Hog's Thoughts: Chinese New Year at the Wong Family Residence

I think you can ask any of my friends and the first thing they say about me is that I am loud. This I attribute to my Fuchow heritage and yes all my relatives on both sides of the family also get pretty loud most of the times. One thing I realised is I also talk very loud on the phone. Along with this loudness, I always tell people CNY in Sitiawan especially at the Wong Family Residence (my mum's side) is the best and noisiest experience you will ever see. There are kids running around all day long, minimum 2 tables of mah jong playing at all times, TV will be on with CNY songs and the rest will be playing in-between or black jack or ginrami. Just imagine 50 or so loud people like me all under one roof.

The best thing about CNY is of course CNY eve where all of us gather at my aunt's place not to have a family reunion dinner but to collect Ang Pow. Year on Year the theme is the same, wear red or your get castrated for it. So this year is no different.

Let me introduce all of you to some of my relatives on my mother's side, of course we will start with the head of the family and also the person who has worked hard to bring the family up. Just bear in mind she brought up 9 children with very little money and formal education.

My Grandma I call her Nge Mah

Next is my uncle whos house we usually gather during CNY or any big celebration. He is my mum's second eldest brother.

I always say he looks like Richard Ng a Hong Kong actor in the 1980s.

What you think? Any similarities? Next is my mum's 2nd youngest brother and his wife. Ah Ping Uncle (that is what I call him) breeds the most amazing German Shepards I have ever seen. He imported the first generation of his German Shepards from the Germany and at the moment he is breeding them local at his kennel HardyHaus. If you are serious about getting a serious German Shepard for guard dog purposes and not pet dog purpose, I seriously suggest checking out HardyHaus. I had the pleasure to once take care 1 adult female, 2 junior and 9 puppies. They were really a joy to take care off and that time I was doing my internship in Motorola and everytime I come back from work, I would play with the dogs and all my stress will evaporate just like that.

Last but not least for my mum's brother is her youngest brother who I call Uncle Jimmy. He works in Australia and while I was over in Australia he took care of me. He was the one who actually got me into jogging. One day he asked me and my cousin to go for a jog and we followed . After that I realised hey I actually can do this and continued till this day.

Now for the ladies side, we start first with my mum's eldest sister, I always remember going to her house. There is one part of the house that is design to look like a pub and even had a drum which they have turned over to use as a table. We used to go to their place alot but now the entire family has migrated over to Australia.

Aunty Mee Lang

I didn't take a picture of my mum's second sister because she was late but she is in the short movie clip later. Next is my mum's 3rd sister who I call Aunty Tracy, I stayed in Aunty Tracy's house when I was studying in Perth, Australia. It was great because we would always come back to really good food as Aunty Tracy's husband Uncle Simon (didn't come back to Malaysia this time around) is a seriously good chef. We always have good food no matter when.

Aunty Tracy is followed by Aunty Swee Lang which is my mum's second youngest sister. She bakes DA BEST cookies in the DA world. Every chinese new year we will be given bottles of cornflakes cookies, peanut cookies and almond cookies which she bakes. At one stage I was super crazy about her cornflakes and peanut cookies.

Last but not least of course is my mum which is the youngest in the family. She used to tell me that because she was youngest she was made to do all the work. She tells me stories about how my Nge Mah and her will go and tend the pigs that my Nge Mah kept.

Now for some couple and group pictures.

My bro and his wife

My recently wedded cousin

Ladies of the family

Guys of the Family

Since this is the last CNY I will ever get ang pows from everyone, I had to make the best out of it.

Next year I will be like my cousin...

The Ang pow session at the Wong's family residence is usually pretty crazy. We will line everyone up and then the kids will start to have fun.

After all the ang pow session and all the craziness subsides a little, we all gather again and take a family portrait. This gives you kind of a feel on how big my mum's side of the family is.

There are actually some people not present in the family photos. I still have 6 cousins not present with their wifes/husbands and 5 of the cousins have 2 kids each and the other has one. So in total we are missing 23 more people in this picture.

As with all CNYAng Pow we get...