The (extra) sensory perceptions of Chinese New Year

Auspicious Chinese Words greeting the New Year of the Golden Ox

Every year I greet Chinese New Year with mixed feelings. Over and above the busy hum of Singapore life, there are extra stimuli that assault the senses. Some pleasant and welcome, some otherwise. Let me see - to smell, to hear, to see, to taste, to touch.

On the pleasant olfactory front, my condo is filled with smells of festive food preparation. Breezes through the atrium bring wonderfuls smells from kitchens hard at work - oh.. they must be making stewed pork... mmm.. smells like garlic and ginger browning in a wok... wow, this smells like fish maw soup - yummy! Oooo... is that candied walnuts?Candied Walnuts

When the lifts open onto different floors en-route to my own apartment - I get tempting smells of kueh bangkit.. charcoal braziers and kueh kapit (love letters). Soon my own kitchen will be filled with the mouth watering aroma of sio bak (chinese roast pork).

Chinese Roast Pork (sio bak)

Sometimes, floating tendrils of incense smoke from a flat downstairs will make its way up to mine. It reminds me of my paternal grandmother's house. A smell that I sort of miss is the smell of fireworks - I remember as a child shrieking with delight as I tossed little red ones that explode with a sharp POP! and covering my ears as the thunderous explosions of huge chains of "proper" firecrackers are set off in front of the mansions of the well-to-do and Chinese businesses.

Glutinous Rice - a savoury treat!

Teasing the taste buds are sneaked samples of pineapple tart (every year I eat a few to try and understand the Singaporean obsession with pineapple tarts.. I'm not a fan of pineapple tarts.. melting moments with kueh bangkit, the welcome savoury relief of bak kwa (BBQ pork slices). I love the sticky salty-sweet-smoky-scumptious (I've run out of "s" adjectives now) of this chewy bit of meat. I look forward to the once a year treat of utterly sinful kueh lapis (a multi-layered, buttery, spicy cake) and the chewy morsel or two of nian gao (new year cake). My mother's delicious lor bak gao or chinese turnip cake has always represented chinese new year for me and I hope to cook one as tasty as hers. Chinese New Year must have a myriad delicious memories - many with auspicious names attached - exotic heady taste of braised dried oysters with black moss - otherwise known as hoe see fatt choy, utterly sinful treasures that are unearthed from the huge claypot of poon choy. This wonderful one pot meal is stuffed chockful of decadent seasonal goodies such as baby abalone, fish maw, braised shitake mushrooms, melt-in-your-mouth belly pork, goose web....

Poon Choy - an earthen pot full of treasures

The bin centre of my condo and indeed many housing estates are overflowing - owing to the Chinese (Singaporean?) obsession with all things new for the new year. Such waste. Spring cleaning is fine.. but many of the items thrown out are in perfectly good working order and can be re-used or donated to charity. Thankfully, some do donate and the Salvation Army centre receives truckloads everyday. The sight of these piles of clothes, boxes of (what's inside?) even plasma TVs remind me of what a consumer society we have become. Of course, the eye sees red everywhere. In this instance, an auspicious and happy red. Chinese will decorate the house with red banners with auspicious words and couplets, give ang pows (red packets / envelopes filled with money), dress in red coloured clothes (black would be a traditional no-no).

Roast Duck

Venturing into the shopping centres is quite an expedition. One has to battle crowds eager (desperate?) to stock up on seasonal goodies, clothes. (is there a recession? is the food free?) The ears are assaulted with raucous sounds of new year songs blasting out of speakers at full volume. Added to the din is the background hum of housewives admonishing children not to run too far away, husbands trying desperately to hurry their wives up so they can get to play golf or escape the mayhem, kids laughing as they run in and out and around boxes of mandarin oranges, cookies, pineapple tarts...

Mandarin Oranges (a pile of gold!)

Last but not least... touch - the more formal handshake for distant relatives, the warmth of a bear hug for family and close friends.. sticky hands from F&N Orange and Nian Gao, (sticky sweet glutinous rice flour cake) trying to fish out ang pows from bag to give to young ones.

Nian Gao

Ah. Maybe I do like this season after all, but I'm glad it comes only once a year! Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone!!

The pilgrim is still here!

This blog has not been updated for a long time. Pilgrim has been very busy walking down this road called life. Hope pilgrim's life will settle down soon. Stay tuned!

Mangrove Kayaking in Langawi

Floating boatsheds

“The rock formations or karst landscape here is more than 500million years old…. Mangroves have a unique way of handling the salt in brackish water … they expel salt through pores in the leaves… Look! There’s a mangrove crab!” I had joined a mangrove Kayaking tour in Langkawi and we were on the Kilim river. This unique tour is run by Dev’s Adventure Tours and gives participants an in depth view of the amzing flora and fauna of the area. This river in the North East corner of the island is a lush nature reserve and a UNESCO world heritage site. Mandy, our guide was a small, wiry bundle of energy and enthusiasm and full of knowledge.

The karst landscape here owes its spectacular appearance to its limestone nature. Millions of years ago, Langkawi was part of Pangea and subsequently Gondwanaland. As the continents collided and seafloor was thrust skyward, the present hills were formed. Limestone is porous and acidic rain soon leaches in and caves form within the hills. When roofs collapse, one is left with dramatic towers standing alone. On close inspection of walls of some of these old caverns, one can see compacted layer upon layer of prehistoric sea-shells.

Mangrove roots exposed at low tide

After meeting at the jetty that was teeming with day trippers, we took a short 5 min ferry ride to pick up our kayaks at a floating boat shed. Led by Mandy, our motley group of four paddled our way upstream fighting the outgoing tide. (consoled by the fact that on the return leg the tide will be with us). It was more peaceful in the smaller tributaries, as the motor boats with tour groups were unable to enter. The canopy covered us and the sun-dappled scene was delightful. The breathing stilt roots (rhizophora) of the mangroves were slowly exposed by the outgoing tide and we strained our eyes to spot mangrove crabs, the odd kingfisher and curious mudskippers.

Kingfisher amongst mangroves

Did you know that mudskippers managed to stay out of water by using their own version of an “aqualung”? They gulp up large cheekfuls of water at the shore and recycle it in the gills as they move about the surface of the mud. Once the water is used up, these land loving fish return to the water’s edge to re-charge, as it were. We were not too disappointed by the fact that we did not see any mangrove vipers resting in the branches, given the fact that some of us kept crashing their kayak into the trees, which would have dislodged any sleeping snake!

Kayaking in smaller tributaries

Next stop was to view eagles. The name Langkawi derives from “helang” meaning Eagle, and “kawi” – which refers to a red colored rock found locally. We paddled out to another tributary and spied a few circling in the sky. Soon we heard the roar of motors and several tour boats sped by leaving us bobbing in their wake. Many tour operators feed eagles. A practice encouraged by the local tourism board but frowned upon by naturalists and environmentalists as it creates dependence on man for food and may change the feeding behaviour of the eagles. To make things worse, tour operators toss out chicken guts and skin (obtained free from local markets) – this is not their natural food and does not contain calcium. The concern here is that with insufficient calcium, the shells of their eggs may be soft and this may lead to reduced survival of the species. However, in the battle between the tourist dollar and be eco-friendly, $$ always wins. Dev’s Adventure Tours does not feed eagles and neither does Casa de Mar, the wonderful hotel that I stayed in (twice this year!). Hearing the sound of the motors, the eagles appeared out of the forest canopy and swooped down to feed. There are 2 types of eagles, the Brahmini kite (or Langkawi eagle with red-brown feathers and white head ) and the larger White Bellied Sea Eagle.

White bellied sea eagle

After watching the eagles feed, it was time to feed out own rumbling bellies. With heavy arms, we paddled back (against a stiff head wind) to a restaurant in a floating fish farm called Hole in the Wall Fish Farm (named for its proximity to the “gates” or small opening in the karst formation through which the Kilim River exits to the sea.

Satisfied after a delicious lunch of seafood fried rice and spicy tom yum soup, we visted 2 caves further upstream. (this time by motorboat). These caves (amongst many) are open for public viewing and house numerous bats. We waited till a huge noisy group exited the area and waited a little while more. Bats are disturbed by visitors talking loudly, shining bright torches and taking flash photography. (how would you like your sleep at night to be disturbed in this manner?) We learnt that there are 3 main types of bats here; fruit eating, insectivorous and honey bats. Led by Mandy, we walked quietly through the first cavern, awed by the stalactites and stalagmites. In some places, we had to stoop low as the roof came within a meter of the floor. In the second cavern, Mandy used a dimmed torch to point out sleeping bats. She also allowed one (1) single flash photo if we really really wanted to take one.

As we motored back to the jetty, Mandy pointed out some short (about 1m high) mangroves near the shore. These are new trees that were planted after the shore was wiped out by high waves associated with the 2005 tsunami. Mangroves grow really slowly and function as a green lung. However, as catastrophic as that event was, the impact on forests is not as great as pollution and indiscriminate logging by man. If we are to continue living on this blue planet of ours, we must be more “green”!

What a day! Just as we got into our transport bringing us back to the hotel, the heavens opened with torrential rain. It was thoroughly enjoyable and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Langkawi.