A Big Wahbiang Birthday Gathering

Today is the seventh day of Chinese New Year, also known as “renri” 人日 (Human Day). The Chinese believe that this is the day when Man was created. So, it is everyone’s birthday today! (Well, according to some Christians, Adam was created by God between the 6-8th Day). This is also the original day when Yusheng (鱼生), a popular Singapore festive dish is tossed (lo hei 撈起) for good health, wealth and prosperity.

Today marks a very special day for the Wahbiang Clan too. Today, we celebrated Yifu’s belated 36th birthday. It is also the actual 4th birthday of Issac Chen (Gareth’s second son). Thanks to all, this is our largest (and most expensive) Chinese New Year gathering since 2005! The dinner was very lively, noisy and messy! (It was like a wedding dinner – starting from 7:45pm to 11pm – we have late-comers, smoky cake walk-in, 10-course dining, hongbaos etc)

The boys were a nightmare – many times, we have to use “Gareth” (our very own “Gargamel”) to tame the boys. Elkan and Jacob pulled another unexpected prank – this time on poor Yixi. They peppered (yes pepper!) an innocent-looking “Pocky White Chocolate Stick” and gave it to Yixi to eat! (When we left the restaurant, the two boys were making a chili drink quietly at the side! Darn boys!)

In total, we have a total of 16 adults and 9 kids tonight!!! (absence: Joanne, Juliana, Duuk, Wendy, Tracy and MC Family). Imagine if we have the full clan present, that will be a total of 35 people! Our clan has indeed prospered and expanded over the years! (Yes, we should book a private ball room next year for our gathering! Wait a few more years, we can organise a tele-match for the families!)

Flying Colours at the Marina Barrage

We haven’t seen our good friend, Kendrick since 2005. Last Saturday, Kendrick bought us dinner at Citylink and played “tour leader” for the night. He was thinking hard where to bring us. He listed down many new places for us to pick and choose. Finally, he named one place that was “new” to both of us – the Marina Barrage.

It was a long dark winding road to the Barrage. On our way there, Kendrick told us that we can “fly kite” at the barrage. I took it literately as a local slang for “doing nothing”. When we arrived at the Barrage, we saw many colourful lights floating in the night sky. He was right – people do come here at night to fly kite! There were a lot of people there that night! Like a pair of “sua-ku 山龟”, Felicia and I were really amazed by the beautiful flying lights! Wow! This is awesome! (Shame on my Wahbiang buddies, the barrage has been opened since 2008 and none of them brought us there!)

This is a perfect spot to view the new and old skyline of Singapore – be it during the day or at night. While we were there, we can see lots of constructions at the new Singapore Downtown. The Singapore Flyer, the Marina Bay Sands, the skyscrapers at the Raffles Place CBD and our Esplanade are just so beautiful. This is a great place to chill out – spacious, windy and quiet!

A Special Christmas Blog by Kalinda

This year, Wahbiang organised a very different and creative Christmas Party. A boardgame that was as large as the living room for everyone to play. This is one Christmas when the clan celebrated a new generation of Wahbiang. In fact, it was the kids who stole the show that night.

I couldn’t think of anyone more special than Kalinda to word this special blog entry. She was one of the organisers, the party photographer and my closest friend. Kal, thanks for gracing my last blog entry for the year at 2am – just in time before my holiday trip to Kaohsiung.

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A CHRISTMAS BLOG BY KALINDA
26th Dec 2010

It’s the time of the year when we have to rack our brains and get our creative juices to start oozing again; it’s Wahbiang Christmas party time!

A Christmas gathering during this festive time of the year is a Wahbiang practice that we’ve been making an effort to maintain for many years now; it is a special time for us. As the years progressed, our gatherings evolved and slowly we have integrated a gifts exchange game as the highlight. It’s definitely getting more challenging to plan for a game that’s fun for all as more ideas are being used up through the years. Not forgetting having more factors to consider with the addition of more and more little ones running around too.

Unlike previous years, this time we decided to conjure an idea that allows the involvement of both organizers and players for more interactive fun. With that thought in mind and after putting three heads together, the birth of a human board game with a blend of the classics like Snake and Ladder, Monopoly and UNO was born. It was a big idea; individuals were used as the walking tokens.

With the convenience of a location after one by one got married and have their own love nest, we have been rotating among the few houses over the past few years. This year, we have Karen and Charlie as our hospitable hosts.

After moving the furniture aside to make space, we started the evening piecing up the huge game board that Juliana had beautifully designed on the floor. Towards the end when the full picture is starting to take shape, we realized that we have a row missing! Felt a tinge of disappointment with the blunder, but we did not fret for long as this was the time we activated our artists, MC and Juliana, to hand draw the left out boxes, displaying their drawing skills with limited markers and crayons borrowed from Karen’s son’s collection. With the game board creatively and spontaneously settled, we moved on to set up the mini buffet we catered and a nice dinner begins.

The game started after satisfying the stomachs of the big ones, and more importantly the little ones. Mystery presents were gathered and rules were explained by Meijie, the game master with much effort and the one and a half hours of fun rolled on from there. Besides picking up the game cards along the way, to summon more smiles on the faces, goodie bags were placed randomly waiting to be taken. Not long into the game, Meijie emerged as our first lucky winner. To top up the fun, we’ve included a bonus cash lucky dip after the game and we’ve got Charlie, Juliana and Yixi as our three fortunate winners!

The night slipped past with a rather chaotic and rowdy atmosphere. Earlier part of the evening we had a few small vehicles controlled by tyrannic little drivers who abide to no rules, zooming around haphazardly, coupled with excited little pedestrians paying no heed to traffic, trampling all over the game board crumpling the cards. Following on the evening, while numbers from one to six were recited by the players every time after the giant dice is rolled, with a mix of surprised and exaggerated agitated tones that built up the fun when one gets kicked back to starting point, the background rang with substantial high pitched screams and cries of little boys and girls as they get engrossed in their little disputes over toys and childish bickering. Distracted players had to double their roles as discipline masters, raising their voices in a futile attempt to tame the situation. Parents busied themselves with their kids in hope to engage their interest and attention long enough.

Despite having said all that, we all had our joyous moments, sharing and laughing together. Although there were some minor hiccups and the game play was not perfect (we had to improvise some rules along the way) but all of that didn’t matter as we gathered in the name of fun and bonding. Our Christmas gathering that lasted five hours soon came to an end. The children went home happily after their share of innocent fun, bringing back with them lots of gifts. And as for the rest of us, we brought back yet another memory that will remain close to our hearts.

It was yet another blessed Christmas with a chance to show how much we value this precious friendship that we share and the bond keeps building. Looking forward to the next time when we all will come together as one again.