A Eurasian Affair 1.

It's Easter! And what do Catholics do when it is Easter Sunday? Besides praying; they feast! They eat and drink around a round table and share stories, joke around and a little gossip included. After 6 weeks Lent and going through the Holy week, Good Friday we finally enjoy ourselves. Easter is a time to laugh be jolly and have fun; not forgetting the resurrection of the Lord of course.

Having lunch with the aunts and uncles, always brings entertainment. A table of 9, at a Chinese restaurant, an 8-dishes lunch, feast! Prior to eating, stories from the elderly always come up, about whose aunt is whose daughter that is married to that uncle's brother which is your grandmother's sister which is my sister in-law. That's is one more thing about Eurasians, it is hard to marry one, especially you yourself is a Eurasian, because somehow or another we are all related*.

Next, looking at our lunch table, you'll see a true blend of Malaysia. We have a mix, of Chinese, Indians, Caucasian (look-alike) and Malay (look-alike). People that pass our table give a strange stare at us, surely at the back of their minds they are saying, "What are these people?". Oh well, we're a mix of the East and a little of the West, so we're Malaysians!

Furthermore, getting together over lunch, with people which you are (somehow) related to, and had all kinds of backgrounds, you'll find that the talking and chatting is longer than the eating. We spoke before the coming of the food came- we feasted, the food gone, we continued talking. Well, I guess that goes much for everyone's lunch date.

No doubt, it is very interesting when one can observe a typical Eurasian family at lunch or dinner. There's always a mix of faces and colours, always one (or a few) then can speak three or more languages (including multiple dialects of Chinese: Hakka, Teo Chew, Hokkien, Cantonese), never-retiring business man, man from the army, Church women and of course the youngest one. Next time, when you're in a Chinese restaurant at around a Catholic festival, lookout for this kind of table, you'll be surprised.

*This brings to my theory of that I (or any younger generation Eurasian person) shouldn't marry another Eurasian because somehow or another we are all related. Example, at lunch today, the Chinese 'aunty' with us was my father's godparents' daughter, which is related to my mom by her brother-in-law who is my mom's cousin; to make it more interesting, she is one of the first in Malaysia mix-marriage.