Such practices were once observed by my grandmother and the family friend that lived with her.
Days before the ceremony they would have had all the paper offerings folded into "gold coins". On the day itself they would have been up by 2am to bake the sponge cakes, all properly whisked without machines. They would have steamed the plates of vegetable-filled "pau"s (dumplings), cooked the chicken and pork dishes, prepared lots of food and arranged the fruits by 8am. Then we would come and help move their hard work out to the alter. Everything would be laid out according to my grandmother's meticulous preferences.
So to have it done without them now is to have high standards to reach.
We've been advised on how to improve by the family friend, which you should probably know is "kaimah" (godmother). And hence the results-
More food. More neatly arranged. Little improvements, I would have to agree. We'll learn as we go and take little steps each time. Some little things have not changed, though. We still have the spongecake made from their original recipe (their recipe book only exists in their heads) and the fried seaweed.
As we are now on the subject of improvements, I believed that I've changed a lot from when I first started blogging years ago. And there are several things I really should improve on.
But let's take it a little at a time.
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