A Chinese Baby Party

One of the staff in David's office had a baby a month ago. As maternity leave here is so short, she worked up until the very last minute and, fortunately, gave birth at a weekend.

Her baby girl, Jorvin, is now a month old and to celebrate this fact, she had a traditional baby party, to which we and the other members of the office staff were invited.

Firstly - what gift to take? We asked Siew Mei (who is our source guidance for local cultural and etiquette matters) and she said she didn't know what Agnes wanted, so we should just give money. Well, just giving money is a generally a slightly odd concept to us - gift vouchers, maybe, but not just money. Next problem - if that is the norm, and apparently here it is - then, how much? Eventually everyone from the office plus myself and Siew Mei's friend, Brian, who was also invited, gave an equal amount which was put in an “angpao”, a special “red envelope” – (which was gold!) specially for the purpose of giving financial gifts. This was ceremoniously presented by David (with two hands, of course).

We had our invitation and the address. We checked it on the map. Agnes lives on Hougan Avenue 3. Note, Hougan Ave 3, not to be confused with Hougan Ave 1,2, 4, 5, 6, 7....10 or indeed Hougang St which goes up to 91! (A little more imagination might make navigation easier.) Well, it's a long road, but all housing blocks here have numbers and we found her road and the block no. 25 on the map and set off.

Although there was a bus almost all the way from here, we left a little late so we took the MRT guessing it would be quicker with the just the one change and a short walk at the other end. We arrived in Hougang (the district) and despite a rough sketch that David had copied from the map, we were lost on arrival at one of the many exits from the station not knowing even which direction we were facing! We tried asking people, but either they didn't know or didn't seem to speak sufficient English.

I have to explain that whilst the perception is that everyone speaks English here, the reality is that most do. Almost everyone (locals) also speak either Mandarin, Hokkien (Chinese dialect), Malay, Hindi etc - unfortuntately, we don't.

Here in Hougang we were deep in the "Heartlands". This is the name for areas where the locals live and there isn't a condo block in sight for miles. There is an expanse of the local government housing blocks (HDB's), a few small houses, roads, areas of state owned open grass for recreation and maybe a corner shop or two and various churches, temples, schools and the necessities for everyday living. It's the sort of area that expats wouldn't normally live in and to say we stood out would be something of an understatement. As it was an important event, I'd put on shoes with heels (not sure why, as no-one EVER walks inside a house/apartment with shoes on here anyway, as it would be deeply offensive), smarter clothes and lipstick. The kids were a little smarter and so was David.

We found ourselves walking round in large circles round various housing blocks and saying "ah ha, this is Hougang Central, I've just seen a sign on that bus stop" to get a reply of "but weren't we on that a few minutes ago? Or "was that sign to one of the Hougang Avenues over there? Which one?"
"Ah, a sign to Ave 7. Isn't that near Ave 3?"
"No, not on my map... this just doesn't make sense".

Eventually it did make sense and David spotted a short cut across a grassy area (with a few free range chickens) to the main road beyond between some buildings. We set off, only to find a monsoon drain (the size of a small river) blocking our way. But we were saved from doing a U-turn when we found a plank crossing it. So there we were, the only caucasians for miles (except Brian who was sensibly in a taxi), dressed up, me in high heels and lip stick, balancing one by one across a plank over a monsoon drain amongst the chickens. I did notice a guy watching us from a window looking, possibly, slightly incredulous...he'll be dining out on that description for months!

We did finally arrive and were greeted very warmly by Agnes, her husband Andrew, both their mothers and various other friends and family. I was given Jorvin to hold (which seemed quite an honour, as I didn't notice anyone else except the family doing so) and she didn't cry (thank goodness).

There was a huge spread of food and Adam particularly, who has really taken to the food here, ate heaps. He returned for seconds and possibly even thirds and wisely filled himself up before dessert. I say wisely, because it's simply not what we're familiar with. It was squares of a type of jelly with lumps of strong ginger and some very bright pink and fluorescent green balls. It is really something of an acquired taste which we haven’t yet acquired. It had ice-cubes to keep it cool and Hannah ate those with enthusiasm, which was good because it appeared as if she was really enjoying the dessert!

We had an enjoyable time and Agnes' mother had an equal amount of fun trying to teach us more Mandarin and Malay. I've extended my Mandarin repertoire to three words and on departing we were able to say thank you and goodbye to Andrew's mother (who didn't speak English) in Mandarin - or at least that's what we thought we were saying.

We eventually left - by taxi.

This Friday, the staff have been invited here for dinner, as we want to do it before Brian returns to the UK next week (he is British, but has spent 40 years of his adult life living and working abroad in some very diverse places). Don't know what to cook - plus we have very few saucepans and implements etc at present, adding to the challenge. Do we try something more Asian or do something western and hope they like it? It's a long story but I have to make tiramisu for dessert which will be somewhat different to the local desserts. They will probably describe it rather as we described their dessert. Oh well, if they don't like it, it's all the more for us later!