Lee’s Bracelets

Lee has  interest in making her own bracelets and came up with her own cool style.

My sister Bee showed her how to make one, and Lee picked up real fast.

The first bracelet that she made was for my older sister.  Lee made the one that said ‘piggy’ and my niece made the ‘love’ bracelet, they both sold it for $5 each.

Lee thought the black and white would look nice with her Ying-Yang Medallion.

Here is Lee’s Ying-Yang bracelet.

This one is Lee’s Ocean Crabby bracelet

Her Chinese New Year bracelet.

So far she has a nice collection. I was really surprised how nice her bracelets look, and she came up with the color scheme all by herself.

Happy Chinese New Year 2012

This year’s Chinese New Year comes a bit early.  The first day of the Chinese New Year is at midnight January 23, 2012 and it is the year of the Dragon. Like every year my dad pays homage to our ancestors on Sunday, Chinese New Year’s Eve.

The table was set for two, for my grandparents on my dad side.

My grandfather was Chinese, he came from China as a young man and his story was very much like many that came to Thailand and Laos for better opportunity.

My dad and sister went to Charlotte to get the chicken. It is rather expensive since they weighted the bird by the pound and this chicken cost $19.  It is important that they get one with it’s head, tail and feet intact to symbolize completeness.

The noodle soup has a symbolic meaning also.  If you want to live longevity then you eat long noodles and my sister prepared cellophane noodle soup with mushrooms, Chinese flowers and meatballs.

Lee and my niece received Lai See money in red envelopes from the adults. It’s like Christmas all over again for them.

We had a get together on Saturday and ate plenty of long noodles of Pad Thai.

I fixed Tum Maak Houng following my GI Joe sister’s recipe and it came out very much like hers.

My first time deep frying squids, and it tasted okay.

My sister made Cassava Coconut Flakes Dessert.  My oldest sister told us that many people from Thailand died from eating half uncooked cassava.  It is very scary to know that if it’s not fully cooked then it can be deadly. According to wikipedia, improper preparation of cassava can leave enough residual cyanide to cause acute cyanide intoxication and goiters, and has been linked to ataxia or partial paralysis. Bo showed us a picture of 700 cattle that were killed overnight by poisonous weeds in Australia, 1907 and this freaked one of my sisters out. She stopped eating the dessert immediately after she heard this.

I saw this in a Thai magazine, I didn’t know that they made MSG from cassava.

Besides the Cassava Coconut Flakes Dessert, my dad normally stocked up on Asian cookies and candies during this time of the year.

Death Certificate

This is a translated article from Koosang Koosom Magazine, written by Ngasai of Samudragarh in Thai Language, translated by Nye.

This goes back to 1995 (Thai year 2538), even though it happened almost 20 years ago but I will never forget the incident.  At that time 3 of my friends, Kai, Keo and Daecha were college students at one of the Art Universities out of state.  We were best friends, and would party and hang out together all the time.  We all stayed at the dorm right behind the University.

One day during our senior year, Kai brought a white cloth (use to cover a corpse) to show us and said,

“Why don’t we use this cloth to write our own death certificate?”

This might sound bizarre to an ordinary person, or even give you chills, but we were like teenagers and at the time it sounded fun and daring. Then Keo finally agreed,

“Okay, I’ll be the first one to write.”

As soon as she finished saying that, she started to cut the white cloth into a size of a death certificate and started to write her name, last name and also the date of her death on the certificate.   After Keo had finished with her death certificate, then Kai, Daecha and I started to write our own death certificates.  To be honest, we weren’t scare at the time or even thought that this might jinx us in anyway.  We just thought it was something fun to do at the time.

Time passed and nothing bad had happened until we all graduated.  Then one day Keo drowned, which should never have happened because she was a good swimmer.  Someone found her body in the lake near her house.  We all went to her funeral and another strange thing was that her funeral was on the same day as the date that she wrote on her death certificate made from the white cloth years ago. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but then something strange happened again the second time.

Kai, one of our friends got hit by a truck, and the day that she died was the same date that she wrote on her death certificate made from the white cloth.  This happened twice, not coincidence anymore, Daecha and I got really scared.  The next victim will be Daecha, then myself for sure.  Daecha was so afraid and tried to stay inside his house.  He didn’t go anywhere when that day was approaching.  He was so stressed out and even while he was sleeping at home death came to visit him.  Daecha died from brain aneurysms and it was on the same day that he wrote on his death certificate made from the white cloth.

I couldn’t believe that Daecha died because of this, he was so healthy and took good care of himself.

After all 3 of my best friends died one after another, this made me very fearful because the last person to die is me. And only 1 month away from the day that I wrote on my death certificate made from that white cloth.  I was afraid to die, I started to ask around and found out from Kai’s brother of where that white cloth came from.

The white cloth was used to cover a female corpse that got hit by a car.  Kai took the cloth and she thought it would be fun to play with it. The cloth was not stained with blood because it was on top of another cloth.  After I found out where the cloth of the death certificate came from, I lit an incense stick and asked the owner of the white cloth for forgiveness and begged her,

“I don’t want to die.  I still have worries and have to look after my mom and dad that are old.  I apologize for trespassing and please forgive me.”

And that night as I was half-awake half-asleep I saw a lady.  Her face was pale and expressionless.  She said in a slow and soft voice.

“You don’t want to go live with your friends?”

I immediately replied,

“I will become a monk for 1 punsa (1 year) and donate the merit to you, please don’t take my life.”

A smile appeared on her face and she said,

“Don’t forget to keep your promise.”

The next morning I told my mom and dad that I will become a monk for 1 punsa to donate merit to a female spirit that I have made a promise.  While I was a monk, the day that I wrote on my death certificate came and I survived.

I remained a monk for 1 punsa as I had promised.  After that I left the temple and went back to my normal life and work till this day.  I will never forget of what happened.  It was just for fun and daring that caused me to lose my 3 best friends.

Food for Thought

The first week of the New Year and here I am a little slow in posting, I guess the last few weeks of outdoor events have finally caught up with me. I feel a bit better today, and hope to reply to comments and visit my favorite blogs soon.

It’s obvious that one of my New Year’s resolutions is not “to loose weight” since I plan to cook more, but I do have to be active so that I won’t pack the extra pounds, I don’t need to gain either. My dad bought Cassava from the flea market last week and my sister and I made Cassava Coconut Flakes Dessert today.  This is our first time trying and I didn’t do a good job in photographing the process. We were so thrilled to see that it looks and tastes like the real dessert and it is not as hard to make as we thought.

My sister steamed the cassava battered mixed with coconut milk and sugar for 50 minutes, let it cool, cut and rolled in coconut flakes.