Tag Archives: chinese festival

Hello There!

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I am now the owner of a Hello Kitty handbag. Do you think I can also use it as an innocent-looking camera bag? Mooncake packaging keeps getting fancier each year. As a gift, the mooncakes from Good Chen are quite unique as they come in/with a cute handbag. The cakes are also embossed with the cartoon character, including those of Spongebob and Doraemon.

I bought two flavours from their Hello Kitty range to try. As photographed here; the Ultimate Brown Mix which is Hazelnut Coffee. At right, the Coco Diva is lotus paste with macadamia nuts and choc-oreo biscuits coated together with Belgian dark chocolates. Yumz!

The annual Mooncake Festival is also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival or Lantern Festival in Malaysia and Singapore. It falls on September 19th this year.

Olympus OM-D, ISO 200, f4.5, 1/50 sec.

Good Chen Hello Kitty Mooncakes

Fifth of May

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Today is the 5th day in the 5th month of the Chinese calendar. It marks the Duanwu Festival which is celebrated as a public holiday in China and by the far-flung Chinese diaspora.

In Malaysia and Singapore, it is also known in the Fujian dialect as the 5th Month Festival (五月節).

Folklore has it that dissident hero Qu Yuan commited suicide on that day (in year 278 BCE) by drowning. Sympathisers threw rice dumplings into the river so fishes would not eat the poet’s body. The recovery of his body is also thought to be the origin of the Dargon Boat Festival.

In South East Asia, the festival is observed with the giving and eating of triangular glutinous rice dumplings wrapped with bamboo or lotus leaves. Photographed here is the Hokkien ‘bak chang’ which is whiter and its filling includes salted duck egg yolk, mushrooms, heh bee (dried shrimps), dried scallops and chestnuts. The savoury Cantonese ‘chung’ is darker and have more beans. I like the Nyonya version which has minced meat and is spicy. There are also sweet and meatless ‘zongzi’ versions.

Olympus OM-D, ISO 200, f4.5, 1/100 sec with Snapseed Vintage Filter.

Hokkien Bak Chang

Savoury Meat Dumpling

Qingming

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Qingming Festival (called Cheng Beng locally) is Tomb Sweeping Day. The Chinese visit their ancestors’ graves to pay respect and to tidy up the burial site. The name is derived from the Clearness of Spring. Although the actual date is April 4th, most families traditionally make the trip on weekends.

The Kuala Lumpur Kwong Tong Cemetery is one of the largest Chinese cemeteries in the world. Opened in 1895, it spanned 263 acres originally. It is sad to see people leaving behind so many plastic bags. The only litter on a graveyard should be the fallen white petals of the Frangipani trees.

Olympus OM-D, ISO 200, f5.9, 1/640 sec.

Qingming