DanielYKL

Chinese New Year! To the children its “ang pow” time. To the parents it’s giving away of “ang pow” and spending money. To the grandparents it’s a time of seeing their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren coming together for a family reunion. This is a time where everybody far and near will try to come back to their family home to catch up with one another and have a reunion dinner. There is another reason too; for some, if not most came back for the Penang’s food, especially the hawker’s food. 

On the Lunar New Year’s Eve and the first two days of New Year, the city is like a dead town. There is hardly any traffic. Why? People are busy having reunion and catching up with one another and some visiting relatives and friends – to give and collect “ang pow.” Also they are forced to eat at home with whatever food that is left over from the Eve’s reunion dinner as most if not all the Chinese hawker’s food stall are closed.  As for me, I have to resort and be contented with the mamak mee goreng and malay “nasi campur.” But comes the third day of Chinese New Year, the city becomes alive again. The hawker stalls are open again and everybody is out there looking for food. Man, it’s packed everywhere, from the smallest coffee shop to the biggest. And I bet you 80% of the customers are from out-stations or overseas. Yes, they come to invade the “famous” Penang hawker stalls. And that’s bad news for the Penangites! The price of food has gone up.  The hawkers will take advantage of the rush during the festive season. A bowl of Hokkien Mee that normally cost RM3.00 has gone up to RM4, and Char Koay Teow has gone up from RM3.00 to RM4.50 or even RM5.00. Everything has gone up an extra ringgit or two. But the thing is, to these people who comes from KL or overseas it is still cheap. My friend tells me that it is  still cheap compared with the prices in KL. And like my friend and his family, they will order everything there is and just share among themselves, like they have never eaten before. 

On Saturday the third day of CNY, I was having a famous Indian mee goreng,  prepared by a Chinese couple along Burma Road. And next to my table, a family of six was having wanton noodles. They were having like 2 bowls of the noodles each apart from the mee goreng. They just want to get all they can while in Penang. And this morning I had curry mee that cost me RM7. YES, SEVEN MALAYSIAN RINGGIT!!! And all just because they added a couple of extra prawns. This is the most expensive curry mee ever, just like the price you pay in Australia. And there was this group of people having the curry mee and other food as well, and I overheard them saying that it’s CHEAP! From the way they talked and behaved, I know they are from KL and a few from overseas, probably Australia or England, returning home for the festive season. Yea, of course with their Aussie dollars and English pounds, this is peanuts. But for us who lived here in Penang and earning the Ringgit, it’s a bomb!