90 & Still Dancing

I was back in Ipoh to attend my wife's grand father's 90th birthday celebration on May 22. We address her grandpa as Gong2 (cantoneses). Majority of our relatives from all over the world (Holland, US & Australia) made it for the event.

On that day after lunch, we had a brief tea ceremony at home where all of Gong2's children, grand-children and great-grand-children were there to offer him tea and get some ang pows (red packets with money) in return. We also attended a church ceremony followed by a dinner/dance reception later that night.

Gong2 is 90 years old but he still goes line dancing and play mahjong everyday. He had a heart operation last year but recovered very well. He was still trying to re-arrange the seating plans for the event on the night before. I had to learn up some line dancing steps from "Tango with the Sheriff" so that I could join in. Look at the sheriff in RED below:












The dinner/dance party was thrown by Gong2's daughters. Many of his friends, neighbours and fellow line dancers were invited to the dinner. It was fun because besides line dancing, we also had some partner dances and swing music.

You can see in the photo below that my 2.5 year old son dancing with me to the Chubby Checker's "Let's Do The Twist" song and he really enjoyed it. Maybe when he is 18 he would no longer want to dance with his father anymore?!!









Many of Gong2's line dancing "girl-friends" are 20-30 years younger than him. I can't believe there are still so many ladies being attracted to a 90 year old man. See what he got for his 90th birthday??









His wife Poh2 was a bit jealous and decided to take photos with 2 handsome "men" instead....ha ha ha!












Besides the party, we also had a good time eating all the delicious Ipoh food like Ipoh Hor Fun (flat noodles), char koay teow (fried noodles), white coffee (cappucino) and curry noodles. As shown in the photo below, some of our relatives were REALLY HUNGRY!












Family gatherings are always a blast!

Is A Vegetarian Diet Good For You?

Last week when I called home, my dad kept insisting that I need to provide my 2 year old son some meat in his diet, at least once a week he said. I kept insisting that as long as we have protein in our diet, we should be OK....but he kept on nagging over this issue through the phone.

So I looked up the internet and found out the following information about children's nutrition:

1. A child should be provided with a nutritional diet that is high in protein and contains above adequate levels of calcium. Protein aids the growth of muscle and bones & calcium helps to develop the bones.
2. An all round nutritional diet containing vitamins and minerals is highly recommended.
3. Daily consumption of fruits and vegetables is highly important.
4. Milk is also highly recommended. A glass of skimmed milk before bedtime should also be taken. As for vegetarian children, survey shows that they do have fewer red blood cells & iron levels than omnivores.

When levels are too low, the result is anemia, which may cause learning and psychomotor problems, fatigue and infection. Anemia is also caused by a vitamin B12 deficiency. Because vitamin B12 is found in all animal products, deficiency is of primary concern for vegetarians.

However, children who eat beans or tofu several times a day and dark green vegetables along with a source of vitamin C at mealtime to increase iron absorption, have plenty of red blood cells.

Despite the risk of lower iron levels affecting learning in young children, older vegetarian children may actually have higher IQs than carnivores.

Any other comments on children with a non-meat diet?