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I was blindly rummaging through my brain cells looking for suitable content to meet the 20th January CNY campaign dateline, hoping to get another top pick. Little did I realise the golden goose I was looking for was right under my nose. I could boast that my family is a classic example of the now-defunct Keluarga Malaysia concept that was coined by former PM, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri in achieving harmony and prosperity for everyone in our nation (My family should get an award for that). You see, I come from an extremely diverse family as a result of intermarriages among my brothers. Amongst my sisters-in-law are Line, a Canadian; Kim, a Chinese; Annie, a Bidayuh; and Juliet, a Filipino. Joining my family's multi-ethnicity bandwagon is my brother-in-law who married a Thai national, Asoi. I was the odd child in my family of seven who stuck to a wife of my own race and luckily this choice was instrumental in keeping my religious and cultural practices going, or else it would have long disappeared and most of us would have lost of our heritage. All our family offsprings truly depict the Keluarga Malaysia concept (which was hypocritically championed by our former leaders, albeit without much impact).
My house is the central nerve of the family as my parents lived with me and used to be the melting pot during festivities. Anyone who walks into my house will be awed to see pan-Asian, Malay, 'Chindian' and Indian faces and mostly would drool over their appearance. In a multi-ethnicity family, food is the pivotal force that binds and ties everyone together at these much-awaited gatherings, especially during Chinese New Year when everyone gets the golden opportunity to converge due to the long break. And the reunion dinners and lunches are the most looked forward to meals of the festival. Year after year, reunion meals are the one moment we anticipate yearly to attend and savour the potpourri of dishes served in the piping hot steamboat. The array of dishes is colourful, as colourful as the various faces and skins amongst us clamouring for the sumptuous food on the table. The unforgettable meals include a steamboat set, seafood spread, sweet-sour pomfrets, fish and meatballs, abalones and shiitake mushrooms, roasted chicken and an array of leafy green vegetables usually prepared by Annie and Lai Seng, and we painstakingly wait another year to be able to rummage through the spread again.
The year of the rabbit will be knocking at our doorsteps come 22nd January, promising much hope for us and hopefully, all Malaysians will be blessed with an abundance of longevity, peace and prosperity this 2023. Don't forget to dust and fire up your utensils earlier to avoid the disappointment of a failed steamboat. Gong Xi Fatt Chai.
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Sandra Gesan is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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