The One And Only Håkan Hellström

Chinese New Year's Eve

Yesterday on New Year's Eve, I started the day with making some decorations. Typical colors are red and gold for the Chinese New Year, because the colors symbolize love and prosperity. I bought some DIY paper flowers in Taipei and put them on some branches and also added some red envelopes for luck and fortune. We also went to purchase a satsuma plant. The pronouciation for satsumas in Chinese (as well as many other things) has a nice meaning so superstitious people believe that if you eat something for example satsumas it'll bring you wealth. I'm not superstitious but the decorations are nice to look at and it's fun with traditions.

 
In 2012 it is the year of the Dragon. There are twelve different animals in the Chinese zodiac. I was born in the Dragon's year so I think'll be a great year! It says that dragons are lucky, confident, generous and brave. We had some fruit called lóng yǎn which literally means dragon eyes because longan is white inside and a round black seed. 


The food we cooked for lunch (sea food hot pot, woked udon noodles, pork steak and shitake mushroom woked with abalone) were put by an altar together with chopsticks and soup spoons. We all lighted an inscense to pray for our ancestors. This is an symbolic action to treat them a meal and for reminiscense.

In the afternoon we painted some lanterns and wrote wishes on them. There are many traditional greetings to wish people luck in school and work, in relationships and health. I wrote "新年快樂, 心想事成!" on mine which means "Happy new year, heart thoughts come true!".

In the evening, we cooked a lot of good and traditional dishes. This time we pray for people who are alone. We also put tea leaves and some liquor on the table to treat them a drink. 

On the menu was:

• Roasted duck
• Sauted asparagus with garlic topping
• Woked Noodles
• Abalone wok with paksoi shitake mushroom
• Flamed shrimps
• Seafood wok
• Fried pork dumplings wrapped in soy paper
• Taro purée with glazed sweet potato amd red dates for dessert.

 

  








After the dinner we lightened our lanterns. The picture below left shows one of our lanterns with a dragon and wish for studies development. Only one out of three were successfully released (it was a little bit too windy for lanters). That one flew way high up in the sky and looked like a star after a few seconds. We played games and mah jong for the rest of the evening and had a good time. Before we went to bed we left a lamp turned on the whole night through (it was a low energy bulb), as light is a good sign.  

 

New Year's Sweets

Today, I helped grandma to do some crystallized coconut and deep fried sticks. Both are traditional sweets and you can find it in asian stores. 

We cracked open the coconuts, sliced in thin slices and then boiled in sugar and water till almost all water has evaporated. Thereafter take the kettle from the heat and stir around till the sugar crystallizes and dry.

The result! The sugar has turned snow like and encapsules the coconut slices. 

So, here's the deep fried sticks with sugar coat. After the sticks have been deep fried in oil (above right), let it cool down a little before pouring the sugar glaze over and mix around.

It took the whole afternoon to cut out the sticks, but it's so worth it, they're so tasty!

Preparations For The Lunar New Year

According to the lunar calender it's the 28th day in the twelfth month. The Chinese New Year, also called the Lunar New Year occurs at different day every year, depending on the moon phases. This year New Year's Day is on 23th of January. It is celebrated during several days and is the biggest festival in China. During these coming days I will show how me and my family celebrate the Lunar New Year in Sweden, and it'll be a small cultural and culinary trip. 

Here's a picture of the lunar calender in January 2012. 

Today, two days before New Years Day, it's time to clean up the house. And, of course, prepare some of the food. The following pictures show some things that my grandma already done called zong zi (粽子), banana cake, sugar cake (年糕) and petite sweet pasty. 

To the left are Zong zi. The big ones are steamed sticky rice filled with five-season-marinated-pork and mung beans wrapped in lotus leaves. The small ones are the sweet banana cake made of sticky rice with black eye beans and banana. To the right is the meat zong zi unwrapped, sliced and fried. 

Left figure shows steamed sugar cake. The name 年糕 (nian gao) means year cake and the pronouciation is very a like "year high" which can be outreaded more success for the coming year.

Right figure shows the petite pastries filled with coconut and peanut. 

Dancing In My Dreams

So. I went to sleep early tonight and fell asleep in the most wonderful and carefree sleep ever. And guess what? The neighbour is blasting out disco-Rihanna so the walls are shaking of the resonance frequency when I was somewhere between stage four and REM- phase. I knew, subconciously, that wanted to dance and woke up. I'm seriously considering thinking of crashing their pre-game. In pyjamas.

"So slowly time goes by..."

Twenty-three-years-old-crisis

Turning 23 years old last week didn't make me feel older. I have friends about the same age that have bought house and car, some have married or will do that soon and a childhood friend is waiting her second baby. They seem so... grown up. And then I stop for a second and look at myself, what have I done in my life? One shouldn't compare with other people, after all I'm still a person of my own, but it's hard to not to.

I chosed to enter university. I don't regret that decision. However, I wonder how life would've turned out if I had taken another path. It's amazing to see how different the painting of life can be depending on which color you choose. For instance, look at the entrepreneur and inventor Steve Jobs or the wonderful singer Tracy Chapman or the botanist Carl von Linné. They have all made excellent work in respectively area.

Yesterday, I took some time to write a letter to the future me. I described how my days are like now and how I think it'll be like in the future. Even though I have a vision of how my life will be, I want to stay openminded and embrace other possibilities. I will open the letter in three years. No matter what has happen until then I think the most important thing is to have courage to do things you want to. It's better to do something and regret it than not doing it at all, right?!

A Little Tailwind

It's always windy in Linköping. But for once, it actually blows in the right direction.

Afternoon Exam

Today, I'll spend the whole afternoon taking an exam in signal and image processing. I was reminded about how much I dislike exams in the afternoon, the worst part is to wait (also, I prefer morning exams because my brain seems to run faster). I took a walk before lunch in attempt to make the time past faster, the sun was shining and the grass was so green that if I didn't have a calender I would think that it's spring time. Weird but lovely.

Pre-Birthday

 Yesterday, my dear family pre-celebrated my birthday because I'm going back to Linköping today. So there were lots of cake, coffee and tea, and fruit (the latter more to compensate the former, I guess. haha). My youngest cousin who is eight years old made the biggest effort to wrap in the three presents he gave me. It must have been a huge project, I love that he used a half roll of tape and how he tide the lace with elegance. He's such a sweetheart!

In the evening I wanted to make pizza (it was so long ago I last did it). I made the dough and then went out for a walk with mum and after that we sat a while in the sauna. The dough became monstrous... but the pizza turned out pretty nice anyway. Lastly, we made a fire (and managed to let off the fire alarm twice) to warm up the feet whilst watching Rocky I.   

Iteration Of Songs

Sometimes, I'm quite good at playing songs I like on repeat. It's like when I was five year or something and watched Disney movies over and over again till the video tapes gave up. So, here are the three songs.

Plans for 2012

I want to:

• find a job.
• learn to dance lindy hop or some other dance.
• learn to plan the guitar. 
• go to concerts for example Laleh, Jens Lekman and Avicii. Listen to Avicii here.
• read more books.