Company Food Tossing

I have tasted hunger to the point of near starvation before. Not just in the Army when I experienced it to the point of developing gastritis but there were moments in my life when I had nothing to eat to the point of hunger pangs causing my hands to shake uncontrollably while I felt like fainting.

Therefore, I never waste food and I loathe the idea of playing with it. I eat only how much I know I can, no more, no less. Less is ok but more than I can eat is not ok as that would be wastage and hurts my waistline. If I have kids in the future, one of the first things I'll teach them is to never waste food.

Just so happens that during the Chinese New Year period, we'll have this event called "捞鱼生" when we'll toss food comprised of sweet things and salmon up in the air and when it lands on the plate, we'll toss the whole shebang up again while yelling mantras of prosperity. Us Chinese can be noisy people. We are lousy aims too because lots of the 鱼生 would spill out of the plate which we don't eat.

To me, that's a really messy affair which I never liked. By the end of it all, what you see on the plate is this jumbled mess that looks like dumped food from the trash bin.

Everytime I have to attend such a thing, I'll maximise the distance between myself and the table because some of the tossed food will inevitably land on your sleeve, hands and forearms if you stand close to the table. I've seen people got it on their hair before too.

So today, we had 捞鱼生 in the office and having learned from experience, I hunted for a table with gentler colleagues for obvious reasons. And the lesser the people at the table, the better for me.

So I joined the table where Melvin, our Wholesale Sales Manager and Lester, the GP Sales Rep were seated. When Jacelyn, my Homie from the Specialist Team saw me there, she came to join us. Glad she did, Jace is such a gentle girl. By the end of it after we have finished eating, this is how our plate looked like:

Ignore Jacelyn's legs & just focus on the food

If you think this is messy, you have not seen the other tables. I can understand the meanings associated with the event and I'm glad seeing my colleagues enjoying themselves, but I never liked this and don't enjoy it. Watching the portion of food spilled out of the plate which will never be eaten pains me.

The 捞鱼生 event is supposed to bring abundance & prosperity, so why do we start off by wasting food? Food is sacred to me because it keeps us alive. Since we have to eat everyday, that's something we can take for granted all too easily.

Hunger is not something to be taken lightly. Starve yourself for just 2 or 3 days and see if you know what I mean. I've done that before.

Ok, so I'm just a killjoy. Whatever, I don't waste my food just to feed my superstitions. And I'm not superstitious even though I believe in the spiritual. But that's not superstition, that's a fact. Why do I say that? Because I trust my eyes, my perception, as well as my goosebumps from what they have made me seen and experienced. Superstition is just ungrounded and unproven beliefs that you have never been a witness or partaker of - which unfortunately, lots of folks don't even question and follow blindly.

- De Lion Speaks