A Japanese Couple in Town

Chinese New Year's Eve

Saturday, 13th February 2010

MIL invited Ta-San and Chi-San to share in our family reunion dinner.

Chi-San is her usual effusive self, very excited and honoured to be able to share CNY eve with us. She comes prepared with her camera though too shy to bring it out till I asked if she would like to take a picture of the table groaning with food that MIl had prepared a few days before.

There were the traditional dishes like jui hu char, lor bak, pig stomach soup (picture at top left) and blanched white chicken among others.

MIL's style of cooking is typically Nyonya - Nyonya refers to the women who were descended from the early Chinese settlers in Malaysia. Many Chinese men married the locals which resulted in a culture that was a mix of Malay and Chinese. Though the Nyonya's cultural practices and spoken dialect differ from that of Chinese, the Nyonyas are classified as Chinese.

Nyonyas are also referred to as Peranakans or Baba and Nyonya where Baba refers to the male descendant.

After a sumptious dinner, the cookies were brought out, the traditional one being kueh kapit; as well as the ever famous pomelo best from Ipoh (!).

The family and Ta-San and Chi-San relaxed in the house chatting and nibbling on the food. the couple also brought some gifts for the children and gave ang-pows too! Ang-pows are red packets in which money is inserted and given as a good luck wish to children during CNY.

Chi-San also showed us pictures of her taken during a dance competition in Japan. She wore a very pretty white gown patterned with crystals. She is into ballroom dancing as much as Ta-San is into golfing! Though when she is in Malaysia, she golfs everyday too but misses her dancing because she loves the food in Malaysia very much :)

Now that she is back in Japan she is practising for yet another dance competiton. All the very best Chi-San!

A Japanese Couple in Town

Enoch Fernando

Ta-San and Chi-San are back.

We met up with them this time at a concert by Dr Enoch Fernando a pianist who was nominated for 2 Grammy Awards. You can find out more about him here as well as listen to some of his music.

Dr Enoch plays really well and I enjoyed the concert very much. Had thought it might be boring as in classical piano concerts but I was quite wrong. Dr Enoch played Carpenter songs, hymns, 'You are not alone' by Michael Jackson and 'You lift me up' by Josh Groban among others.

He was born in Chennai, India and at the age of 5 his family moved to California. His mother insisted that each child should learn to play an instrument and Enoch took up accordian lessons but switched to the piano in his teens. (He said the accordian was bigger than he was!)

Anyway, after the concert we took Ta-San and Chi-san for supper in Ipoh old town where they served the best beer in town called 'snow beer'. The coffee shop freezes the beer (Calsberg) at a certain temperature for a certain time (secret recipie!) and the glass mug as well.

And out comes a beer with a very unique and refreshing taste - so I was told by them and HJ since I don't touch beer. To get more information on the shop (picture at bottom) and the beer go to this link