Dreams and Reality Exhibition at National Museum of Singapore

Was at the last few daya of the exhibition and there was a huge crowd at the National Museum of Singapore.  The exhibtion Dreams and Reality featured works from the Musee D'Orsay Paris.

70th Anniversary of the Fall of Singapore

15 Feb 2012 marked the 70th Anniversary of Singapore.  70 years ago, the surrender came during the Chinese New Year period and few months of battle in and around Singapore since December 1941.   Lives changed for everyone for the next 3 over years.

2012 Johore Temple Festival: The Procession

Having attended the previous 2 editions, we knew that the procession would come to City Square at around 10 pm.  So we arrived in JB at 9:30 pm, had coffee and waited.  The Malaysia Prime Minister was the Guest of Honour this year, and we could vaguely hear him from afar.  There were special performances at the main stage, the 24-season drums, the lion dances etc, but we could not really see it clearly. Imagine you are looking at this photo.

2012 Johore Temple Festival: Deities leaving the temple

The 2012 Johor Bahru Temple Festival had a special significance: it was given the status of intangible heritage of Malaysia.  It was my third consecutive visit to the procession of the deities, held on the 21st day of the first Lunar Month (12 Feb 2012).

The day before the procuession of the deities, the deities would leave the temples and would go on a procession to a gathering place called Xing Gong 行宫 (next to a crematorium).   I just attended the gathering at Xing Gong.  You would need to take a cab from the city centre as it was a few kilomentres away.  Imagine the devotees who walked the distance.

The place was crowded and followers were offering prayers to the Teochew, Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainan deities.


  While I was there, the Hokkien community were starting their praying session:




Other deities were also congregated at the Xing Gong:


There were of course Chinese wanyang performances at the venue, but no one really paid attention.


I managed to find a taxi back after a while.  The ceremony was interesting, but finding transportation back would be a challenge.


Next time round, I would go early to catch the deities leaving the temple.

The 2011 Johor Bahru Temple Festival could be found at Johore Temple Festival 2011

Huayi Festival 2012

Attended my first event, the chinese version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 谁怕吴尔芙？ written by Edward Albee and performed by 4 local actors and directed by Nelson Chia.  The main attraction for me would be the actors, especially Johnny Ng and Leanne Ong, the latter whose performance I haven't seen in a while.  Realistic set, good directing, and the ensemble has good chemistry.  The chinese translation was good, which enabled the actors to deliver the lines smoothly.    A good start for our local theatre scene.  ...but can we have a better production poster?

I had high expectations for Stan Lai's Crosstalk Travellers 那一夜在旅途中说相声 (Taiwan).  Sadly, while the performance is strong on laughs, it is lacking in depth.  Unlike in the past productions that use the skits to dig at politics and social situation in Taiwan, this production is more variety show like.  The cast however is still strong.