ACES!

obligatory journal 017

a belated family gathering

This was over three weeks ago before the week I fell sick really bad (does one correlates with each other? Hm ...) but it simply fell out of my periphery as I couldn't quite focus through the following week. Since I am now feeling a lot better comparatively and my mind clear of any distracting thought of resdung and coughs, it is better late than never to done pushing it off and finally tackling it and get it over with!

Family gathering is different for each family in and of itself since every family have different tradition and different relationship between the family member, with major nation-wide holidays such as Aidil Fitri, Chinese New Year and Deepavali providing the most sensible opportunity to gather around and meet each other after a whole year passes already. I'm not sure whether any other family is the same but the extended family on my mother's side would always try to have a separate family gathering each year whereby we will try to find a suitable date for everyone (or at least most of them) to spend a couple of days and have a mini vacation with each other in a relaxing resort or in this case homestay. Since we couldn't agree upon a consensus of a solid date that would be workable for each family last year, we postponed in and had one earlier this year to make up for that!

If you're not familiar with the concept of a 'homestay', it is basically houses in rural areas that has been modified (or in this case built from the ground up) to be a chalet or mini motel that people that is just going through the area or just city people looking for a place to unwind could rent for a day or two to stay in and absorb the 'kampung' atmosphere and recharge themselves. This time around we had the whole place to ourselves since (almost) all of the extended relatives finally would come to the Family Day. Being surrounded by traditional Malay wooden houses and paddy fields, it was quite a refreshing change of pace even for me since the place is not that far from home, let alone for those who came from afar and in the middle of the city.

Quite a laidback event really with the parents lounging around and resting their bodies (while the designated few cooked some food for the afternoon) while the kids jumped straight into the swimming pool, me included. I couldn't resist (I was the one in the middle holding to the side and turning awkwardly to the back), even my mother did joined in later at night after the whole thing ended to cool off since she worked hard to handle this gathering. There was that makeshift "tram" that would carry almost a dozen of them around the place that I didn't join in since I could do it myself going on my bike in my own leisure time. Aside from that, there was one activity that I couldn't wait to get my hands into figuratively and literally which was menggagau or xyz whereby they would release three kilograms of catfishes into a shallow manmade mud 'pool' and let us sift through the mud and muddy water to catch them by hand. It was quite a novel experience for me since I know that the older relatives did this before when they were young and now I could experience it myself, getting myself dirty for a chance to catch these elusive fishes myself (can you guess which one am I?). I came so close a couple of times where I had them in hand only for them to literally slip through my fingers, through my grip. Of course the more experienced ones caught most of them but I just had so much fun playing in the mud for over half an hour.

My mother at night would be hosting a segment whereby we would learn of the family tree and let each family reintroduced themselves to everyone in attendance and let us know what they were up to for the last year or so. This is quite a useful exercise since I am horrible with names and knowing who is whom and know how to call them is really useful when I come by them again in the future. It was when it was over that I had a memorable experience playing with my own brothers and sister in law. If you've seen the picture of us huddling over that small toy, it is actually the infamous toy being made popular by the South Korean show Running Man that I ran into randomly here in a local store. We don't really have a close relationship between the five brothers but spending time playing this game of chance really made my day that day, an innocent playing experience with each other. My second brother had the worst luck that day, that Kwang Soo luck.

The next day was just as laidback really, having an extensive spread of food for breakfast and a gift ceremony, giving Tupperwares and health products to each relative. I actually slept early the other day and was able to wake up early the next day, allowing me to jog around the village and the paddy fields, hence the pictures that I snapped between the sporadic jogging. All in all, it was quite a memorable outing for all that were involved that I think it should be done again as soon as possible. Do you agree? If your family doesn't have one, would you want one? Could you spend a whole weekend with any of your extended family, between your father or mother side?

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