Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year, a very important festival falls on the first day and ends on the fifteenth day of the Lunar calendar month. This grand festival is celebrated by all Chinese in Singapore and also all overseas Chinese. Some Chinese from overseas choose to return to their native homes to celebrate with their families as they think that this is a very important time of the year and as such, they treasure this festive season very much.

 

However, for some, they remain staying abroad due to certain unforeseen circumstances. As Singapore has a population of 70 to 80 percentage of Chinese, almost in every corner of Singapore you will find many Chinese celebrating by shopping for clothes, festive ornaments, and food.

 

Chinese New Year 2015 is just around the corner and I will be pretty busy with household chores like spring cleaning the house and my office as well. My office will be closed for 10 days for this festive occasion so my workers from Malaysia will return home to celebrate with their families.  I, my wife and daughter will also return to Malacca for the celebrations with my parents and siblings. Every year at this time I feel so happy to be home to meet my parents, relatives, neighbours and friends. Truly, I can feel the festive spirit of it.

 

On the eve of Chinese New Year, it is a must for every Chinese family to have their reunion dinner at home with lots of delicious food. Talking about food, eating leeks is a good omen because for Chinese, leek symbolises there is money to be counted and I being having a business, do really believe in this. In actual fact, leek is one of my favourite dish and others include suckling pig, roast duck and pomfret.

 

However, some prefer to have their reunion dinner at restaurants but I personally do not like it because we are only given two hours to finish the food because there will be a second group of diners waiting for their turn. In this way we have to rush through our food which I think is not good for our digestion.  After dinner, around 9 pm I will get together with my neighbours and old friends for a drink and chat with them.

 

On the first day of Chinese New Year I will go and visit my relatives and some old friends. During the visit I will give red packets to the children and the elderly.

 

As Chinese New Year falls only once a year, I treasure it very much as I only get to return to my native hometown to be with my family members and also to meet my old friends.

 

To be blessed with good health and prosperity is my wish for the Chinese New Year.

My Free Time

Everyone has our own free time. For me, if I have the free time I would love to do a lot of things. Spending time with my wife and daughter is never neglected. My wife seldom cooks, so most of the time I will bring them out to eat. I practically eat anything that tastes nice and I can even travel a long distance to have my favourite fish curry at Bukit Timah. I do not like fast food but because of my daughter who likes French fries I sometimes will bring her there.

 

Going for karaoke is also my interest when I am free. Usually I will go with my group of friends who also love singing. I remembered there was one time when I was singing a popular Taiwanese singer, Jay Chou’s song, every one of my friend commented that my voice sound like him. Going for movies is another entertainment which I hardly miss during my spare time. 

 

‘Sentosa’ is one of the most popular attractions in Singapore. Tourists from all over the world will definitely not miss it. Children and teenagers are so excited and fascinated over ‘Universal World’. Not long ago, I brought my wife and daughter there. She was so excited and enjoyed all the various rides with so much fun, so much so that she refused to leave.

My Daughter

My only daughter, Jacqueline, born in the year 2013 is coming to 2 years old. Her zodiac sign is the Snake which symbolises intelligence and hardworking.  As both my wife and I are busy in our careers, we leave her in the care of a child care centre near my wife’s working area. Our reason of leaving her there is that she can learn to be independent and also to interact with other children around her age. Both my mother and my mother in law love her very much and they will come to Singapore to spend some time with her whenever they have the time.

 

As we all know, a child’s development is very important so full attention is required at all times. She is beginning talk in full sentence now and is rather talkative. As my family focused more in Mandarin and dialects, so since I am bi-lingual I also teach her to speak English. In this way she will be bi-lingual which will benefit her when she goes to school in future. She is a very lovely and cheerful girl with big round eyes. Her sweet smile makes everyone in my family happy.

 

For her education, I hope that she will go to university or even further.

 

Well, it’s all left to be seen.

How I started my Business ?

I have been doing aircon servicing for almost two decades.  I started as a sub-contractor with only one part time worker. During that time, I only have a motor cycle to commute from house to house. It was no easy job for me especially on rainy days when I would get drenched even with my rain coat on. On top of that, I together with my worker , had to carry the tools in a bag slung onto our body. This went on for two years and after that I rented a van for convenience.  Business then was catching up with more servicing jobs coming in.

 

Eventually, I managed to buy my own van and rented a room in my friend’s office. However, my servicing jobs continued to grow even better and I was able to buy an office. Fortunately all this time, things just worked out smoothly and I was able to expand my business by not only doing residential servicing but also commercial servicing.

 

To date, I have six vans and twelve workers doing the servicing jobs. In this way, I could now concentrate on the customer service side and even give some of them opinions about air conditioner installation. I also have four ladies in my office doing accounts, administration and purchasing jobs.

 

Most importantly, I hope to see my business keep on expanding and my workers and office staff working for me as long as they could.

My Wife

My wife, Fanny is a very caring lady. Her hometown is in Perak, West Malaysia. She is now a permanent resident of Singapore. She is the mother of a two year old girl, who is under the care of a child care centre.

 

Here, in Singapore, she owns a hair salon located in the central area. Business is pretty good and especially even better during the weekends. She has two workers and she will always patiently guide her workers in the cutting, blowing and styling of her customers’ hair.

 

As we are staying in Singapore due to our work commitments, she misses her parents very much. Though she is very busy with her business, she will try ways and means to bring our daughter to Perak to visit both her paternal and maternal grandmothers at least twice a year.  On certain days when she is not working, she will bring her daughter to children’s theme parks or shopping malls and will buy her toys. My daughter is only two years old and my wife is already planning where to send her for her pre-education. She also plans to send her for ballet class and piano lessons when she is three years old.

 

My wife is a very social and friendly woman. She has a group of friends who are from her hometown and she will occasionally organise a gathering with them in our house. She will cook her favourite Hakka dish, “abacus beads” which are made of yam and tapioca flour and shaped into abacus beads. Then after boiling them she will fry them with dried prawns, dried cuttlefish, minced pork, bean curd strips and mushrooms.  This is my favourite dish and I always yearn for it but she seldom cooks them as they require a long time to prepare and cook.  All her friends also like this dish and they are so happy when they know that she is preparing this dish as this is their hometown food.

 

I feel very blessed and happy to have married her as she is so humble, polite and caring.

Is it necessary to have filter in the air conditioner ?

It is necessary to have filter in the air conditioner for several reasons. Charged with static electricity, the enzyme filter is able to trap allergens such as moulds and bacteria and decompose them using enzymes retained in the filter. Filters featuring artificial blue enzymes is added to counter allergens. This will remove harmful microbes, such as bacteria, virus, dust mites, pollen, etc powerfully. The enzymes, in addition will destroy any germs caught in the filter, preventing them from working their way further inside the air conditioners. However, being artificial enzymes, they prevent allergies while remaining gentle on the human body.

 

The other filter, nano platinum filter has a huge capture area. It incorporates nanometre-sized platinum ceramic particles that work to kill bacteria and deodorize the circulating air. The anti-bacterial air filter helps to prevent the growth of bacteria and mould because it has anti-bacterial treatment.

 

With all these well maintained filters and cleanliness, air conditioners will have a longer life span.

 

 

My Hobbies

Everyone has his or her hobbies. For me, they are sports, shopping, music and even going around for nice and delicious food. Since young, I loved to participate in all kinds of sports such as badminton, swimming, snooker and soccer.  Talking about soccer, I never miss my favourite world cup which is telecast once every four years. My favourite teams are from Korea, Japan and Argentina.

 

I am also an active member of our Residents’ Committee Club in my living area in Macpherson. Being a member I am involved in a lot of volunteering work such as organising day tours to some places of interest for the residents residing in Macpherson and also to old aged homes during some weekends. We would bring food and daily necessities to them. Over there we would organise games and even sing to them in order to bring them enjoyment and happiness.  Watching them enjoying themselves so much and listening to their laughter made me so happy and fulfilling that I forgot how tired I was at the end of the day.

 

Listening to pop songs and sometimes going for Karaoke sessions are also my interest.  To hunt for nice and delicious food I will go all the way for them no matter how far they are.  Shopping is part and parcel of my everyday routine. For office needs like computer stuff and stationery, I will travel to the designated shops to purchase.  As for my personal home stuffs for daily use, I will go to the nearest shopping mall for them. I prefer to purchase good quality stuff even though a bit expensive because they are more durable.  As for my wife, she goes for branded bags and outfits. Even for my daughter, I, too will get her nice and good quality clothes.

 

I also take into consideration that I must not always spend lavishly because after all they are my hard earned money.