It is the time of the year with the Chinese New Year just around the corner. There is a lot of work cleaning the house, painting it and decorating the home to prepare it for the new year.
It is also the time of year when those who have no jobs, such as house-wives and pensioners, take on the opportunity of making some money by producing food suitable for the new year.
One of these food is the 'love letter' which is a thin, crispy, wafer-like food made from flour, coconut milk and eggs formed by rounded moulds over a charcoal fire. It is sweet and delicious due to the coconut milk and eggs in it.
Those locally made by house-wives are usually folded in the traditional love letter fashion unlike factory produced ones which are thicker, just as crispy but rolled into a thick cheroot-like shape.
My interest in the matter is not so much the food but the industry of the people. Some people earn good money from occasions such as this. The profit is good and because the work is back-stiffening due long hours seated at the hot charcoal fire there is very little competition.
In fact, through my years of observation of some people who seem to do fairly well despite not holding a permanent job, I have come to the conclusion that as long as a person is willing to work hard, he can never die from starvation.
There was this guy who depend upon the durian fruit seasons, the moon-cake festival, the Chinese New Year and other minor festivals to earn money sufficient to live comfortably for a few months from the profits from each of the occasions mentioned.
Well, it certainly proves that people who are willing to put in effort can never be without a meal, even when educational qualifications and literacy had not been their strong point.
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