First time at the RTM station...

I was asked by Vicky to do some Chinese New Year greetings for this 2009 Bull year at RTM. At first, I thought..Hey, this could be fun and this is my first exploration to something new and I agreed. We prepared a short script (in canton)and hope things will goes well for the recording.

When we arrived this morning, things changed. Jennifer, the DJ wanted to do a random dialogs with the 5 of us. The three men with different dialects were all prepared and steady while we were not prepared....Well, all went well with Vicky because she has experience before but as for me, my head was BLANK!!!

Maybe its because I'm not feeling too well with the irritated throat and blocked nose. Felt really cold in the sound proof air tight box room. An uncomfortable feeling, felling stuffed. There was so many traditional things that they talked about but when it was my turn... I felt so left out. My family are the modern type of chinese who did not follow all the traditional ways of celebrating chinese new Year. Chinese new year to us is just another festival, spending time at home , busy entertaining our friends and guest while the kids just look forward to angpows and enjoy the holidays.

Gee..When I was a kid living with my uncle, CNY was just a one day family dinner occasion and everyone was sleeping and watching TV to pass time. No visiting and no open house like the Sarawakians here. What I remembered was.. getting up early and queue up for angpows from grandma, uncle and auntie. Just plain greeting like, "Gong hei fatt choy" and leave happily with the 2 ringgit red packet. Wear our new clothing and stayed at home even though there is no where to go. Real quiet and boring, so we entertained ourself with the TV. Oh! Forgot to mention the fun part which was the fireworks (the only exciting part) . I was brought up like that and it was a huge difference when I got married and lived with the in laws.....so many new rules and traditions to follow at that time. Until today, I realized that my time with my in laws were still alright compared to the talks today with the other dialects of chinese! Oh dear, Thank God for all His blessings !~