CNY 2017 - Chap Goh Mei

Yesterday (11 Feb) was Chap Goh Mei ("15th night" in Hokkien), the final day of the Chinese New Year. It is traditionally celebrated as Yuan Xiao Jie (元宵节) with firecrackers, family gatherings and feasting, eating tangyuan, and lighting lanterns (hence, the Spring Lantern Festival). These days, it is has also become regarded as the Chinese Valentine's Day in countries such as Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Chap Goh Mei, 11 Feb 2017

As mentioned, the girls have been clamouring to do a CNY feast. So, to mark the end of CNY, they decided to throw a Yuan Xiao Jie feast for the clan. Possibly because they felt cheated out of the CNY festivities. And Mitsuha (feeling guilty over being the only one who was taken to Phuket over the start of CNY) volunteered to prepare the food. 

Chap Goh Mei, 11 Feb 2017

Mitsuha went all-out and prepared quite a spread! All the girls agreed that she is a very good cook.

The main event of the feast was the steamboat, with lean beef, wagyu beef, fish, quail eggs, spinach, sweet onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes all nicely spread out and ready to be dipped into the simple soup stock. On a separate burner, Mitsuha, with the help of the girls, had prepared oden. Oden is traditionally a winter dish, but it is such a favourite in our clan that she decided it was a must-have for the clan feast.

There were some substantial side dishes - nikujaga, stewed meat patties in bolognese sauce, and rosemary chicken baked in a cast-iron pot. Mostly simple home cooking with a lot of heart put into it.

Chap Goh Mei, 11 Feb 2017

Mitsuha was not the only one doing all the cooking however. Some of the girls chipped in to help as they love cooking too! Ella helped with the rosemary chicken, Momiji helped with the roast duck, Yui helped with the chirashizushi, and Hinata helped with the poached white chicken and the braised pork belly (in a different style from the Hokkien-style tau yew bak).

Behind-the-Scenes

I've really enjoyed setting up for the picture, which I've also documented with some behind-the-scenes photos.

Setting up the scene had been a lot of fun, but also took up quite a lot of time, spread out over 2 days. Most of setting up was done the day before (10 Feb) and, as mentioned on Instagram, it was tough setting up the miniatures in the wee hours.

Selection.

Selecting the pieces for the set-up took up a bit of time. I've collected quite a number of Re-Ment miniatures over the past few years, much to my own surprise. Most of them are food miniatures, which I have not used at all. (Oops.) They've been organised and kept in plastic storage boxes with built-in compartments, so keeping track of them has been quite straight-forward.

Assembling and arranging.

Arranging the pieces also took up the most time because I kept changing my mind! Re-arranged it all 3 times, until I was relatively satisfied. After I'd completed the arrangement, I put away the storage boxes and left the props as they were, and went to bed. It was around 4am (10 Feb) by then.

For the tables, I had to make do with the tables from my Azone School Desk and Chair set and Rilakkuma Cafe Table set. (Have a 3rd Azone School Desk and Chair set, but for some reason I could not find it.) I don't have a proper 1/6th scale dinner table, and this Chap Goh Mei set-up has spurred me into acquiring one. Perhaps the miniCHAIR kitchen table and kitchen cabinet that I've been eyeing for some time now....

Tweaking.

Completed the rest of the set-up in the evening of 10 Feb. So I cleared a space near my room window for the scene. Did some tweaking and minor adjustments to the props, before arranging the tables together.

Final arrangement.

Am quite happy with how the feast set-up turned out. It looks sumptuous and scrumptious! Would've included another table for sweets, if I had found my 3rd desk. Left them as they were for the photo shoot on the day of Chap Goh Mei itself.

Mishaps.

So, shooting had to be done late morning/early afternoon of Chap Goh Mei (11 Feb), as I had my own Chap Goh Mei family gathering in the evening to prepare for.

It wasn't easy setting up the girls around the props. Mitsuha and Ella especially because they had heavy heads and unstable Pure Neemo bodies, so their legs kept buckling. In the end, Ella fell over, leading to a domino-effect, and scattering the props.... (Lesson learnt: use Blu-Tack on the fiddly bits.)

Re-doing the set-up.

Shifted the girls, and basically had to re-do the set-up. Thankfully, not all of it scattered and I didn't lose any pieces. Even more thankfully, no Blythes were hurt in the process!

A post shared by @yotsub4 on Feb 11, 2017 at 9:48am PST

At the end of the day, I dismantled the re-ment miniatures. Took a timelapse video of the dismantling (on IG), and figured that it would have been really fun to have taken a timelapse video of the assembling process. I guess it will have to wait until the next time I do something like this.