1. Ang Pow;
2. Plenty of eating and drinking;
3. Gambling; and
4. Companionship, meeting your relatives and friends after a long while.
Over the last couple of weeks, eating was one of the main things I had been doing. It was always nice, fancy, lavish dinners. As much as I don't get to eat fine dining very often in my daily lives, it was in some way pretty surprising to note that I don't really having lavish dinners in restaurants despite the nice ambiance, service and food - I mean really rich food.
It was nice in the first week, eating some long 8 to 10 course filled craftily served chef's specialty touches and so and so forth. After that, I started to get a little bit dull from all the restaurant food. Not that it didn't appeal to my taste buds. I did but I quickly realised too much of richness in my food, for too often quickly led to a bit dullness in my food tasting experience.
I found myself missing the simpler dishes - prawn mee, friend kuey teow, beef ball noodles, nasi lemak, and the list of local delicacies may well go on. I mean those meals are not cooked up by highly celebrated chefs and neither will you find them in restaurants but these were simple meals. Meals that everyone of every stature and walks of life can enjoy.
What I realised lately that our generation of people are becoming more sophisticated. Eatery places didn't only need to have good serving food but it required the right ambiance and all the other finer details to be matched. In fact, I find it quite surprising that there are some who are willing to pay the extra for what they'd call a "dining experience".
Maybe I have a difference interpretation of the term "dining experience" but enjoying my dinner simply meant, I could wear anything I felt comfortable without any "blink blink" (decent of course) and eat the food I order and not be bounded by massively regulated table etiquette. And most importantly, I'd very much like to see myself giving a good, "aaaahhh!" after finishing my meal.
Not that I didn't enjoy all the fine dining I had over the span of Chinese New Year, but after having all the fine dining meals that didn't come cheap, it was refreshing to know I could find goodness in simpler things in life - cheap, good 'ole hawker food!
Money can indeed buy you good service, expert presentation and chef craftsmanship in the dish that is served to you but when you reflect on your daily lives, you will quickly realise that you can still find similar goodness in simpler things - you can't deny you still love the bowl of prawn mee you order from an old uncle who's probably been running the stall for decades, sweat while you enjoy the spiciness, taking a cold drink to quench your thirst from the sweating and spiciness and it'll only cost you at today's inflation adjusted price of maybe 5 Malaysian Ringgits! That's goodness in simpler things!
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