9th Day of New Year (Pai Ti Kong)

You know why Chinese New Year is more awesome than Christmas? Because Christmas is 12 days but Chinese New Year last for 15 days! ^_^ and today is only the 8th day. If you are a Hokkien, this is the biggest night of the Chinese New Year when the clock strikes 12 midnight as the 9th day is the birthday of the 'Jade Emperor'. It is a traditional custom for Hokkien people to pray to the God of Heavens on his birthday in a grand communal way, in which they call: "Pai Ti Kong".

Our plushies don't get to join this festive occasion as our owner lives far away from home on his own. We'll talk more about it on the later part, now we're waiting for our owner to help us peel the mandarin oranges.

mini me spots a mini mandarin orange

Looks yummy! The size of the orange fits mini me perfectly!

Picture of the mini one compared with the normal sized. The mini mandarin orange is sweet and juicy, best of all, it is seedless! Look at our sneaky monkey behind trying to keep all the mini oranges to himself!

Jolly Jomo: "Hey, save one for me.."

Jolly Hugo Wolf: "There are three, we'll take one each"

NICI Monkey: "In your dreams!"

We passed by our neighborhood temple and noticed they are already prepared for the grand event tonight. The prayers usually starts at 11pm and it will end after midnight.

If you live in places like the sunny Penang Island of Malaysia where the majority of the population is Hokkien, tonight will be so happening, it will be on par with New Year's Eve countdown party. Every Hokkien household will dish out a table of lavish offerings at their front door and kids are allowed to stay up late just to pray. Penang is probably the only place where tomorrow is declared a public holiday due to tonight's event!

As the 9th day of Chinese New Year approaches, you can spot local shops selling Sugar Canes. It is said that sugar cane saved the Hokkien people's lives by providing cover/shelter, hence it became a tradition to include sugar cane for the praying ceremony. We'll be sure to document the "Pai Ti Kong" ceremony in the future for everyone to see.

It is usually a major fire-cracker mayhem tonight but we aren't celebrating it here, so we'll leave you with some pictures of our NICI plush toys playing with fireworks last week.

We call this a "fairy stick" and my owner is helping mini me light it up.

Be careful, it's on fire ~~

Woah!

Jolly Jomo and NICI monkey gets to join the fun!

But tragedy happened....

Our poor monkey's hand got burned by the sparks...

So kids, don't play with fire!