Day 3 & 4

Jessie jots...

Here are some pictures we took back in early May, before I was even done with finals. It was taken when we had to perform the official chinese move-in ritual as instructed by Mom-In-Law. What I thought was going to be old-fashioned and down-right boring, turn out to be something really fun and fulfilling. I shall not oppose to advices from the elderlys from now on :X

Before the rituals can be performed on our official move-in date May 2nd (Sunday), a date the Chinese God picked out from our date of births and the location of the house, Hushby and I rushed to knock out all the tiles of downstairs for a clean place on Saturday. Official move-in date doesn't mean we have to move our stuff in. It was just a day we claim the Seventy-Seven home.

Before

After: Tiles all gone!

I got the last tile off!

Before

After: All clean up and stove back in place.

Sunday morning: As instructed by the Chinese master, we stood outside at house entrance at 10am sharp. There we were, clueless, with a piece of white paper on hand, that has cantonese words translated to english (Oh the *banana in us!), we read word by word, informing the surrounding of the house (at the same time trying to avoid looking coo coo to the neighbors) that "Hushby and I, by the name of so and so, is moving in today". I was told that this has to be done in order to let the nature and the other world be informed that the living is now claiming this space. So we asked that they do not disturb and kindly request for kindness and auspicious energy from "them". It felt so weird to talk like this. Don't ask me why.

After the front entrance introduction, we went into the house and continue to perform blessing prayers to each corners of the house saying things like "I now claim this space..." and a lot of other Cantonese words that I really do not know how to translate. I got thirsty after what seem like 50 corners. Then it was time to heat the stove. The Chinese believe that fire is a sign of growth and luck, so heating up some sweet dessert entails the home owners will experience a sweet life as they continue to grow and welcome luck. I also cooked up some noodles and that also signify longevity and prosperity as noodles come in abundance and it is lengthy.

Dried longan dessert with extra sugar to make it really sweet. The red floating thing is dried red dates. It was so nice to cook in that kitchen. No more narrow alley and avoiding each other in the kitchen. Sweet!

We also brought in some fruits and flowers to freshen up the muted new pad.

Brown Buzz came much later, so it was not on here for public scrutiny. Here are the few paint samples we tried on and we ended up with nothing from this wall. It was a good test out though.

More to come after this weekend, which will be the last weekend we will be in this apartment. Sigh, am I going to miss this place? I'll definitely miss it for the memories it created for us as it has been two years and it was a place we first started, where we explored and where we settle into California.

*Banana = yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Yellow means Asian, White means Caucasian. I'm Asian on the outside but I'm completely white-washed.