Weird Animals

Amazing how advanced photo technology is nowadays. 
Don't believe everything you see! =P

-Eliza Tan

Of course you can read this?

Only GREAT minds can read this! This is weird, but interesting!

*******

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too.

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch
at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres
in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer
be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot
slpeling was ipmorantt! 


-Ezlia Tna

Chinese New Year

I always overeat during Chinese New Year.....

But the food was really good :P

Getting ang pows was the best part!

just a few :)

This year is the year of the rabbit, and I was born in the year of the rabbit (I'm 12). My Chinese teacher in Beijing said that in China, when it was your year, you had to wear red socks and belts for the whole year! Thank God Malaysians don't do that! I could never find a pair of shoes that match!

Mom's Side

My cousin Ariel came back this year.

She and Eunice never run out of energy and games. 

They just play the whole day away while everyone else is suffering from exhaustion. 

But I eat the exact same food as them!

Six years ago:

top row: Kao-Fu, Kao-Niong, Ivan, Yee-Jeong, Ariel, Yee-Yee, Mom, Eunice, Dad

bottom row: Isaac, Po-Po, Gong-Gong, me

Now:

It's so rare to get a photo where all of the children are smiling properly. Many silly faces came out on the second photo, though.

Isn't it amazing how much we've grown? (I mean the children, not the adults)
Especially Ariel. I would never have guessed that was her if I didn't already know!

Dad's Side

None of my dad's siblings are married, so no cousins from there...yet...

At a Japanese buffet. The guy on the left is my dad's uncle.

Last Tuesday, while waiting for my Sok-Gong (my grandfather's brother), we were hanging around the park and saw some car tire swings.

Well, Eunice and I have only seen them in old movies, so we tried sitting on them. I can't tell you how much it hurt my butt...

But soon, we were all swinging around, laughing and having fun like little kids (even my grandma and my dad).

The swings were very short, though. My feet kept hitting the tree roots. And did I mention how painful my butt was?

Me and my grandmother

It was also my first time seeing a pineapple plant. It was so cute!

My Sok-Gong also brought us to a deer farm in Rawang. 

One of us tried feeding them banana leaves and they actually liked them! In fact, they loved them!

Weird, huh? I didn't know deers could eat banana leaves. I hope they don't get food poisoning (trust me, I know how that feels like).

I have no idea what type of deer these two are.

In the evening, we had dinner with my dad's relatives.

Sitting fourth from the left is my great-grandmother. I think she is 78 or 79 years old this year. 

She married at 17 and gave birth at 18. My grandmother also got married at 17 and gave birth to my dad at 18. So my great-grandmother became a grandmother when she was only 36 years old!

But my dad married at 28 and had me when he was 31 :D

The small boy on the right is my 2nd cousin (my dad's cousin's son) Marques (same pronunciation as Marcus). He's 16 months. It was my first time seeing him.

So my Tai-Po has three great-grandchildren now. I hope I get to live long enough to see my great-grandchildren.....that is, if I get married (which is highly improbable).

-Eliza

Hello, 2011!

You know, Chinese New Year can be as hectic and stressful as Christmas shopping.
Visiting friends, writing cards, preparing ang pows, the list goes on and on....
And I still can't get used to writing 2011 on my homework and calling myself twelve.

Visiting Charis

My cousin Ariel and her parents will also be coming back, but we wrote CNY cards to send to them for fun.



Eunice's drawing's so cute, right? I don't really like to draw, but I drew the sun and rainbow...

The only things I like about Chinese New Year are the food and ang pows.

Especially the ang pows! That's one good thing about being a kid. You can get without giving!

And get A LOT, too...

-Eliza

P.S. My sis just created a blog: eunicetan03.blogspot.com

The Origin of Christmas

I.     How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on December 25?

A.    Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25.  During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration.  The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.”  Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week.  At the festival’s conclusion, December 25^th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

B.    The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time.  In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).

C.    In the 4^th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it.  Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.

D.    The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25^th, to be Jesus’ birthday.

E.      Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia.  As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.”  The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.

F.      The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that “the early Christians who  first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.”  Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681.However, Christmas was and still is celebrated by most Christians.

G.    Some of the most depraved customs of the Saturnalia carnival were intentionally revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when Pope Paul II, for the amusement of his Roman citizens, forced Jews to race naked through the streets of the city.  An eyewitness account reports, “Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them and at the same time more amusing for spectators.  They ran… amid Rome’s taunting shrieks and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily

H.     As part of the Saturnalia carnival throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries CE, rabbis of the ghetto in Rome were forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the city streets to the jeers of the crowd, pelted by a variety of missiles. When the Jewish community of Rome sent a petition in1836 to Pope Gregory XVI begging him to stop the annual Saturnalia abuse of the Jewish community, he responded, “It is not opportune to make any innovation.”  On December 25, 1881, Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into Antisemitic frenzies that led to riots across the country.  In Warsaw 12 Jews were brutally murdered, huge numbers maimed, and many Jewish women were raped.  Two million rubles worth of property was destroyed.

II.     The Origins of Christmas Customs

A.     The Origin of Christmas Tree
Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were recruited by the Church sanctioning “Christmas Trees”.  Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian veneer by the Church.

B.     The Origin of Mistletoe
Norse mythology recounts how the god Balder was killed using a mistletoe arrow by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna.  Druid rituals use mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim.  The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.


C.     The Origin of Christmas Presents
In pre-Christian Rome, the emperors compelled their most despised citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia (in December) and Kalends (in January).  Later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among the general populace.  The Catholic Church gave this custom a Christian flavor by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas (see below).

D.     The Origin of Santa Claus

a.       Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra.  He died in 345 CE on December 6^th.  He was only named a saint in the 19^th century.

b.      Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament.  The text they produced portrayed Jews as “the children of the devil” who sentenced Jesus to death.

c.       In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy.  There Nicholas supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua Epiphania, who used to fill the children's stockings with her gifts.  The Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the Nicholas cult.  Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, December 6.

d.      The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans.  These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw.  Woden had a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn.  When Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard, mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing.

e.       In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they should) distribute gifts on December 25^th instead of December 6^th.

f.        In 1809, the novelist Washington Irving (most famous his The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle) wrote a satire of Dutch culture entitled Knickerbocker History.  The satire refers several times to the white bearded, flying-horse riding Saint Nicholas using his Dutch name, Santa Claus.

g.       Dr. Clement Moore, a professor at Union Seminary, read Knickerbocker History, and in 1822 he published a poem based on the character Santa Claus: “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.  The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hope that Saint Nicholas soon would be there…”  Moore innovated by portraying a Santa with eight reindeer who descended through chimneys.

h.       The Bavarian illustrator Thomas Nast almost completed the modern picture of Santa Claus.  From 1862 through 1886, based on Moore’s poem, Nast drew more than 2,200 cartoon images of Santa for Harper’s Weekly.  Before Nast, Saint Nicholas had been pictured as everything from a stern looking bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock.  Nast also gave Santa a home at the North Pole, his workshop filled with elves, and his list of the good and bad children of the world.  All Santa was missing was his red outfit.

i.         In 1931, the Coca Cola Corporation contracted the Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa.  Sundblom modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerful, chubby face.  The corporation insisted that Santa’s fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca Cola red.  And Santa was born – a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol.

III. Origin of Christmas - What Really Matters?

A.   The true origin of Christmas is filled with controversy and compromise. A quick study will reveal a number of disturbing roots that we haven't been able to cover in this brief article. In short, the Christmas holiday we celebrate today is indicative of Christianity's willingness to absorb the world's customs and traditions, and forget its simple roots in the historical reality of Jesus Christ. Christmas should be nothing more than a simple, yet wonderful reminder of Christ's humble beginning as a human child in this world. His birth merely set the stage for the power, glory, and salvation that would be revealed in His life, death, and resurrection! Whether it's December 25th, sometime in late September, or any other day of the year, we should use each and every opportunity to reflect on Jesus Christ and His message of hope for all of us.

(Compiled from related websites)

Bye-Bye 2010!

This year has passed by so quickly! Yet so much has happened this month I don't know where to start!
Anyway, I'll try my best...

I can't tell you how relieved my grandfather was when my grandma came back from Singapore. It must've been absolutely BORING to have nothing to do for two whole weeks but read the newspaper and watch TV.
My grandma took us all shopping for a whole day in Mid Valley (Dad was still in Maui at that time).

I know a day might not seem like a lot to you, but it certainly is for me! I mean, with all those people and my legs aching badly.......

The harp performance was quite good, though.

The harp's a really nice instrument, but it seems really hard...

The deco was quite nice, too.

Mid Valley



1 Utama

Let me get something clear: I DO NOT LIKE SHOPPING!!!

Me and my Grandma

Our cell group had a Christmas BBQ on the 19th.



Eunice & Alicia

The chicken wings were heavenly...

My cousin Ariel came back from Singapore a few weeks ago (she left last week).



Ariel.

My Yee-Jeong (Ariel's dad). I think this is supposed to be a rifle.



It's amazing what lego can do.

He used to be in the army :-D

I have 3 cousins: Isaac (8 yrs), Ivan (6 yrs), and Ariel (6 yrs). Ariel's just a month older than Ivan. 

Isaac & Ivan are the boys on the right. This was taken during Chinese New Year. Ariel couldn't make it.

Ivan learns Kung Fu and he loves "fighting" with people. My dad was playing with him once (last week) and well, kinda dislocated Ivan's right elbow a little (yup, my dad's quite rough).

We had to go to a chinese doctor to relocate his elbow. Ivan was fine after that.



One night, while eating at a restaurant, we saw a buch of ants trying to carry a piece of veggy up the wall.

 

It was quite fascinating to see how those ants showed so much teamwork.

Proverbs 6:6

Too bad a waiter wiped them off and killed them after we left. They were just about to reach the top! :(

Last week, we went to Melaka for Uncle Ken & Aunty Cynthia's baby Lukas' dedication.

 

Lukas Adam Hong Jia Le

We also had to take care of Alyssa and Aaron's 2 month old Cocker Spaniels, Ralph and Beth, during the weekend.

Skipper always barks at other dogs. Especially bigger ones. He likes to challenge them, I guess. But he's a really sweet and obedient dog.

He wasn't too happy about Ralph & Beth at first, but after a while, they could play quite well with each other (although Skipper kept trying to mate with Beth even though she was too young).

Alyssa's house is just a few houses away from mine, so Skipper can visit his friends once in a while.

Christmas shopping has never been easy.

No difference this year.......

NO! Don't get me started on talking about Christmas gifts! It even gives me stress when I talk or type about it.....

Let's just talk about less stressful stuff, OK?

Hmm.....yeah, I think I got somethin. Yesterday we went to the pasar malam is SS2 and I saw this really cute tomato.

I guess it was mutated or something...

Sure, 2010 has got its ups and downs, but overall, it's been a pretty great year.

Bye-bye, 2010! I'll miss you!

-Eliza