My Domestic Art

Every year, we try to catch at least one lion dance performance. The kids find it very entertaining and fun to watch, although it can be a bit loud. But since we only get to watch it once a year, I will definitely make time for it! It is believed that the lion dance, together with the loud beating of drums, cymbals and gongs scare away evil spirits and bring good luck to the audience and the premises. The lions are usually accompanied by the God of Fortune who will give away chocolate gold coins to the audience. This is always the highlight for the kids, who will scramble to get as many gold coins as possible. The climax of the show is when the lion dances and approaches the platter of green vegetables, oranges and red packets laid out for them. The lion will then "pick the greens" which symbolizes picking of wealth and fortune, peel the oranges, eat them, and then spit them out to the audience. It is considered lucky to have the lion "spi...

Xin Nian Kuai Le Gong Xi Fa Cai Of all the festivals we celebrate, Chinese New Year has got to be the biggest, most extravagant, most elaborate and most important of them all. Weeks before the New Year, we have to do thorough spring cleaning, decorate the house, buy new clothes - red of course, stock up fridge, prepare red packets, go for hair cuts and the whole works. Even Mum had started preparing the foodstuff from days before the New Year, like all the soaking and chopping etc would have been done days in advance. Lucky for us, we always have reunion dinner at Mum's - all I have to do is bring ourselves and our empty tummies there to feast! My favourite is definitely the Salmon Yu Sheng. I wish I could have it all year round. I love the taste, the texture, the colour and the symbolism of it all. There's nothing quite like it, really! Toss it up and toss it high! Oh the amount of food we ate over the past few days!! 😋 Our family tradition ...

This is the easiest lantern we've ever made. The 2 boys managed to make it by themselves with no help at all. It only requires 5 ang pow packets. Fold the 4 corners so it forms a diamond. Staple each packet to the next at the top along the folded edge. Do all 5 and form a circle. Bend and puff the middle then staple the bottom part. Before you staple the last 2 ang pows together, put a ribbon/string in, which has been stapled to a piece of paper so it doesn't slide out. This is for hanging the lantern. Join the 2 corners of each ang pow and staple in the middle to form a curved top and bottom. Done and hung up in their room. This is the last lantern we are making this year. I think we've had quite enough. The rest of the lanterns are here: 1. CNY Ang pow lantern - lucky star 2. CNY Ang pow lantern - lucky eight 3. CNY Ang pow lantern - Chinese coin 4. CNY Ang pow lantern - wheels of fortune/ flower 5. CNY Ang pow lanter...

Every Chinese New Year, I try to hunt down the best pineapple tarts. There are so many of these pineapple tarts out there and everybody seems to have a personal favourite. There are also lots of different versions nowadays; open-faced, closed tarts, cheese topped, gold-dusted, rectangular cakes, and numerous newer, more creative flavours. In the quest to find our favourites, I have tried so many over the years and my waistline has suffered for it! 😝  Below is our family's favourite. And the few that I am willing to run an extra 30 minutes on the treadmill for. 1. Bake Inc This has to be our favourite. My family likes the closed pineapple tarts with cheese as the cheese flavour is subtle, the pastry is buttery and melts in the mouth, and the pineapple jam slightly sweet. It's the perfect combination! We always get them from Takashimaya during the CNY Fair. And they are freshly baked on the spot. When we purchased them, they were still warm fro...

This lantern requires a whopping 30 ang pows to make. I put off making this every time as it takes such a long time to make and my fingers would be sore after so much folding and stapling... But this lantern is just too big and pretty to pass up! My boys were like "It's so nice, Mum, can you make one for my class too..." 😏 The boys are encouraged to contribute some CNY decorations for their classes. But it's getting harder to get 30 ang pows of the same design each time. The shops nowadays are trying to be more hip and less conventional that I often get a pack of ang pows all in different colours/design. It's so annoying right! Like I can't use them to make lanterns and I can't even give them away as it's strange to give out ang pows in different colours, lest my nephews/nieces think they are all colour-coded and start comparing! (or maybe I'm just over-thinking here...) This lantern is simple enough to make. But please set aside...

I made more CNY decorations over the weekend. There's something about creating something with my hands that makes life fun. And therapeutic! These are my ang pow wheels of fortune. My little one insists that they are flowers and not wheels. They do look like flowers from below. I made 3 of them as I happen to have 3 sets of these ang pow packets in different colours. Since we are learning about lucky/unlucky numbers , 3 is also considered a lucky number in Chinese as it sounds similar to "birth" (sheng) in Chinese. There are 3 important stages in a person's life: birth, marriage and death. Chinese culture stresses upon family and children so this number is seen in a positive light. These ang pow packets are horizontal so they are great folded in half with the pictures still visible. I used 10 ang pow packets for each lantern. Fold them in half. Put 2 ang pow packets together and staple them, on the top and the bottom, somewhere in the m...