Year of the dragon

Hello,

Welcome to the Year of the Dragon. I wish everyone a Happy Dragon Year. May you have good health, wealth and happiness.

My son drew these dragons for me. I LOVE the first one most. So does he.

It is the custom for my family to visit all our relatives on the first day of Chinese New Year.

This was me today. Yes, I'm holding my stomach in. I managed to squeeze into the monkey tee but I opted for the flannel pants as I don't feel I've lost enough weight. Plus today is not a day to stick to my diet. (and I didn't - meat day all the way!) Can you see the pendant I'm wearing around my neck?

Here's a closer shot. It's an agate stone with a dragon carved on it.

This is Mr Ma. He's from Shanghai and he carved the dragon on the stone in 5 minutes using a tool that looked like a solder iron. How cool is that?

Why all the obsession with dragons apart from it being a dragon year? Ah, you might not know this but I was a dragon baby. Yep, 48 years ago, I was born on this planet.

This is my year.

This morning I woke up feeling very happy and positive because it is the first day of my year. Imagine how shocked I was when I read my mail and saw a nasty comment on my previous post.

I have deleted the comment from the post. But I have screen printed it so you can see for yourself what the commenter wrote.

To be honest, it took me a while to fully understand what the comment meant. Right away I could feel it was meant to be offensive. But I can't say for sure I know why.

Most of you probably don't understand fully what the comment meant. Let me decode the comment for you: "ang moh" started out as a derogatory term for Caucasians. You understand that when this term was coined, it was a very long time ago and it was a different world. Locals do continue to use this term but it has lost its derogatory implications.

This commenter is accusing me of writing my posts in a way to gratify caucasians. And by signing off "by Chinese and proud of it", he/she is implying I'm ashamed of being Chinese.

I don't know who this commenter is but it is obvious this person is from Singapore.

This is my reply to Mr/Miss Anonymous:

♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠

1. What a COWARD.
If you hide behind Anonymous, you are nothing but a coward.

2. What a NERVE.
If you don't find my posts funny, that's cool. If you don't find my posts interesting, that's cool. If you don't think my sewing is cute or pretty or worth looking at, that's cool too. If you think I pander to ang moh's fancy, that's your opinion and you are entitled to your opinion. Just don't tell me. Keep it to yourself. My mother always says: If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing.

3. How RUDE.
This is my blog.
If I pander to Klingon's fancy or whatever, that's my own dem bizness. If you want to write your opinion about anything, write in your own blog and see if anyone gives a hoot.

4. How PRESUMPTUOUS
You don't know me. You don't get me. You have not read enough of my posts to know what I am about.
I pander to nobody but myself, you fool.

5. I have a zero tolerance for troll behaviour. This is not that kind of a blog. You have come to the wrong place. Please never read my blog posts again.

♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠

My dear regular readers,

I am sorry you had to witness this. But since I started blogging in 2007, I have never ever received a single negative comment. And I thank everyone for that. And I'm also appreciative that majority of you use your name when you comment. The only reason I allow readers to comment anonymously is that readers without ids or readers coming to my posts via facebook are unable to comment and that's an option for them. But they leave their names so that's okay.

Well, what an ugly start to a beautiful day. At first I was enraged. You could say the wrath of a dragon was incurred. I summoned the thunder and lightning and it rained all over Singapore today. Haha. No I don't have such powers. At first I was so pissed.

But it is the first day of my year.

Why let a total stranger, a troll at that ruin your day? So I went visiting and enjoyed myself. It turned out to be not such a bad day after all.

I'm making every day count for me. I hope you have a great year ahead. See ya.