Singapore Heritage Festival 2024: paying homage to the building blocks of our nation

Difficult as it may now be to imagine, but the sea once washed right up to Telok Ayer Street which today has the largest concentration of National Monuments in Singapore. It was along the street that some of the first waves of settlers to the new East India Company factory of Singapore came ashore. Feeling great relief at completing a journey filled with fear and uncertainty, many would have felt the necessity to offer a prayer of gratitude at the shrines and altars set up by those who came before them. Most in the collection of monuments that we see today, house or housed the religious institutions that these places of prayer grew into.

Telok Ayer or Water Bay, before reclamation, c. 1870 (Sachtler & Co).
The three towers of the Nagore Dargah, the roofs of the Thian Hock Keng and the 1850s pagodas of the Keng Teck Whay and Chong Wen Ge are visible.

One monument that stands out because of its location at the corner of Boon Tat and Telok Ayer Streets in is the former Nagore Dargah, which has a fascinating tale to tell. It was where immigrants arriving from Nagapattinam – one of the major ports of embarkation in Tamil Nadu offered prayers of thanks to the Sufi saint and protector of seafarers, Shahul Hameed.

The former Nagore Dargah. Its three towers feature niches in which oil lamps could be lit.

The former dargah or shrine is modelled after another in Nagore near Nagapattinam, which was erected around the burial site of the saint. The dargah in Nagore would have been where would be travellers stopped at before making their sea journeys, attracting both Muslims and Hindus. Today, the dargah has become the Nagore Dargah Indian Muslim Heritage Centre, a showcase of Indian Muslim history.

Festivities at the Thian Hock Keng

For many of the Chinese coming ashore, it was to Mazu, that prayers would have been offered to. Also known as Tian Hou — the Queen of Heaven, Mazu has a wide following amongst members of China’s coastal communities, who revere her as the protector of seafarers and fishermen, and by extension, the protector of to those embarking on sea journeys. The old waterfront in way of Telok Ayer boasts of two temples dedicated to Mazu, erected by two of the largest communities of Chinese in Singapore, the Hokkiens and the Teochews.

Thian Hock Keng during the Mazu Festival

The two temples, the Thian Hock Keng and the Wak Hai Cheng Bio or Yueh Hai Ching, are the oldest temples of the respective communities, as well as a point of focus. They are where the traditions of the immigrants are kept alive, and are filled with colour and celebration during festive occasions. One occasion that they both share is of course the birthday of Mazu, which falls on the 23^rd day of the the 3^rd Chinese lunar month – 1^st May this year, 2024. A photograph of the celebration on 1^st May at the Thian Hock Keng featuring the Mazu Excursion for Peace, is shown below.

Mazu birthday celebrations at Thian Hock Keng

The monuments along Telok Ayer Street, are an important link to Singapore’s past and established who we are today. This year’s Singapore Heritage Festival (2024)with its focus on built heritage celebrates them and many others. The festival also offers an opportunity to learn more about these monuments and much more through the Hop-On, Hop-Off (HOHO) Bus Experience and site specific tours such as Secret Singapore Pathways, Telok Ayer Trail of Faith, Nagore Dargah – The Endearing Icon of Telok Ayer, Remembering Singapore’s Old Waterfront, and Thian Hock Keng: Discover & Marvel. I am myself involved in two sets of tours, Cashin House Heritage Tour, A Journey through Time, and the mysterious Undisclosed.

Hop-On Hop Off, which in the frrst weekend, takes us to Chinatown, Kampong Gelam and Little India.

There are many other interesting programmes and installations, two of which are highlighted below. For a full list of programmes for Singapore Heritage Festival 2024, which runs from 1st to 26th May, kindly visit https://www.sgheritagefest.gov.sg/.

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HOMEGROUND: We Built This City
Also, held in conjunction with the festival is the Homeground installation, HOMEGROUND: We Built
This City. This year, it is laid out on the lawn of the National Museum of Singapore and coveS the themes of Nature, Commerce, Community, Residential and Governance. The installation features five displays that detail the evolution of Singapore’s public housing, and a landmark of Singapore’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site, Singapore Botanic Garden s’ bandstand gazebo and also features the whimsical artwork of Cheryl Teo.

Festival Director David Chew with artist Cheryl Teo at HOMEGROUND: We Built
This City.

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A Rare Opportunity to visit a Living Architectural Conservation Laboratory in a 1880s Shophouse, and get some hands on!

• ArClab: Heritage in Motion Tour
• ArClab: Decorative Tiles Hands-on Cleaning Workshop
• ArClab: 3D Laser Scanning in Heritage Conservation

NUS ArClab @ 141 Neil Road

A showcase of jiǎn nián, the traditional decorative technique using ceramics that are fired and deliberately broken

Art-noveau decorative tiles, which were imported and were often used to display the status of a house’s occupants – get a chance to learn to clean them!

3-D scanning workshop.

More on ArClab:

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Dragon on fire

The fire of the dragon of Sar Kong was seen again last evening, making a reappearance on the streets around its lair at the Mun San Fook Tuck Chee temple. The temple introduced the fire dragon dance in the 1980s, importing a tradition from Tai Hang Village in Hong Kong that has its origins in 1880. Mun San Fook Tuck Chee’s dance of the fire dragon, which usually makes an appearance once every three years, now seems a significant cultural event in Singapore and draws crowds of observers as well as many photographers.

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The temple, Mun San Fook Tuck Chee (萬山福德祠), is thought to have its origins in the 1860s, serving a community of Cantonese and Hakka migrant workers employed by the area’s brick kilns, sawmills and sago making factories. The temple moved twice and came to its present site in 1901.

The dance of the fire dragon that is associated with the temple, although long a practice in its place of origin in Hong Kong, only came to the temple in the 1980s. The dragon used for the dance is the result of a painstaking process that involves the making of a core using rattan and the plaiting of straw over three months to make the dragon’s body. Lit joss sticks are placed on the body prior to the dance and traditionally, the dragon would be left to burn to allow it to ascend to the heavens.

More information on the temple, its origins and its practices can be found in the following posts:

• On borrowed time: Mun San Fook Tuck Chee
• The fire dragon’s lair 
• A dragon awakens

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Singapore’s last traditional puppet stage maker?

Puppet shows once made appearances around Taoist temples scattered all across Singapore. Like the Chinese street opera and the more modern getai performances, they were usually put up for the pleasure of visiting Taoist deities on their earthly sojourns, or for hungry ghosts who as belief would have it, roam the earth when the gates of the underworld are opened during the Chinese seventh month. Puppet shows also found great appeal with the common, especially amongst the young ones. These days however, the distractions of the modern world hold sway and the appeal of tradition seems to have waned. Just a handful of troupes still perform around today leaving supporting craftsmen such as Mr Leong Fong Wah, whose lifetime’s work has been in painting and putting together puppet stages, a dying breed.

A typical Chinese puppet stage is really an assembly of pieces of plywood on which colourful decorations and backdrops are painted on one side and reinforced on the other. All it takes is a few weeks to add the decorative work before a stage can be put together. This quick turnaround time, the lack of a customer base, and the fact that a stage can be used and reused for as long as ten years, does mean that there is little in terms work in the area for the business that Mr Leong runs, Leong Shin Wah Art Studio. Having been started in the 1940s by Mr Leong’s father, whose name the business is identified with, the workshop must have been involved in putting together a countless number of stages. With nothing in way of puppet show stage orders in sight beyond an order that Mr Leong is currently in the process of fulfilling, this last stage that he is building may be one of the last, if not the last, traditional puppet show stages being made not just at Mr Leong’s workshop, but also in Singapore.

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A typical traditional puppet show stage set up:

A puppet stage set up at Telok Ayer Street.

The stage set up also hides puppeteers and musicians behind a backdrop and other decorated plywood panels.

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Chinese Puppetry in Singapore:

A lifelong passion pulling strings (Henghwa string puppet troupe)

The last performance of the Sin Sai Poh Hong puppet troupe (Teochew Rod Puppet Troupe)

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An Abundant Celebration

2020 could be thought of having been a lean year. Much of the year was dominated by the global COVID-19 pandemic and the economic fallout as a result of it. As we move towards the halfway point in the first month of the new year, there is renewed hope. It is perhaps apt that the first cultural festival that we celebrate in 2021, the Tamil harvest festival of Pongal, is all about celebrating abundance.

The Tamil harvest festival of Pongal brings life and colour to Singapore’s Little India.

One thing that Pongal brings to Singapore and in particular to the streets of Singapore’s Little India is great colour. Even if the situation on the ground does seem much less subdued, this seems to also be the case this year. A walk around Campbell Lane, Clive Street and Dunlop Street last evening — the eve of the festival, the colourful displays of festival essentials such as decorated clay pongal pots, floral garlands, stalks of sugarcane, de-husked coconuts and fresh produce, could be seen. The festival, which heralds the arrival of the Tamil month of Thai is celebrated over a four day period in mid-January. The first day of Thai, the festival day proper, falls on 14 January this year.

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Sights and sounds of Pongal on the streets of Little India

Shadow Play

Growing up at a time when, and in space where my cultural experiences had little to do with the state prescribed definition of my ethnicity, has given me a wonderful set of childhood memories. There was much that I took joy from in a household were the languages used and the food we enjoyed was anything but what one might have expected. Some of my fondest memories were of the interactions with my grandmother. Having come across from the Dutch East Indies before the war and being conversant only in Bahasa Indonesia, she had a penchant for watching reruns of P Ramlee movies on black and white television, doing her shopping at Kampong Jawa (Arab Street) and catching screenings of Kelantanese wayang kulit or shadow puppet performances that aired on Radio Television Malaysia 2 (RTM2 — or Channel 10 as its was then better known as).

Wayang kulit, which has its origins in pre-Islamic Java, is something I still enjoy watching, although what we see now of it in Malaysia and in Singapore seems quite different from the performances that I caught seated next to my grandmother all those years back. That would have been in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the ancient art form — used for generations as a vehicle for the handing down of oral traditions — was still expressed in a manner that was little changed, and featured characters and stories rooted in the Hindu epic, the Ramayana. A rise in religious consciousness, particularly in Kelantan where the art form had a particularly large following where a ban was imposed in the wayang kulit performances in the 1990s, saw to a gradual changed to a more modern form that we tend to see today with non-religious and contemporary characters and stories being introduced.

While the tradition has been greatly modified here, it is still very much alive in its spiritual home in Central Java — assisted perhaps by its inscription as one of several forms of Indonesian wayang theatre on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List since 2008. It is not only possible to watch performances there, but also see how the puppets are made from water buffalo hide. The process of making a puppet from a piece of cured hide is a painstaking one and involves carefully cutting the hide to shape, hand-punching patterns and painting each character over a period of up to two months.

The following are some photographs taken at a workshop in Yogyakarta during a visit in 2013, a visit that included a bonus in the form of an impromptu performance put up by a dalang or master puppeteer:

Sar Kong’s fire dragon visits the Heavenly Jade Emperor

Photographs from the eight night of Chinese New Year – when the Hokkiens gather to welcome the Heavenly Jade Emperor. The occasion this year was graced by the fire dragon of Sar Kong, who paid a visit to the Singapore Yu Huang Gong.

More on the Hokkien practice :

• The Eight Night

And, on the Fire Dragon of Sar Kong :

• A fiery September’s evening
• A dragon awakens
• The fire dragon’s lair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Preparing for the harvest festival

One of the great joys of living in multi-ethnic and multi-religious Singapore, is the array of festivals wonderful festivals that bring life and colour to the streets. Just as Chinatown prepares to welcome the Chinese New Year this January, we see Little India come to life for the Tamil harvest festival Pongal. Besides the annual light-ups, the two ethnic precincts also feature crowded street bazaars with the festival essentials on offer.

In Little India, the Pongal is especially colourful with displays of pongal clay pots, produce representing the harvest such as sugarcane – adding much flavour the area around Campbell Lane – where the street bazaar is set up in the days leading up to the festival. There is also a chance to see livestock in the form of cattle and goats, which are brought in for the celebrations each year.

The celebration of the festival proper, begins with the eve – the last day of the Tamil month of Margazhi, which falls on 14 January of the western calendar and carries on for three more days. A description of the festival is  provided by Mr Manohar Pillai in a post on the Facebook Group “On a Little Street in Singapore“:

Pongal is the biggest and most important festival for the Tamilians, since ancient times and transcends all religious barriers since it signifies thanks giving to nature and domestic animals. Cattle, cows, goats, chickens are integral part of a farmer in India. It is celebrated for three days in Tamilnadu starting from 15th to 17th January. Vegetarian food will be served only in Hindu households. Thanksgiving prayers will be offered to the Sun, Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Ether, without these life cannot be sustained on Mother Earth. The celebrations comes on close to the harvest season which just ended and Jan 15 is the beginning of the new Tamil calendar.

Clay Pots are used to cook flavoured rice with traditional fire wood in the open air and facing the early morning Eastern Sun. The Sun’s early morning rays are supposedly to bring benevolence to the household. The cooked rice is distributed to all the members of the household and with it the festivities begins. Everyone wears new clothes and very old and useless clothes are burnt the previous night.

The next day the farmer turns his attention to the animals especially the Cattle and Cows.

The third day all people celebrate it with gaiety and grandly.

More on the festival and how it is celebrated in Little India can be found in these posts:

• Soonambu Kambam welcomes the month of Thai
• Pongal in the Village of Lime
• Colours of the harvest
• An annual invasion of sugarcane
• More photographs
• Pongal Open House (Indian Heritage Centre)
• Pongal (LISHA – Little India SHopkeepers Association)

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More photographs taken this year:

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Bearing a burden through the streets of Singapore

Chetty (or Punar) Pusam / Thaipusam

With a greater proportion of folks in Chinatown preoccupied its dressing-up for the Chinese New Year on Sunday, a deeply-rooted Singaporean tradition that took place in the same neighbourhood, “Chetty Pusam”, seemed to have gone on almost unnoticed.

Involving the Chettiar community, “Chetty Pusam” is held as a prelude to the Hindu festival of Thaipusam. It sees an especially colourful procession of Chettiar kavidi bearers who carry the burden from the Sri Layan Sithi Vinayagar Temple on Keong Saik Road through some streets of Chinatown to the Sri Mariamman Temple and then the Central Business District before ending at the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple on Tank Road.

The procession coincides with the return leg of the Silver Chariot‘s journey. The chariot, bears Lord Murugan or Sri Thendayuthapani (in whose honour the festival of Thaipusam is held) to visit his brother Sri Vinayagar (or Ganesh) in the early morning of the eve of Thaipusam and makes its return in the same evening.

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More Photographs of Thaipusam in Singapore:

• Vel, Vel, Vadivel: Thaipusam in Singapore (2010)
• Sights Sans Sounds of Thaipusam in Singapore (2011)
• Thaipusam at the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple (2012)
• An Annual Walk of Faith (2013)
• Faces of Thaipusam 2014 (2014)
• What colours the full moon of Thai (2015)
• The full moon of Thai (2016)
• The Thaipusam Chariot Procession (2017)
• Photographs of Thaipusam 2017
• The Silver Chariot through the streets of Chinatown (2018)
• Photographs of Thaipusam Preparations at the Sri Srinivasa Perunal Temple (2018)
• Kavadis on Keong Saik (2018)

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Panguni Uthiram and a sugarcane kavadi

Besides being Good Friday, the 30 of March 2018 – being the day of the full moon – also saw several other religious festivals being celebrated. One, Panguni Uthiram, is celebrated by the Hindus on the full moon day of the Tamil month of Panguni. The celebration of the festival is an especially colourful one at the Holy Tree Sri Balasubramaniar Temple and involves a kavadi procession that goes back to the latter days of the Naval Base when the temple was located off Canberra Road. This year’s celebration was also of special significance – being the first to be held at its newly consecrated rebuilt temple building.

The rebuilt Holy Tree Balasubramaniar Temple. It was consecrated in February this year.

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The sugarcane kavadi

Seen at yesterday’s procession: a sugarcane kavadi. The kavadi is less commonly seen and is one with a baby slung from stalks of sugarcane that have been tied together, carried by the baby’s parents. The kavadi is used by couples to offer gratitude to Lord Murugan for the blessing of a baby.

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More photographs from the procession:

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Panguni Uthiram in previous years:

• Panguni Uthiram 2016: The Full Moon of Panguni / Northern Singapore’s Chariot Procession
• Panguni Uthiram 2015: Panguni Uthiram 2015 in photos
• Panguni Uthiram 2014: Colours of April
• Panguni Uthiram 2013: The Silver Chariot returns
• Panguni Uthiram 2012: The sun rises on a Sembawang tradition
• Panguni Uthiram 2011: A lesser known Hindu festival with a Kavadi procession

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Kavadis on Keong Saik

In photographs: the start of the colourful procession of Chettiar kavidis from the Sri Layan Sithi Vinayagar Temple on Keong Saik Road to the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple at Tank Road. The procession, along with a Silver Chariot procession, is held every year as part of Chetty Pusam on the eve of the Hindu festival of Thaipusam.

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Thaipusam in Singapore:

• Vel, Vel, Vadivel: Thaipusam in Singapore (2010)
• Sights Sans Sounds of Thaipusam in Singapore (2011)
• Thaipusam at the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple (2012)
• An Annual Walk of Faith (2013)
• Faces of Thaipusam 2014 (2014)
• What colours the full moon of Thai (2015)
• The full moon of Thai (2016)
• The Thaipusam Chariot Procession (2017)
• Photographs of Thaipusam 2017
• The Silver Chariot through the streets of Chinatown (2018)
• Photographs of Thaipusam Preparations at the Sri Srinivasa Perunal Temple (2018)

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Good Friday at the Portuguese Church

Good Friday, which for believers marks the day Jesus Christ was crucified, has been commemorated in a very visible way on the grounds of St. Joseph’s Church for more than a century. Conducted  very much in the fashion of the Iberian peninsula, the elaborate procession takes place at the end of the church’s Good Friday service during which the crucifixion is reenacted using a life-sized image of Christ that is lowered and placed on a bier for the procession.

The church, known also as the Portuguese Church due to its origin in the Portuguese Mission and it having been a parish of the Diocese of Macau until 1981, is the spiritual home of the Portuguese Eurasian community. The community is one of the oldest migrant linked communities in the region. It is on Good Friday, when the religious traditions of the community are most visible, that we are perhaps reminded of this. The procession, the holding of which goes back more than a century, attracts large numbers of worshippers from all across Singapore and at its height in the 1960s and 1970s, saw thousands packed into the church’s compound with many more spilling onto Queen Street.

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More on the procession and the Portuguese Church:

• Good Friday at a slice of Portugal in Singapore
• The flicker of tradition
• A sea of candlelight
• A one hundred year old beauty
• A look into the Portuguese Church’s beautiful Parochial House

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Mid-autumn at the Siong Lim

Illuminated by the glow of a one of the more tasteful displays of lanterns I have seen in Singapore, the Siong Lim temple in Toa Payoh (or Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery) provides a most beautiful setting in which to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. The display, at what is Singapore’s oldest Buddhist monastery, and celebrations held in conjunction with the festival, have been on since Saturday. It will end this evening, the Mid-Autumn Festival proper, with a dragon dance and a mei hua zhuang display, more information on which can be found at the temple’s website.

Lanterns outside the Mahavira Hall. The hall, which dates back to 1904, is one of two structures within the monastery complex that has been gazetted as a National Monument.

The 1905 Tian Wang Dian, the second of two structures within the monastery complex gazetted as a National Monument.

The courtyard of the Tian Wang Dian.

 

 

 

 

A fiery September’s evening

The fire dragon of Sar Kong came to life last night, making its way in a dizzying dance around the area of its lair at the Mun San Fook Tuck Chee temple.

Last night’s dance of the fire dragon.

The dance of the dragon has its origins in Guangdong, from where many came from to work in the area’s brick kilns in the mid-1800s. The dance, rarely seen in a Singapore in which tradition has become an inconvenience, came at the close of the temple’s 150th Anniversary celebrations. The celebrations, held over a three day period, also saw a book on the temple’s history being launched. An exhibition on the history of the area is also being held in conjunction with this, which will run until 14 September 2016.

A book on the temple and the community’s history, A Kampong and its Temple, was launched.

Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, Chan Chun Sing – a former resident of the area, being shown a model of the Sar Kong village area at the exhibition.

The parade of the straw dragon through the streets, is also thought to help dissipate anger caused by the disturbance of the land in the area of the temple being felt by the temple’s deities. The area, is once again in the midst of change – with a huge condominium development, Urban Oasis, just next door. The site of the development, incidentally, is linked to the current outbreak of the mosquito borne Zika virus in Singapore.

Lit joss sticks being placed on the straw dragon’s body prior to the dance.

There may perhaps be anger felt at the uncertainty for the future that temple itself faces. The land on which it sits on has long since been acquired for redevelopment by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) and the temple operates on it only through a Temporary Occupation License. The parcel of land it sits on is one shared with HDB flats that were taken back by the HDB under the Selective En-bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS) in the second half of the 2000s and it is left to be seen if the temple will be allowed to continue on the site when the area is eventually redeveloped.

The dragon offering respects to the altar prior to its dance.

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The temple, Mun San Fook Tuck Chee (萬山福德祠), is thought to have its origins in the 1860s, serving a community of Cantonese and Hakka migrant workers employed by the area’s brick kilns, sawmills and sago making factories. The temple moved twice and came to its present site in 1901.

The dance of the fire dragon that is associated with the temple, although long a practice in its place of origin, only came to the temple in the 1980s. The dragon used for the dance is the result of a painstaking process that involves the making of a core using rattan and the plaiting of straw over three months to make the dragon’s body. Lit joss sticks are placed on the body prior to the dance and traditionally, the dragon would be left to burn to allow it to ascend to the heavens.

More information on the temple, its origins and its practices can be found in the following posts:

• On borrowed time: Mun San Fook Tuck Chee
• The fire dragon’s lair 
• A dragon awakens

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More photographs:

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A dragon awakens

The fire dragon of Sar Kong, in a rare reprise of the its smoking performance earlier this year, will come alive once again this September on the occasion of the 150th anniversary celebrations of the temple its lair is found in, the Mun San Fook Tuck Chee (萬山福德祠) . The temple has its origins in Sar Kong (沙崗) or “Sand Ridge, where a community of Cantonese and Hakka coolies had settled in.

The practice of parading the burning dragon has its origins in Guangdong – the origins of many in the community. Made of straw that has been imported from China, such a dragon would previously have been constructed for the feast day of the temple’s principal deity and sent in flames to the heavens.  In more recent times, such straw dragons would be paraded on an average of once every three years.  This particular dragon, which made for a more recent Chingay Parade, is not burnt but set alight only by the placement of joss sticks on its body.

More information on the practice, as well as the historic setting for the village and the temple, can be found in the temple’s heritage room. More on the temple and its history can also be found at the post: On Borrowed Time: Mun San Fook Tuck Chee.

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Schedule for the Mun San Fook Tuck Chee 150th Anniversary Celebrations

A number of events held in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the Mun San Fook Tuck Chee: Taoist priests from Ching Chung Koon in HK invited here to conduct rituals over 3 days, a seminar on Dabogong (Tua Pek Kong), a heritage exhibition, a book launch, and the finale – the one and only fire dragon dance in Singapore.

9 Sep 2016 (Fri)
0900-1145 Preparing ritual space
1400-1600 Rituals
1800-1900 Opening of heritage exhibition
1900-2100 Rituals

10 Sep 2016 (Sat)
0900-1145 Rituals
0930-1200 Seminar and discussion on Dabogong
1400-1600 Rituals
1900-2130 Rituals
2000-2100 Crossing the bridge for devotees

11 Sep 2016 (Sun)
0900-1145 Rituals
1000 Lion dance to welcome foreign visitors
1045-1145 Paying of respects by foreign visitors
1100-1400 Mid-autumn event for respecting elders in the community
1400-1600 Rituals
1600-1730 Salvation rituals
1930 Fire dragon performance / Book launch / Exchange of souvenirs with foreign guests

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Photographs from the parade of the Fire Dragon in March 2016

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The Moon Goddess descends to colour Chinatown

One of my favourite times of the year as a child was the Mooncake Festival, as the Mid-Autumn Festival is commonly referred to in Singapore.  It is a time for mooncake shopping, running down to the bakery or sundry shop to buy pig-shaped pastries packed in plastic baskets resembling those commonly used then to transport live pigs, and the excitement that came with picking out a cellophane lantern from one of the colourful displays that seemed to decorate the fronts of just about every sundry shop there was found in the neighbourhood.

The Moon Goddess, Chang’e, will descend on Chinatown this Mid-Autumn Festival (played by a dancer who will perform at the opening ceremony on 3 September).

The festival is one I still look forward to with much anticipation. The celebration is one that at a community level seems to be celebrated on a much grander scale these days and one thing in more recent times to look out for is the colourful displays of lanterns at several events being held across Singapore. One event that always seems to draw the crowds is the Kreta Ayer-Kim Seng Citizens Consultative Community’s (KA-KS CCC) Chinatown Mid-Autumn Festival and its colourful street light-up. The event this year returns on Saturday 3 September 2016 and will certainly not disappoint with its display of 900 hand crafted lanterns as well as a host of activities that will take visitors on a journey back to the stories at the very origins of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival in Chinatown and its annual light-up is always something to look forward to.

Magical light clouds will be seen over Chinatown this Mid-Autumn.

The centrepiece of this year’s light-up is a 12 metre high sculptured lantern. Located on the divider at the junction of Upper Cross Street with Eu Tong Sen Street and New Bridge Road, it depicts the moon deity Chang’e. It is in honour of the goddess that the festival is commemorated. The moon goddess is accompanied by three other large scale lanterns, two of which are also characters central to the folktale that serves as the basis for the festival, Hou Yi and the Jade Rabbit. The other large scale lantern is of the Moon Palace in which Chang’e resides. These can also be found along the divider between Eu Tong Sen Street and New Bridge Road.

The 12m high Chang’e lantern.

The large-scale moon palace lantern.

And the jade rabbit with the elixir of immortality.

The characters and the Moon Palace, are also represented in a smaller scale over South Bridge Road, nestled in magical looking coloured clouds. Hou Yi, the archer, is depicted taking aim at the nine suns that folklore tells us he brought down. The act, which left us with one sun, saved the Earth from a fate that we now seem again to be threatened with.  The Jade Rabbit, is seen pounding away in the clouds. A resident of the moon, it is the rabbit who prepares the elixir of immortality, a dose of which Hou Yi was rewarded. A popular version of the tale has it that in a bid to prevent it from falling into the hands of a would be thief, Chang’e swallowed her husband’s elixir. As an immortal, she could no longer live on earth and was sent to the moon, the celestial body closest to her husband. Clouds are also seen above Eu Tong Sen Street and New Bridge Road and altogether there are about 900 lanterns, the result of a collaboration between the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) and expert craftsmen from China, on display.  LED lighting is being employed for the first time, saving some 70% in energy usage. The illuminations will colour Chinatown for about a month from 3 to 30 September 2016.

Hou Yi, Chang’e’s husband and the archer who shot nine or ten suns scorching the earth, also features.

As does the moon palace and the jade rabbit preparing the elixir of immortality.

Clouds over New Bridge Road.

One thing that also draws the crowds to Chinatown are the festive bazaars. For the event, the ever popular Mid-Autumn bazaar is being held. Lining Pagoda Street, Trengganu Street, Sago Street, Smith Street and the open space in front of People’s Park Complex, the bazaar is always one to soak in the festive atmosphere and crowds are expected to throng streets that will be filled with stalls that offer a range of festive goodies such as traditional mooncakes and delicacies, as well  as decorations, lanterns and much, much more. The bazaar start a day earlier on Friday 2 September, and will be held until the night of the festival proper, which falls on Thursday 15 September 2016,

There are also many other activities to look out for, such as the popular Chinatown Mid-Autumn Walking Trail. The trail, now into its third year, is free. Registration is however required as each trail session is limited to 10 persons. Sessions will be conducted at 3.30 pm on 4, 10 and 11 September 2016 and lasts about an hour and a half. Registration, on a first-come-first-served basis, can be made at this link.

Another popular activity is the Mass  Lantern Walk at which 3000 participants are expected. This will be held on Sunday 11 September 2016 and will follow a route around Chinatown. The walk commences at Kreta Ayer Square at 7 pm and will end at the Main Stage in front of Lucky Chinatown at New Bridge Road.

For the first time, the event will feature a Learning Journey. This closed activity is being conducted for a group of 200 students on 10 September in an effort to have the younger ones better appreciate Chinatown and the story behind the festival. Other activities during the festive period include nightly stage shows that feature performers from Singapore and also from China and Celebrating the Moon at Chinatown Heritage Centre (normal admission charges apply). More information can be found at http://chinatownfestivals.sg/.

 

 

The moon between the coconut palms

THE MOON BETWEEN THE COCONUT PALMS:
A guest post by Edmund Arozoo, once of Jalan Hock Chye, who now reminisces in the light of the silvery Adelaide moon …

 

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(Photograph: Edmund Arozoo)

Digital Photography has indeed simplified the task of producing quality images of the moon. The ability to mount my old 600 mm manual mirror lens to the body of my DSLR has allowed me to capture some good images indeed. However to push the challenge further I have for past few years been a keen “Moon transit” photographer i.e. capturing aircraft as they fly across the face of the moon.  I am fortunate that where I now live the Moon’s orbit and most of the commercial flight paths make it easy for me to set up my gear in my back balcony or backyard to achieve this. In addition there are many on-line apps that allow real time monitoring of flight paths. However this quest requires lots of patience and luck. Often there are long periods of waiting in-between flights. During these breaks I find myself staring at the moon and my mind wanders back to my kampong days in Singapore.  I start thinking of the significance the moon played then and the beliefs both religious and superstitious of the various races and groups of people in my kampong.

Copy of an old slide image taken in Jalan Hock Chye digitally post processed (Photograph: Edmund Arozoo)

One colourful memory that I always chuckle when I think about it is the ritual that my Chinese neighbours undertook during the eclipse of the moon.  I remember as a kid suddenly hearing the din of pots and pans being struck constantly. Even the large kerosene tins would be brought into play. Most of the Chinese households would be involved and I learnt that the belief was that a Dragon was swallowing the Moon and the noise created was to scare the dragon from completely removing the Moon from the sky. This ritual did go on regularly whenever there was an eclipse for most of my early years but as society became educated the practice faded away.

When I relate this to some of my friends a few remember this practice but others think I made it up.

The significance of the moon is central in Chinese culture. Most if not all festivals are tagged to the lunar calendar

Likewise the Indian celebrations are also pegged to their own lunar calendar. The two main ones Deepavali  which occurs  during the New moon of Ashvin (Hindu calendar) and  Thaipusam which  is celebrated during  the full moon day of the Tamil month of Thai

In the past the Malay Hari Raya dates were determined by the sighting of the new moon by local religious authorities. During those pre mobile phone years the method of relaying the successful sighting was by the use of carbide cannons. Carbide was mixed with water in the hollow of a bamboo cylinder and when the fuse was lit a small explosion took place and this could be heard for miles in the quiet of the evenings. When this was heard in a kampong one of the Malay families would then in turn fire a cannon and the message would then spread from kampong to kampong until the entire Malay community across the island would be informed to start celebrating the following day.

For the Eurasian and Christian households the main festival linked to the moon was Easter which is held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. The other Holy days of Lent are adjusted accordingly. As kids when we were brought by our parents for the traditional “visitations of churches” on Maundy Thursday we often noticed the bright nearly full or full moon as we walked along the Queen Street / Victoria Street area. The significance of the moon was unknown to us or rather we were more focussed on the treats that we were rewarded with for being well behaved. Treats like freshly baked Hot Cross Buns from the two well-known bakeries around the vicinity “Ah Teng” and “The Red House Bakery”. The other treat would be the Kueh Putu Piring (or Kueh Tutu as it is now known as).

Similarly the dates of Ascension Thursday and Pentecost Sunday vary each year. The former celebrated forty days after Easter, and the latter ten days after the Ascension (50 after Easter).

When Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969, you can just imagine the reaction from the different families in the kampong. There was disbelief, taunting and scepticism.

The full or near-full moon was often a blessing if you came home late at night because it lighted your way home. There were no street lights in the lanes leading to our houses. With the moonlight we could avoid the portholes and on rainy days the resultant puddles that were ever so present.

However the moonlight also did cast numerous shadows from the trees and bushes. With movies like “Pontianak” on our minds combined with the fragrant scent of the newly blossomed frangipani flowers walking home usually turned into a quick paced trot.

I guess these days in Singapore, the Moon between coconut palms is only a recollection of some of the older generation. Moonlight between high-rise would be the norm.

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Edmund’s other experiences of a Singapore that doesn’t exist anymore:

• Lessons from the tuck shop
• Retracing the “Ice Ball” Trail

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Getai night on Pulau Ubin

A large crowd, one not normally associated with Pulau Ubin on a Wednesday, turned up on the island last evening for the final night of the annual Tua Pek Kong festival. The last night, has in more recent times been marked with a getai (歌台) performance. Crude and somewhat kitsch, Getai (歌台) draws much more interest these days than the traditional street operas and puppet shows once used to provide the deities with a grand send-off.

This year’s getai, with forty dinner tables sold (as opposed to about twenty last year), seems to have attracted a much larger interest. This could be seen in the especially crowded village square (if I may call it that), where Ubin’s free-standing wayang stage – used by the Pulau Ubin Fo Shan Teng Tua Pek Kong Temple (乌敏岛佛山亭大伯公庙) to hold street opera and getai performancesis found.

The getai also saw a special guest, Dr Mohamad Maliki Osman. The Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Defence & Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mayor, South East District also took to the stage, not to sing, but was able to impress the crowd nonetheless, with a few words in Mandarin and also in Hokkien.

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Photographs from the final night of the Tua Pek Kong Festival

A boat load of devotees heading to Pulau Ubin.

Lion dancers welcoming visitors.

A larger crowd than ones previously seen turned up to watch the Getai performance held to send the popular deity off.

The lower temple saw a steady stream of devotees making offerings.

Lighting joss sticks at the temple.

The wayang stage set for the evening’s performances.

Perfromers.

The silhouette of a dancer.

A special guest, Dr Mohamad Maliki Osman, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Defence & Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mayor, South East District. He didn’t sing but managed to wow the crowd with a few words of Hokkien.

Homeward bound.

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Ubin comes alive

Photographs taken mainly of the Teochew opera performance held on the first day of festivities this year (20 May 2016). The main festivities of the annual celebration take place today, the day of the full moon. The event lasts until Wednesday and will see nightly Teochew Opera performances on one of the last free-standing Chinese opera stages left in Singapore, except for the final night when a Getai will be held. More on the schedule of this year’s festival can be found in this post: The full moon on the fourth month on Ubin.

The full moon of the fourth month on Ubin

For a few days around the full moon of the fourth month of the Chinese calendar, Pulau Ubin comes alive for a huge religious celebration held in honour of the popular Taoist deity Tua Pek Kong. The festival offers a glimpse into a Singapore that no longer exists and is a reminder of days when villages would have come alive in similar circumstances during feast days associated with their respective temple’s main deities.

The schedule for this year’s festival is as follows:

Friday 20th May 2016 (4th Month, 14th Day)

10 am	Invite Tua Pek Kong
11 am	Beginning Ritual sts
3.30 pm	Taoist Ritual Part 1
7 pm	Taoist Ritual Part 2
7 pm	Sin Yong Yong Hwa Teochew Opera performnce
10 pm	Invite Jade Emperor

Saturday 21st May 2016 (4th Month, 15th Day)

10 am	Taoist Ritual
1 pm	Lion & Dragon Dance
2.30 pm	Distribution of Blessed Offering
3.30 pm	Sending off Jade Emperor
7 pm	Sin Sin Yong Hwa Teochew Opera
7.30 pm	Crossing the Ping An Bridge
8 pm	Wei Tio Temple’s Tua Ji Ya Pek visit

Sunday 22nd May 2016 (4th Month, 16th Day)

7 pm	Sin Sin Yong Hwa Teochew Opera

Mon 23rd May 2016 (4th Month, 17th Day)

7 pm	Sin Sin Yong Hwa Teochew Opera

Tuesday 24th May 2016 (4th Month, 18th Day)

7 pm	Sin Sin Yong Hwa Teochew Opera

Wednesday 25th May 2016 (4th Month, 19th Day)

10 am	Sin Sin Yong Hwa Teochew Opera Qing Chang (Singing only)
6.45 pm	Getai
10.30 pm	Sending Tua Pek Kong back

Free Ferry service

20th May 2016
Changi-Ubin 6.30pm-9pm
Ubin-Changi 8pm-10pm

21st May 2016
Changi-Ubin 6.30pm-9pm
Ubin-Changi 8pm-10.30pm

22nd to 24th May 2016
Changi-Ubin 6.30pm-9pm
Ubin-Changi 8pm-10pm

25th May 2016
Changi-Ubin 6.30pm-9pm
Ubin-Changi 6.30pm-10.30pm

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More information can be found in the following posts:

• Photographs from last year’s festival: The Granite Island alive
• Festivities in 2014: The festive face of Ubin
• Getai night at Ubin: Watching the stars under the stars
• The seventh month at Ubin: A dying tradition lives on under the light of the silvery moon

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Good Friday at a slice of Portugal in Singapore

The Portuguese Church, as the Church of St. Joseph’s at Victoria Street is referred to, is where the religious traditions of the Portuguese Eurasian community in Singapore are kept alive. It is every year on Good Friday, a day of fasting, reflection and prayer, that we see the most colourful manifestation of these traditions, in an elaborate service which culminates in procession illuminated by the light of candles carried by the sea of worshippers that crowd the church’s compound.

The sea of candlelight every Good Friday at the Portuguese Church.

The procession, would in the past, attract worshippers in their thousands, some of whom would crowd the compound just to see the procession pass. Worshippers would also spill out to Queen Street and in more recent times to the lower floors of the podium at Waterloo Centre. It was at Queen Street where many candle vendors would be seen to do a roaring trade, offering candles of all sizes. I remember seeing some on sale that were of such a length that they needed to be propped up by pieces of wood, which we no longer see these days.

The head of the procession with a bier containing a life-sized representation of the body of Christ makes its way through the grounds of the church.

Worshippers carrying candles follow the procession.

While the candle vendors have been chased off the streets, the procession, even with the smaller crowds we see today, still adds much life and colour to the area. In keeping the traditions of a small and rarely mentioned community in Singapore alive, the procession also reminds us that what colours Singapore is not just the influences of the main ethnic groups but also of the smaller groups that have added to the flavour of Singapore’s rich and diverse cultural heritage.

Another view of the procession through the grounds.

A face seen in the clouds as the crowds gathered for the procession.

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More on the procession and the Portuguese Church:

• The flicker of tradition
• A sea of candlelight
• A one hundred year old beauty