Lantern festival is around the corner.  It is a chinese festival celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth Chinese Lunar Calendar or 14 of August 2008 in western calendar this year!  Lantern festival is also known as Moon cake festival or Mid-autumn festival. 

Like previous year, this meaningful festival is celebrated with different types of mooncakes and lanterns with different design!  I still remembered when i was still a kid, i always look forward for this meaningful festival, as i can eat my favourite mooncakes and played with my neighbour’s friends with my lantern custom-made by my father (hehe…it was my school art project)!!!   We hung our lanterns around the fence of our houses and on the tree outside of houses, and sat on the floor covered with newspaper, sang songs together, and lighted up candles around the fence too!  At the same time, we shared our mooncakes together!  Our parents joined us too to socialise with our neighbour!  I will never forget this happy moment in my life!  My happy childhood with my neighbour friends!

In my memory, i used to have my own lantern with fish design, bird design and even batman design too (eventhough i was a little girl..)!!!  In olden days, there were lanterns made by empty can or tin, puked with holes on the side of the can and tighted with a string so that it can be carried using a stick!  I believe it still can be found nowadays especially in small rural village! 

Today, we can find many types of mooncakes in the market.  Other than tradisional baked mooncakes, there are “ping pei” mooncakes, “jelly mooncakes” ..etc with different types of filling too!  The mooncakes now cost more expensive if compared to olden days (more than RM11 per piece depending on the brand)!  So my mom decided to make her mini “ping pei” mooncakes with coconut filling today (see photo below)!  Yumyum…it is delicious!

Children in urban area nowadays are happier and have “better life”, as they have at least minimum one lantern each!  There are lantern powered by battery which cost more than RM10 for one!  It is for their safety purpose as candles are more dangerous.  Not like children in rural areas, they can only afford to buy a tradisional or handmade themselves their own lanterns.  Therefore, children should learn to appreciate what have been given by their parents!

Other events come along with this festival are informal lantern parades and guessing lantern riddles, which often contain messages of good fortune, family reunion, abundant harvest, prosperity and love.

In short, it is an ideal festival for all of us to reunite with our families and appreciate the elderly effort in bringing us to the world and flourished us with their endless loves and cares, educated us with knowledge, so that we are able to handle our lives confidently in the future and becomes what we are today!  

So now it is our turn to show our loves and cares to them too by spending our time to have dinner with them on this coming Sunday!  Trust me, our parents are happy to see us to visit and spend time with them than other physical things given to them!

Good News for this coming Hari Raya festival!!

Petaling Jaya City Council has organised a recycling campaign for this coming Ramadan bazaars in four different areas. Those who trade in three cartons of 72 empty drink packets of any brand will get one free carton of sweetened drinks in this Drink Packet Recycling Campaign.

The objective of this recycling campaign is to increase the awareness of recycling or the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) among the public. It can also help to reduce the amount of waste destined for the dumpsite during Ramadan.

The recycling campaign is started from Sept 2 to 28, and will be held at Jalan SS6/1 at Kelana Jaya, Jalan 14/28 at Section 14, Jalan PJS 2/3 at PJS 2 and Jalan Cecawi 6/19 at Section 16 in Kota Damansara on different dates respectively starting from 4pm till 7pm.

Besides, there will be a lucky draw on the last day at 6.30pm for every campaign location. Attractive prizes will be given away for three lucky winners on that meaningful day. A total of RM1,200 is up for grabs.

On top of that, there are other interesting events include the guessing competition which will reflect the 3R message. A notebook made out of recycled paper will be given to whoever brings in every five boxes of empty drink packets of any brand. While a free shopping bag will be given to those who trade in ten boxes of drink packets. However, those who manages to bring 30 cartons worth of empty drink packets will get a lucky draw ticket and 12 cartons of free drinks, and much much more…

So hurry, grab this golden opportunity to join this recycle campaign in order to help government to create an environmental-friendly place to stay!

Be reminded: Do not throw away any empty drink packets! Collect them and have fun with your rewards!

For more information on the recycling campaign, please log on to www.mbpj.gov.my