Race; where our clever little rodent friend emerged first amongst 11 other stronger competitors in the famous animal race. This probably answers to the rat race n paper chase of the working society. Well, brain is mightier than brawns =)

This year, I went to the night market earlier on the night of 29th(as according to the chinese calendar and markets now close on the 30th or New Year's eve!) n it was buzzing wif ppl n rather chaotic as most were shopping for fresh produce like fresh pork, vegetables + items for steamboat reunion dinner etc etc. In fact, it is the best time of the year to see a roaring change fr the usual quiet, dinky, dark market image n some markets operate till dawn! Wow!

Its kind of magical see to what seems like a never-ending supply of food sold. Lorry-ful of fresh vegetables are unloaded and sold fr styrofoam boxes. Ppl get boxes of Mandarin Oranges or 'Kum' and the greenish,pungent,citrus Pomelo from the fruit stalls. Endless of ppl queueing to buy roast duck and fat pork belly,fresh pork, poultry and seafood.

My favourite is of course watching the fish-mongers struggling to weigh huge live fishes(red snapper) which slap n smack the fish-mongers! These fishy fellows are gd smackers!

Oh... and not forgetting the butchers lay out armful of fresh pink pork(ohh... its quite tempting to walk up n give the fresh mass of pink flesh a gd smack cos u know its gd meat=)) and work their way through the meat skillfully wif their choppers. And all this adds up to a moist, humid air which completes the market scene.

This roughly sums up the chinese new year market shopping and I look forward to visiting the market at the same time in 2009 =)