25th January 2009

It was Chinese New Year eve, and also my sister's birthday, but family already told my sister that we are not celebrating her birthday. Instead, we are eating reunion dinner. So, my father gave my sister an expensive watch from "Swatch". It cost $99! I gave my sister a wallet from a shop which Darius introduced me. The wallets there are cheap and good.

In the evening, my family went to my grandparent's house to eat reunion dinner. We ate a lot of 'good food'. Abalone, shark fin, lobster and many more. But compared to last year, I think we had lesser food. Probably it is because of the recession. However, I still get 'Ang Bao' from all my relatives. My family have a tradition of giving red packets before Chinese New Year. Do not ask me why, because I myself also do not know. But who cares? When adults give red packets, I would gladly accept them.

Though my family members are not Buddhists, we also have a tradition of going to the temple to pray after reunion dinner, then we would go back home. After praying to the gods, we went home. When we reached our house at about midnight, we were astonished that our shoe rack and other things that we rarely use outside our house had vanished! My mother immediately went to the guard house to check the CCTV to see if anyone had taken our belongings away. My mother watched the tape of the whole day, but did not see anyone taking away our things. My mother then went to the seventh floor (the highest storey) to check whether did the neighbour on the seventh storey took it.

When she went there, she saw some of our shoes outside the house. My mother immediately called the police, and they arrived in 20 minutes. I did not know why it took the police so long to arrive, when my house is just opposite the Changi Prison. There were three policemen. They took my mother's statement. After taking my mother's statement, they went to the seventh storey and knocked on the door. But, after knocking for 2 minutes, the owner still did not open the door. The security guard, who followed the police, then went down to the intercom to call the unit. At first when the security guard call, the owner did not open the door. But thanks to the security guard's persistence, the owner finally opened the door.

The policemen then questioned the owner why all of my families' shoes were outside her house. The owner then replied saying that she thought for some Chinese, during Chinese New Year they would do some spring cleaning, and would put their unwanted stuff outside, so she thought that we did not want our shoes and other things that we put outside our house so they took it. One policeman then asked my mother if she wanted to take legal action. My mother told the policemen that she did not want to take legal action, and only wanted our belongings back, so the owner returned to us, and we went back to sleep.

I bet the owner is lying, but my mother did not want to pursue the case. If I was her, I would have taken legal actions.