Good Bye 2017 Annus Horribilis

Today is the last day of the year and I’m happy to see the end of it. It hasn’t been a good year really, personally and professionally. 

I had the dreaded “writer’s block” and haven’t written anything to date whereas last year, 2016, I published 3 books.  However, I’ve been mulling over some ideas. 

Growing old healthily is not easy, not when I hadn’t taken good care of my health when I was young. This lackadaisical attitude has finally caught up with a vengeance and I found myself falling over a few times but praise the Lord, it wasn’t too serious.

Towards the later part of this year, I had a fractured toe and more recently, I was in such severe pain that I had to be hospitalized. Any slight movement of my left leg caused excruciating pain and I couldn’t lie down flat. An MRI scan revealed a compressed disc in the lower back was the culprit.

Now I cannot walk long distances without sudden twinges that send an electric shock through my back. A walking stick helps me to balance and enables me to get up from a sitting position.

The good part in these two episodes was that I was blessed to have good and caring doctors who attended to me. May God bless them.

My eyesight has deteriorated too. They have become ultra sensitive to light, whether natural or artificial. Vision is no longer clear and I require eye lubricants every hour to ease the burning sensations in my eyes. It is very hard to read now or to work at the computer without tearing. This is a major blow as I love reading and writing.

A few days ago I received news that my younger sister had been hospitalized for a mild heart attack and she’s still undergoing tests for other related issues. Family and friends are rallying round with prayers for her swift recovery.

I now look forward to a much better year in 2018, God willing.

The Winter Solstice Festival or DongZhi Festival or Tang Chek

Today, the 22nd of December, is the Winter Solstice. It is the day when the Northern Hemisphere has the shortest day time and the longest night time in the whole year.

In the Chinese Lunar calendar, today sees the celebration of the Winter Solstice Festival or the Dongzhi Festival or Tang Chek ( in Hokkien).

It is a time for the family to get together much like the way Westerners gather to celebrate Christmas with the family.  Family members in the Chinese community make the round balls of glutinous rice flour and color them pink with some left as white. Some even make green balls. These days they have different fillings in them, such as pounded peanuts or black sesame paste, or even lotus seed paste.

Eating the tangyuan (湯圓) or balls of glutinous rice, which symbolize reunion is a tradition handed down over the  years and will continue to be observed annually.

They are eaten together with a sweet broth made from boiling pandan leaves with rock sugar and ginger. This syrupy broth smells fragrant and is tantalisingly delicious which makes the plain glutinous rice balls more palatable.

Two generations ago they were just plain glutinous rice balls.

As a child, my siblings and I would help our grandmother pinch small amounts of the glutinous rice flour that had been colored pink and roll them between our palms into small balls. We rolled pink and white balls. Then Grandma would place them into boiling water to cook. Once they floated up, they were cooked. She would then dish a few pink and white balls into rice bowls and pour the sweet syrupy broth over them and we would wolf them down!

This is the last festival of the year and after partaking of this sweet dish, people are deemed to be one year older. The older generation will always remind the younger ones of this.

So to all who celebrate this festival, I wish you a Happy Winter Solstice!