7th month dinner

Yesterday my hubby and I went to the last day of the 7th month dinner. We were invited by his re service friend, Jeffry. It is a tradition for many Singaporean here to have dinner during 7th month. They would pray, auction things, have singer on stage (ge-tai), etc. Jeffry and his father have a company in the area and I guess it's their tradition to attend this dinner. We have been invited twice. Last year all of my hubby's re service buddies occupied one table, but this year there was some changes.. Only Raymond, me, and Wee Boon came and attended the dinner while the rest.. I had no idea hehehe...

Just want to jot down some things that usually happened during dinner:
First, there would be some public hospital, kidney foundation, public TCM (traditional Chinese medication) asking for donation from table to table, which made people feeling very awkward during dinner. I mean.. you can see people act blurred from time to time when they were asked for the donation (including me).. Come on.. we came there for the dinner, but we were asked for donations too.. It's not that we don't want to donate.. but I think it's not really the right time to do so. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just didn't feel right.

Second, there would be auction selling things, which some are auspicious thing and mostly are not. *See picture - the dinner's environment. Actually the real goal of auctioning is to get money for donations.. So everything sold was really expensive but still.. lots of people went there and had themselves prepare for it. Well done for their good deeds!!! As for me, I never tried to auction before and don't think I will do that in the future 'cos the thing is VERY expensive... e.g. a bottle of Martell can be auctioned for S$388. A lady's purse can be auctioned for S$500, etc.

Third, normally there will be ge-tai at the opposite of the 'makan' area. And the auctioneer will shout very loud stating the prices.. So you can imagine how noisy it is... but it can hide my burping sound after drinking a continuous glass of beer..

Oh ya.. before I forgot, also the fourth one, in this dinner, it is also a chance for people to drink beer all-you-can without paying extra. Hahaha... The beer's staffs keep make your glass full even if you only have drunk it for a sip or two, therefore I couldn't even count how many glasses I've drunk hahahahaha.... I just knew that the feeling after drinking those beer were very very good... =) For a moment, I forgot that I was coughing.. and also for a moment, I couldn't even smell the smelly public toilet that I visited many times during the dinner.. hahahaha...

For the ge-tai.. I found that last year's singers sang much better than this year.. The songs were more popular too.. This year, I thought after 881 movie released, there would be some new excitement.. but too bad... there wasn't.

Fifth, the food is normally 8-course meal. As for last night, they served: cold dishes for the opening (jelly fish salad, prawn mayo salad, octopus w/ sauce, ham w/ cucumber, and fried fish cake), shark fin's soup, suckling pig (very nice and crispy skin), steamed fish, fried broccoli w/ abalone mushroom, deep-fried chicken skin filled w/ fish cake w/ hoy sin sauce, fried meat bun, and last one was steamed tapioca w/ coconut milk for the dessert. It's really good... But I think last year was still better.. hehehe.. maybe last year was my first time attending the dinner.. so my impression was stronger... hehehe....

Well... lastly.. thanks to Jeffry for inviting us again this time! Otherwise I wouldn't have chance to attend this kind of dinner... and last night he told me that in 2-weeks time, there would be another one held by the temple and he asked us to go as well.. Hahahaha......