Just Counting Our Blessings

Sugar canes were featured prominently during the recent Pongal Festival which I attended. Pongal Festival  is a Hindu harvest festival of South India. When I asked Khani the significance of using sugar canes, he just told me it is because they are sweet and I suppose that signifies sweet, good things. Everything that were used during the festival, I suppose were sweet from the rice boiled with milk and jaggery to the various fruits used for decorations or offerings. In Malaysia, a melting pot for various cultures, I for one, wasn't surprised to find Chinese New Year oranges there, during the Pongal Festival; as these fruits, the traditional symbols of abundance and good fortune to the Chinese, are just sweet to the taste buds. As for the sugar canes, I suppose the Indians have always used them as they are supposed to be the most important harvest of the season. Chinese; Hokkiens, in this case, use them during a thanksgiving prayer on the 9th day of the first month of the Lunar for a totally different reason;  mainly in memory of an instant in ancient time when sugar canes were used to feed their hungry babies when the people were hiding from marauders in a sugar plantation. Sugar canes are therefore compulsory; never mind, this year, the ones we used for prayers were dry and scrawny. Just count our blessings!

Celebrating Chinese New Year...