We had the Chinese New Year Celebration with the elders in Taman Jurong
Eldercare Centre on 26 February 2010.
The elders had taken their breakfast when I arrived.
I shook hands with them and wished them a happy New Year.
When a grandma shook hands with me, she gave me an angbao and
left immediately. That was a red package with money inside
usually given to people during Chinese New Year.
I was surprised and did not know how to response at once.
Then the other grandma waved to me and requested me to go over.
When I reached their table, she and the other one gave me angbao too.
I initially did not accept. When I heard their blessings and wished
me to be healthy. I was touched and kept the angbao.
I was sick for almost a week and was recovered in time to take
part in the celebration.
The celebration was started at 10.10 a.m. by the best wishes of
the staff and volunteer to the elders.
Other than the wishing of a Happy New Year, there were also
wishing of good health, dreams come true and lot of wealth.
The staff presented a song and dance 《花鼓歌》. The drums they carried were
made of the containers of milk powder. It made everybody laugh.
The elders were excited at the competition of couplet-arranging.
In order to complete the game in time, some words were arranged
upside down and some phrases were formed wrongly.
Those couplets hence read very funny.
Some volunteers sang and some danced that made the elder recall
their good old days.
I was supposed to sing two Teochew Opera songs with the Qigong
instructor Madam Chua. She was lack of time to practise and
she called the Centre to inform me. But I did not get the message
before hand. Hence, she went ahead with me to sing the songs
without well-prepared. Anyway, the elders still gave us warmly
applaud to support us.
The second game was a sticking of a Chinese word Fortune (福),
It was to stick the rolled-paper balls to the cardboard with
the outline of the Chinese character of Fortune.
They had to be deft and quick-witted.
We had the sing-along session of two Chinese New Year songs before lunch.
We proceeded to the dinning room and had our traditional raw fish
salad. It was the time everyone helped to mix the salad and
shouting words of the best wishes.
The raw fish salad was just the appetizer of our lunch.
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Wishing you a Happy New Year!
