Eve of Deepavali Holiday

I met Steph for dinner on Tuesday as her birthday is approaching (1st Nov) and we normally meet at least twice a year. Could make it more often if time permits. Dinner was at Mandarin Court- Chinese, I hardly dine out at fancy restaurants unless there's an occasion. After dinner, we joined my sis & jan for some drinks and had few rounds of card game - Saboteur. And also met two ladies from England on a 36-day-holiday-cruise onboard "Diamond Princess" http://www.princess.com/ and they named over ten countries the crusie is on, including Japan, Dubai, China, Thailand, Korea, etc etc. It was rather interesting to have two grannies (them), two mommies (Steph & I) and two singles (my sis & Jan) all six of us sitting at a table over cigs (not all are smoking of course) and drinks, talking about what we do and of our social-domestic cultures. The tourists said that they are the "SYKI" class, meaning retirees who "Spend Your Kids' Inheritence". Ha ha! They go on holidays few times in a year, that's no wonder.

It was noteworthy that they said that women in our society are matriarchs (they said patriarchs but the correct term should be matriarchs if they are referring to women), and should continue to be respected by our children, our children's children and therefore the grandparents could take care of the grandchildren, to impart values, knowledge, wisdom and also knit the family together. Well, as Jan and I discussed, our grandmothers or mothers may not be empowered and may not be matriarchs (definition: "women who rules the family / tribe / clan /community", or "A highly respected woman who is a mother"), but we are getting there.