The evening - 22 July 2014

The party was scheduled to start at 7pm but we were at Herbal Oasis at 545pm to set up and decorate the place. The 4 of us helped out under the leadership of Sharon the Designer, and with the assistance of Prim and Yati our helper, everything was ready by 645pm.

Pic Ee Hoon

Imm and Faith was in charge of the Guest Book which they later made it into a beautiful Coffee Table type book for Mom to keep.

Mom's birthday cake was delivered by Awfully Chocolate and Sharon decided she wanted to have a 3 tier one. She used her artistic skills to re-decorate Mom's cake until it was like a masterpiece. Sharon ordered 3 cakes and stacked them together and added ribbons, strawberries etc.

Uncle Harry and Aunt Helen was the first guests to arrive. It was lovely to see many show up in the traditional Sarong Kebayas for the Nonyas and batik shirts for the Babas. That added so much to the mood and atmosphere and if there was an award for Ms Nonya, it would surely be Immy in her beautiful blue and pink kebaya.

My father welcomed the guests and the evening was opened by Kenneth. He had just picked up the flute recently and played a beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace, a fitting song indeed reminding us that it is God's amazing grace that has allowed Mom and all of us to enjoy this special evening. His flute was nicely accompanied by Andrew on the violin and Jeremy on the keyboard. I had the privilege to give thanks for the food.

One of the stress factors I had was whether the catered food from Peramakan would be the same standard as that served in their restaurant. Fortunately, the Bibiks gave their thumbs up with Aunt Rosalind remarking, "Eh Alvin, itu makan sedap la!"

The following dishes were ordered -

Ayam Cleo
Beef Rendang
Buah Kerluak Babi
Ikan Garam Assam
Seafood Otak Otak
Nonya Ngoh Hiang
Nonya Chap Chye

Dessert - Chendol

Pic Silverliningsg

In the middle of dinner, we had a surprise guest pop in at about 8pm! It was cousin Stuart. He contacted me earlier in the day to ask if he could come. Was very touched that he cut short his stay in Koh Samui, Thailand and caught a flight to attend Mom's 80th. Everyone was so delighted to see dear Stuart!!!

I took the opportunity to share a little about our family's heritage starting with the life of Chia Ann Siang and brought everybody back to the days of the Straits Settlement in the 1800s with a violin/piano performance of God Save the Queen. This was followed by the Theme from Little Nonya as I covered the period of his family. Mom has taught at ACS for nearly 40 years and it was only fitting that the ACS anthem was played too. The message I wanted to put across was, "What legacy are we leaving behind?"

More of the presentation will be put up later.

The highlight of the evening was of course a special birthday serenade by my father Lee Cheng Hoon. They have been married for over 50 years and are inspirational parents to us. The song he chose was Slim Whitman's Silver Threads among the Gold.

It was of course fitting to end the special evening with the cutting of the cake and we all sang a rousing Happy Birthday to Mom. Her speech was short and simple - "I wish that all of you will live to 80, and MORE!"

The evening followed with plenty of photo taking and merry making. We could see that Mom was really pleased with her 80th birthday celebrations. We are so grateful to everyone who came and shared this special evening with us!

God bless you all.

Introduction

In any culture, turning 80 is a very significant birthday and in the Peranakan context, it is called the Tua Sa-air Jik. This is even more important as our mother Kathleen Chia is the eldest sibling in the 4th generational line of Chia Ann Siang. She is known as Ta Chi - or Big Sis.

We wanted to honour her with a special birthday party on 22 July 2014, with a Peranakan theme of course. Food  is very important and in the olden days, special dishes would be carefully prepared before hand for the Makan Besar. However in modern day Singapore, this is not possible as we are all busy people and fortunately, there are caterers who can do the job. The challenge of course is which one? Guan Hoe Soon was considered as they actually catered for Mom's wedding some 55 years ago but the one that we finally selected upon was Peramakan. First tried them at Keppel Club few years back and Mom actually approved of their food.

However, they did not have a private room that could cater for 30+ guests and we ended up renting the whole restaurant at Herbal Oasis. This was a business that my sister Sharon helped with design work recently and the owner was kind and happy to close the restaurant for us that evening. This gave us the opportunity to decorate it the way we wanted it and Sharon did an excellent job with hand-sewn batik table cloth, flowers, cutlery for the tables. There were also other brilliant decor like candles, banners etc.

Sharon worked on the invitation card based on the Peranakan theme and it turned out absolutely beautiful as expected from my talented sis. A Facebook event page was also created for the more internet savvy youngsters.

The guest list was limited to 30 and my father came up with the list. They were mostly family and with some close friends. We were honoured that Aunt Grace, Aunt Swee Eng and cousin Stuart came all the way from Sydney Australia while Prim, our dear friend of 15 years flew in from Bangkok for this event.

It was also significant that we had Ee Hoon, who is an active member of Heritage Bukit Brown present. It is through the hard work of her team that our ancestor's 120 year old tomb was discovered in Sep 2012.

Another special guest that really contributed to the evening was Andrew Cheng, my son Jeremy's high school mate from Perth. He is a concert violinist with the Western Australian Youth Orchestra. It was providence that he was passing through Singapore enroute from Taiwan and could grace us with his amazing violin skills. Here he is with Jeremy practicing the Little Nonya theme for the very first few times.

We wanted people to dress up for the occassion and the theme was Peranakan. All in, it took a lot of preparation to get everything done but every effort was worth it. It is after all, Mom's 80th Grand Birthday and this is the best way we can honor our dear mother.