In my younger days, this festival simply meant lighting up lantern and had a good meal with the whole family (including my grandparents and my parents’ sibling).

The lanterns looked like the following pic, and we would be lighting up candle inside it, carrying it around.

A traditional Mid-Autumn Festival lantern

We would savour mooncakes and look at the pretty and bright full moon, said to be the fullest and roundest in the year.

Varieties of Mooncakes

As mooncakes are quite oily and filling, drinking hot tea after the feast ease out our palate and digestive system. It is a leisure indulgence.

Nowadays kids do not need to light up candles anymore. They have battery operated lanterns that come in shapes, like super heroes. A click on switch and the lantern will light up and even made shrill sounds.

modern day lantern

We used to have lotus paste with yolk or red bean filling only. These days there are mooncakes with various types such as flaky skin, snow skin and various flavor, such as ice cream mooncake, green tea with yolk, ginseng bird nest custard, and even durian pulp mooncakes.

Snowskin Bird Nest Custard Mooncake

As you may have guessed, Apple Bazaar staffs are quite a foodie.

Today we wish you all a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! If you have a family gathering, don’t forget to give the kids lanterns, light up the sparklers, have a bite on the luxurious mooncakes, admire the round bright moon. Most importantly, enjoy the time you spend together. It is precious.

Note: The wikipedia has interesting summary of the legend on Mid-Autumn Festival. And here is a site that describe the festival in many countries, including Japan and Vietnam.

On the first day of Hari Raya, Muslims will go for a special prayer in the morning and later in the afternoon is the visiting of relatives or friends. This is the day where we will ask forgiveness from each other especially from our parents. This is an important custom for muslims. Some families will wear the same colour costumes which gives them an identity that they are a family while some will wear different colours. However, the most important thing is spending time with family on Hari Raya. Usually, the Hari Raya festive is celebrated for one month, no only with family but also with friends.

The best part of raya? Of course it’s the food! Our most popular or rather must-have is the ketupat, rendang, sambal prawns and satay and not forgetting the ‘kuehs’ or cakes that those have baked during ramadhan. The must-have kueh is of course the kueh tart which is the pineapple tart. Honestly, my tummy is growling while typing this but that’s ok because i’m fasting. Below are some picture of the festive food.

This is the ketupat which is the rice dumpling

On the first day of Hari Raya, most families will visit their parents house where all the other relatives gather. We will then spend time with food and relatives there. It can be the whole day or maybe for a while depending on some families as they might have other houses to visit. First day is usually the family day. After that, we will visit our friends or other relatives’ houses.

So this is a short overview post on how Muslims in Singapore celebrate Hari Raya. And it’s tomorrow! Time flies really fast though. Anyways,

Apple Bazaar would like to wish all muslims out there

Selamat Hari Raya and Enjoy Your Holidays!

Such a thing is unimaginable today, thanks to the advancements in aviation technology.  International and domestic travelling had become so much quicker and simpler because of airplanes.  Can you even begin to imagine going on a slow boat to China, like people did back in the really old days.  In fact, if you make an airplane fly non-stop at 1,000 km/hr, then going around the world will only take you 2-3 days.  That is definitely a far cry compared to Magellan’s three-year trip.

So who do we thank for changing the way we travel around the world?  There are basically four personalities that have made huge contributions to aviation history – Daniel Bernoulli, the Wright Brothers (Orville and Wilbur) and Carl Gustaf Patrik de Laval.

Daniel Bernoulli

Born in 1700 in the Netherlands, Daniel Bernoulli was just one on the many great mathematicians in the family.  However, it is believed that he was the one who perfected the science of flight by applying mathematics to mechanics.  He developed the theory called the Bernoulli Principle, which is widely used in aviation and even car racing.  Bernoulli discovered that the force of lift would increase if the top of an airplanes wing is curved.  Air would then also flow much quicker over the top of the wing compared to underneath, making the pressure greater at the bottom creates the better force of lift.

Wilbur and Orville Wright

Americans Orville and Wilbur Wright share the distinction of being the first in the world to invent and build a successful airplane.  On December 17, 1903, they also made the world’s first powered, controlled and with a sustained heavier-than-air human flight.  Through the brothers’ invention of the three-axis control, an airplane pilot became able to maintain an airplane’s equilibrium and to steer it effectively.  The three-axis control is now a standard for every fixed-wing aircraft.

Carl Gustaf Patrik de Laval (1875)

Carl Gustaf Patrik de Laval was a Swedish engineer and inventor, who made significant contributions on the design of steam turbines.  Three years after building a small steam turbine in 1887, he increased the steam jet to supersonic speed with the use of a specially-developed nozzle.  The de Laval nozzle, as it is now called, is being used in the production of modern rocket engines.

Aviation Celebratory Coins Set

These Aviation Celebratory Coins Set was produced in honor of the above-mentioned important figures in history.  These three beautiful coins are made of Sterling Silver, protected with a plastic casing, are 5.3 cm in size. They are carefully placed in a gold plate, with short biography of each of the celebrity and packed in a lovely red gift box in lacquer finish.

If you know anyone who is an aviation fanatic, this coins will make a great gift set for them. Coins collector will also appreciate this commemorate collectibles made to honour the people in aviation industry.

Collect them from Apple Bazaar

If you live in a place with four seasons or somewhere that can get extremely cold that it snows, then you are no stranger to the color white.  The first few snowfalls during wintertime are always enchanting, as tiny, white flakes fall out of nowhere and blanket a whole area with snow.  This is probably how the term “winter wonderland” was coined.  Of course, if you do not see anything else but snow, you will slowly begin to resent not being able to experience other colors.

White is a predominant color in nature.  Snow and ice are just the best representations of it.  The clouds on a clear day are also white.  Some flowers like roses, jasmine, chrysanthemums and daisies have their white varieties.  Animals such as the polar bears are white, which enables them to camouflage themselves because the place where they live has nothing but ice and snow, all white.  Ordinary cats and dogs may also be white and countless other animals have patches of white in their bodies.

It is interesting to note, however, that white is actually not a color.  White, like black, is a tone.  People often make the mistake of thinking that white is the absence of color, when this is really the characteristic of black.  Strange as it may sound, white is actually the combination of every perceivable color.  It sounds quite philosophical, in a way.

Perhaps due to the way nature uses this color, white has become popularly perceived as the color of purity, goodness and innocence.  When everything is covered in several inches of thick snow, and you see nothing else but snow, it becomes easy to see how everything around you is immaterial.

Because of this perception of white, the color is commonly used in religion.  Gods and their followers are, more often than not, clad in white clothing.  That is, unless they are the evil gods.  To express the holiness of someone or something, they are usually portrayed as basking in the glow of a white light.

To enhance further the perception of goodness in white, it is commonly used in combination with black.  These two colors are the complete opposite of each other and this best represented in the Chinese culture of Yin and Yang.  In the western culture, heroes are usually portrayed as pure, good and clad in dazzling white.  White knights always save the day and white witches (with some exceptions) only cast spells for the common good.

However, white does not always give a good aura.  It can also sometimes give the feeling of sterility, coldness or blandness.  Hospitals, with their walls, doctors and nursing staff all in white, cannot seem to shake off that dreadful feeling.  If you find yourself in a room painted in plain white and decorated with plain white furniture, how would you feel?  People would usually feel uncomfortable because they would be too on-the-spot or afraid they might soil something.  White is also the color of death in Chinese culture.  That irritating, static-like sound that the television gives off when it can’t find a signal is also called “white noise” and most people can’t listen to it for very long.

Barter Trading

But how did trading and commerce start? Where are its origins?  Most of us know that the earliest form of trade is bartering.  Basically, barter is a form of trade where a party gives goods or items in exchange for another.  This system is known to have been used since 150,000 years ago, long before the emergence of currency.  Common items used in barter are exotic foodstuffs, fruits, tea, herbs, fabrics, minerals and metals.  Services can also be bartered.  A man may offer to become a porter in exchange for food.

However, no society, whether ancient or modern, has been known to be completely reliant on the barter system.  Before money and currency existed, “gift economics” was another main source of trade.  Gift economics is a system where people give others goods and services without expecting immediate return.  Unlike barter, which is only used with complete strangers, this system is only used with people familiar people like family, friends and neighbors.

Eventually, a measurable system with which to trade emerged.  One of the first known currencies was the “shekel” from Mesopotamia.  It emerged sometime in 3,000 BC and was both a currency and a measurement of weight for goods.  The use of gold and silver coins was pioneered by the Lydians, according to Herodotus and most modern scholars.

Shekel 300 BCE

The place where people converge to trade goods and services is called a marketplace.  The oldest known marketplace is Iran’s Isfahan Grand Bazaar, which dates back since the 10th century and is mostly a covered marketplace.  Built in the 15^th century, the Istanbul Grand Bazaar in Turkey is said to have 4,000 shops along more than 58 streets and is still considered to be one of the largest covered markets in the world.

The covered marketplaces then started spreading to the rest of the world.  But it was not until the 1950’s when fully-enclosed shopping centers emerged.  Nowadays, shopping malls can be found all over the worldwide.  To date, the largest mall is the South China Mall in Dongguan, China.  This beast of a shopping mall is measured at 7.1 million square feet.  The ten largest malls in the world can be found in China, the Philippines, UAE, Turkey, Canada, Malaysia and the USA.

Furthermore, with the help of the advances in technology and the internet, global commerce is now also becoming part of everyday living.  Want to buy a rare book from Italy?  You can now do exactly that at a click of a mouse.

The history of April Fool’s Day is unclear. There are various stories regarding the origin of the event and the most probable one has something to do with the hop from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar. In the old Julian Calendar, New Year was celebrated starting March 25 and ended on April 1. When Pope Gregory XII ordered a new calendar in 1582, it was France’s King Charles IX who first adapted the new calendar thus New Year was moved from April 1 to January 1.

News back in the Middle Ages took “ages” to get from one place to another. More so from one country to another.  It took years (centuries actually) for the rest of Europe and England to receive the news. There were some obstinate ones who refused to acknowledge the new calendar and therefore continued to celebrate the New Year on April 1. Thus these obstinate fools were called April Fools.  These people were ridiculed and were the butt of jokes and were sent on “fool’s errands”.

By the 18^th century, the tradition spread to England and Scotland and then much later, to the Colonies, including the United States.  April Fool’s Day spread and developed into an international day for fun, jokes and hoaxes.

People try to outdo themselves each year. The joke could be simple pranks or elaborate hoaxes.  Even the media have had their field day in regarding April Fool’s Day. One of the best pranks ever was done by the highly respected BBC in 1957.  The news had something to do with the good harvest of spaghetti by Swiss farmers due to the elimination of the harmful spaghetti weevil. The news was accompanied by footage of Swiss farmers pulling spaghetti strands from the trees. A large number of viewers were reeled in by the hoax and many actually called the station and asked how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. BBC had an answer and it was “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.” It was not documented if any fool actually followed the instructions.

What about Google? This powerful company has been “hoaxing” many internet denizens since 2000.  Its first hoax was the GoogleMentalPlex. The “technology” claimed that there would be no need for a Google user to type what he wanted to search as it can read the user’s mind. A user had to look into a moving two-color pinwheel with these instructions:

• Remove hat and glasses.
• Peer into MentalPlex circle. DO NOT MOVE YOUR HEAD.
• Project mental image of what you want to find.
• Click or visualize clicking within the MentalPlex circle.

You bet! There were some very gullible ones who were pranked!

Anyway, please be informed that you are reader # 458 and you have just won an iPod Nano5. Don’t contact us. We’ll contact you!

Raising a child is not an easy task. It entails a lot of work and sacrifices on the part of both the mother and the father. From the moment the mother learns that she is pregnant, she has to take care of her physical, emotional and mental health for the sake of the baby within her. She has to change her lifestyle, start eating healthy food, take her vitamins, and keep her doctor’s appointment to monitor the baby’s growth.  On the part of the father, he has to work doubly hard to be able to support the needs of the mother-to-be and the coming baby.

The excitement of the coming birth of a child is slightly overshadowed by the thought of taking care of a new baby. As the birth date draws near, there are things that a new mom and dad have to take care of. There are baby clothes to buy, crib, beddings, baby carrier, baby toiletries, disposable diapers and more. Then there is the big decision for the mom if she will breastfeed or not; go back to work or not and a million other things. The dad also has to worry about finances and his role in rearing the child.

It is now archaic to relegate the rearing of a child solely to the mother as it is as archaic to expect the father to be the only provider. Parenting has evolved. The father is expected to be hands-on in taking care of a child as the mother is also expected to help out with the family finances.

mother and child

The new parents now are the Gen X’ers and the Gen Y. These two generations believe in all things (and roles) as being equal.  The tired working mom has every right as the tired working dad. If it’s mom’s turn to feed the baby at 3:00 A.M. today, and then dad has to do the honors the following day. If dad is expected to give his share in household and baby’s expenses, mom is also expected to give her share if she is working.

The working mom has no real dilemma with regards to who will take care of the baby. Depending on what country you live in, there’s the daycare, a nanny, a grandma or another relative to take care of the baby during the day.  The question is:  “will a mom-child relationship be sacrificed if the mom is working?”  A good answer to this question is another question: “will it be better for the mom to stay at home even if it would mean there’d be less food on the table and less opportunity for her child?”

A working mother might still be in effect to be a nurturing mother if she could juggle her time between work and  spending quality time with her baby. A father needs to do some bonding with his baby too. Parenting is a never ending process.  A tip: a well-loved child is a happy child.

The support of the Philippine government has led many locals to go into the manufacture of clothes and other articles of clothing. The quality of the items are (of course) dependent on the price tag. The universal the “more expensive the better quality” holds true.

Filipinos are self-confessed fashionistas.  Everyone wants to be in the height of fashion. The affluent ones go for the branded items, locally and internationally. For the rest of Filipinos, local items that are reasonably priced and even imported ones from China, Taiwan, Bangkok will do.

Filipino trend in clothes is universal. What is current in fashion in the United States are found in malls located in big and small urban cities.  Flea markets abound with imported products from surrounding Asian countries. Filipinos do buy imported goods like clothes, gadgets and food that are sold in most stores and shops. It’s usual to see imported and local goods side by side especially at the groceries.

The Filipino youth is a hodgepodge of fashion. You’ll see some uppity class A girls who are into their designer jeans and shirts complete with their designer bag and shoes. You’ll see some Bs and Cs sporting such ensemble too but more often than not, they are imitations. The Ds and Es have a fashion level of their own  too. Fashion is fashion as it transcends the social strata.

Skinny jeans, tees, shorts, tubes and strapless blouses, and accessories are still very popular among teens and young girls. Boys still go for dark colored shirts paired with denims. Teens, both boys and girls still gravitate towards Chucks, Zanuck, Crocs and Havaianas.  For those who can’t afford the originals, there are always imitations available at a bargain place called Divisoria. It is the bargain center of  Manila and may well be the Filipino counterpart of Thailand’s Jatujak (Chatuchak) Market.  Everyone goes  and shops at  Divisoria.

Divisoria

The trend on mobile phone is phenomenal. Almost everyone in the Philippines has a mobile phone. Even grandmas and grandpas text away! Mobile texting has become an accepted norm of communication that a Filipino might win the gold medal in the Olympics if there is such an event.  The Philippines is the “texting capital” of the world with a daily average of 600 million text messages sent daily.

Another trend is the opening of accounts in social networking sites. Friendster used to be the top social networking site in the Philippines but the advent of Facebook and Multiply led to a massive migration to Facebook  or Multiply.

Among above average students, laptops have also become as essential as cell phones.

How about your country?  Are  the trends the same or  is there  something unique  not mentioned here but particular in your country?