What do we do at home?

What do a bunch of foreign people do when they are not working? Well, some of my room mates will go out together every now and then but for the most of us, we are quite content with staying home. Going out means spending more money and Singapore is not a cheap place in any way. A day out could cost us SGD20 to SGD40 and for those like me who do not work Saturdays and Sundays, it can really add up to a big sum of money.

Sometimes we'd go to the library, sometimes, just walk along the beach etc... but what do we do when we decide to stay home? Well, there's not much space at home so there's really quite limited activities. Most of the time, weekends or non-working days are spent washing our clothes, bedsheets etc... and this can be a rather time consuming task. For me, I hand wash some of the more delicate clothes and this really takes up a lot of time, especially when you have to wait for the bathroom to be free. With12 to 14 people living in a 2 bedroom flat, can you imagine how often the bathroom is unoccupied?

Other times, we spent packing our luggages, which is mostly kept under our beds during the weekdays. When we do really have some time, I usually just lie in bed to watch TV or read a book as seen in the picture to the right. The only problem with reading in bed is that it can be quite dim, especially when my bed is the lower one in a double-decker bed setup. I must get a light for my reading! Often I want to read at night when everyone is asleep but I cannot turn on the lights... so I end up lying in bed doing nothing! There must be more productive ways to spend my time!

Well, we have to come up with creative ways to keep ourselves occupied when living in a "community"!

The beautiful scenery near my home!

Readers, I apologise for the long lapse between posting. Here is one about my home.

I live in the rural area of Benxi and there are definitely pros and cons to living here in the country side. While it is far from the city and difficult to get to work (unless you find a job nearby which is rare), it is a beautiful area to live in with lots of space, un-congested roads and beautiful sceneries.

Just a 10minutes walk from our door step, you will see big stretches of land, some of which are used for farming and other agricultural purpose. A small tributary of a larger river runs through our city and this feeds into a huge reservoir which provides drinking water for the whole region. It also provides food. My dad used to fish here every weekend so that we get fish in our diet as well. And to this day, whenever my brother is back from the city, he will come here to try and catch a fish for our family meal. Whenever someone asks me why I have such big eyes, I will always tell them, "I ate a lot of fish which my dad caught!" Ha ha!

Just a little further in the background, a mountain range provides a beautiful silhouette against the setting sun. This can be even more beautiful on a cloudy day when silver linings form along the edges of the cloud. Now I understand when my english speaking friends in Singapore says, "Every cloud has a silver lining!". A girlfriend I know from DBS just upstairs of where I work in Chai Chee (DBS has since moved out) once explained this phrase to me when I told her I was down and stressed with the huge debt I was responsible for (another post on this later).

The most beautiful time to see these mountains is in winter when they are topped with a fresh cap of snow. Sometimes I just love standing out in the open, breathing in the fresh country air and admiring the beautiful scenery. It clears my mind and has an excellent therapeutic effect on my whole being. I always feel lighter and with more energy after the exercise.

"People say women are hard to please..."

While I work in the city and sometimes I wish the city was nearer, I also sometimes wish my hometown to be the same as always. I would dread to see the day my hometown become fully developed and becomes a concrete city, like Shenyang. People say women are hard to please because they don't know what they want.... and sometimes I have to agree!

Our family gathering!

While writing about my journey to Singapore, I'll intersperse my writing with posting of my current life back in China. This is so that you can read about my current situation as well. My journey to Singapore was already 2 years back in history. I hope to be able to submit enough articles so that my blog will catch with my current life... There's alot of catching up to do... and I'll probably take quite a few months before I can catch up to my current situation. Bear with me...

Last weekend was a special weekend for us. It was one of those rare weekends where my whole family was together; my sister, my brother and I, together with our parents. Living in the country side, most of us have to stay in the city during the weekdays to be closer to our workplace and as such, we don't see much of each other often. If not for mobile phones, we may not even hear from each other for a long time. Thanks to technology, we're able to keep in contact on a regular basis.

I love dumplings (饺子)!

Dumplings(饺子) is a favorite food in China and it is our family's favorite food too! We always make it on special occassions like these. My mother is good at making dumplings. They are always delicious and since young, she had taught me the art of making good dumplings (饺子)! So this weekend, we bought the necessary ingredients such as pork, vegetables and flour to make dumplings (饺子). Since there are only 5 of us and most of us can only eat about 10 dumplings each or thereabouts, it does not make sense for us to just make 50. We normally make several hundred and either give some to our neighbours and relatives or keep them in the refrigerator for future consumption. In the village, we are a close knit community and normally share what we make with others... and they share theirs with us too. We share the joy with each other too... like if my neighbour's children do well in school, we will all congratulate them... but often, we keep the sorrows to ourselves!

My brother caught a big fish (carp) in the nearby lake and so we had a good meal of dumplings, fish and rice for dinner! It's not just the food, but also the camaraderie... that I really enjoy! I personally had not experience such a family gathering for such a long time as I had been a way for 2 years and did not even have enough money to make it back for two Chinese New Year celebrations in 2009 and 2010.

I had a really great time...

My home in China!

Ever wondered what a typical Chinese Migrant life is like in China? Most of us from the country side still farm crops as a main occupation. My parents are both farmers and we live on a piece of land where we built our home. Our homes are not modern in any way. It's made mostly of concrete and has basic amenities by most country's standards. Some areas, such as the toilets are still made from bricks. Here is a picture of the toilets. No modern flushing system for sure.... but it serves its intended purpose well enough.

We don't have hot water or tap water and we have to get our water by manually pumping them from the ground. Ha, you may think this is ancient but recently, I was back home and it is exactly the same as when I left. While China has progressed by leaps and bounds, this is only in the city. The country side is much the same. Can you imagine being without hot water in the winter... and I can assure  you that winter is very, very cold here in Benxi.

We do have a pump system run by a generator but this is only used when we need lots of water in a hurry such as when we need ground water for irrigation. Otherwise, for most day-to-day use, we have to resort to pumping manually.

Is the water clean enough for drinking? For us, yes... but I guess that's because we've been acclimatized to bacteria present in the ground water. We boil the water before drinking them of course and they do taste different from the clean tap water in many developed countries. In fact, they have a rather unpleasant smell sometimes.

Well, I will tell you more about home every now and then... but you can see, we're used to hard work and life can be tough at times.