Betrothal of Gifts

WHAT THE PIG?

Whoa! Huge word! I had no idea of the English term for hantaran(in Malay) until I started writing this post entry. I had the sending of dowry to my wife last month. Pretty interesting. Some people were surprised that I'm doing it because they thought Catholics wouldn't do follow Chinese traditions. Well, SURPRISE! Anyway the sending of gifts in mandarin is also called pin jin.

Panas! Panas! Coming through!


My brother in law and my niece, Kristen

Although it was a simple event so to speak, I was quite excited. All the preparation of getting the necessary stuff for this and finally, the day of execution. It all went smoothly. My family arrived at my wife's place and we started arranging everything on the table.

Traditional Chinese wedding biscuits

Ang Pows(Pin Jin) and red cloths(for good luck)

All done!

My brother in law(wife's side)'s son, Nicholas is probably going "Mmmm...roast pig"

Once everything was set up, we were waiting for some of my wife's relatives to arrive. So while waiting, we took more photos, I mean, why not?

Me and new family

Me and my family

Not long after taking those photos, my wife's relatives finally arrived. I was quite happy that most of them came for the occasion. My mum in law's eldest sister did the honor of cutting the roast pig. The cut out part will be kept by my wife's family.

As it was difficult to cut on the main table, we sliced the roast pig on the floor instead.

Cutting the ribs section

Trying to find the sweet spot to cut

Technical difficulties. Oh and by the way, my wife took this pic. Good eh?

Found it!

My mum and niece watching on

From their point of view, well, sort of.

Finally, we got the best part out!

LOL what's left of it :)

Next step is to prepare the remaining roast pig which will be 'returned' to me.

 A pair of new pants, red cloth, 8 oranges and the roast pig will be covered with red paper.

No it doesn't mean RIP.

Oh and also, 2 bottle of orange juice.

At this point, the entire process was complete. Next up was lunch and we were at the kitchen slicing the cut out pork earlier into smaller pieces.

A slice of the awesome piece of pork

Ready for lunch!

Family

This is called 'Chai Ge' which is basically like dumplings but the fillings are vegetables. They are really delicious and these are from the regular place that my wife's relative will get from Ampang.

Chicken Curry

Veggies!

Here are the sliced up siew yoke.

Another special dish which, I dont even know what it is called! Now THAT is special LOL.

Once we were done with lunch, we divided the rest of the pork to my wife's relatives for them to take home some. Its all custom I guess. I may not know all the details but that is where my parents and my wife's parents will come in to explain.

Well, there you have it. My hantaran to my wife's family :)

I may or may not blog for the next 2 weeks as I'm really busy with all the final preparatons for my wedding. I mean, at the time of typing this, I left 12 more days!

Till then, Take care peeps!