How can you not love a man who will go the distance just to be with you, literally and figuratively? 🙂 I’m blessed with such a man.

I went on a solo trip with my boy to Melaka for the Lantern Festival a.k.a the Chinese Valentine’s day celebration ans my husband went over soon after he finished work to spend the weekend with me.

Anyway, as I said earlier, it was the Chinese Valentine’s festival or commonly known as Chap Goh Mei over here in Melaka and men and women were given oranges and bananas respectively to be thrown into the river to find their love match.

Chap Goh Mei is associated with the traditional myth of young unmarried ladies throwing mandarin oranges inscribed with names and telephone numbers into rivers in search of a boyfriend or husband.

However, ‘Chap Goh Mei’ itself means the 15th night of Chinese New Year in Hokkien, which also marks the end of the Chinese New Year celebration.

The day is celebrated similarly to the day before Chinese New Year is celebrated –with much joy and festivity. During Chap Goh Mei, families gather over a grand meal which includes glutinous rice balls and homes are beautifully lit with red lanterns. At the temples during Chap Goh Mei, people offers prayers to the God of Prosperity (Cai Shen Yeh) to bless their family with good fortune for the coming year.

Traditionally, the day is punctuated by the sounds of the love ballad called Dondang Sayang that is sung in streets to the instruments of a violin, two drums and a gong. Sometimes this becomes comedy when the lyrics are changed by the singers.

I told my husband I’ve thrown an orange too when he came to meet me in Melaka. 😛 Oh hey…I’m spoken for but I’m a hopeless romantic. Can’t blame me for that, can you? My husband asked me what I wrote on the orange before I threw it into the river. I said….I just wrote my blog link https://cleffairy.com. 😛 but that’s not all I wrote, actually. I was just too shy to tell him. Yes yes, 12 going on 13 years together and I still blush around him every now and then

😉 I wrote ‘520, for all eternity’. 😉 Nobody knew what the numbers really meant, but my husband and I shared something really significant about the numbers. 😉

I don’t usually celebrate Valentine’s day, be it the Western or the Chinese version, but hey…I’m not complaining. 😉 it was indeed an experience to remember and a wonderful memory to cherish.

Did quite a lot of things during the Chap Goh Mei weekend and I will be sharing with you about Melaka Alive cultural performance and more interesting places to visit soon, so stay tuned for more. 🙂