The Damned World

I was at the River Hong Bao earlier today. It was an annual event and I was looking forward to it.

We all heard the news that it would be the first time that River Hong Bao is at held at a floating platform. It all sounded very amazing until you reached there and see what it was like. It gave me a different "amazing".

For a start, we arrived at around 525pm in the evening. We always visit the River Hong Bao every year to hang out together as a family therefore we are very familiar with its tradition.

Not surprising that they made slight changes every year. For example this year, they only open at 6pm. Thats a huge change as normally they started receiving people in the morning. And we should be amazed with the floating platform but apparently we preferred that they stick to the tradition of the garden-like layout.

The platform was too restrictive. There is a weight restriction of 3 tonnes. There were only a few displays. Many things were missing. You don’t have to be a child to notice that there were no fun fair and games. There was no roller coaster rides or those big blown up castle for kids to jump around on. There were no games where you could win a huggable made-in-China doll.

Another tradition that was missing was the heritage and showcases of Chinese crafts. We used to have like Chinese calligraphies and paintings, carving of sculptures and name stamps, drawing of self portraits, fortune telling, Chinese medication and oilment, Buddist crafts and accessories. There used to be a hut with replicas of the portrait of emperors from different dynasties and an area showcasing articles and photographs of our forefathers celebrating Chinese New Year in the early days where my parents could tell us about as we walk in it.

What was available were just lanterns that lid up after sunset,

a wishing well (surely they won’t forget this so that they could rip some money off you for no price or effort),

a huge statue of the God of Fortune (oh did I mentioned that he looked as though he had a green, sick face during the day?),

a food market that sold Satays, Kebabs, Ramly burgers, soft drinks (a great way to show tourist and kids what are Chinese traditional food ain’t it?)

Let’s us remind ourselves, who were the people who visit the River Hong Bao..
We have:

A huge number of families,
Tourists,
Foreign workers.
I can confidently say that the majorities, which were families, would be disappointed.

The kids got no fairs to play at. Daddy couldn’t win any prices for the kids. For family with more grownups, we have got no Chinese culture to learn about. Tourists were going to regret wasting their money in times of financial turmoil to visit Singapore to see some mere lanterns displays.

If seriously they had ran out of idea on what to exhibit, may I suggest the following humble ideas.

1. Have some models dressed up in traditional festive Chinese costumes from the good old days. Or if the costumes are too expensive to be wore on a human, use a mannequin lah. Of course it would be kind to explain why the costumes are designed in that way

2. Show us articles or poster how other countries celebrate this festival.

3. What are the must-dos for Chinese New Year (e.g. what the kids got to do, what the adults got to do and what the elders got to prepare before it.)

I had took some photographs and i would post them up some other days.
Tomorrow would be the visiting day to receive red packets..

Chinese New Year preparation : Buying New Clothes.

What if you are rather "big" in size and it is hard to find your clothings at the regular boutiques and departmental stores?

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Time for another of my ugly drawn cartoon haha..


( click the picture to enlarge it so that you could read the words. )

So the black's legacy finally begins... In case you haven't keep yourself up to date with the news, here is a big one that you should at least know.

4 men were at the hospital waiting outside the operating theatres where their wifes were delivering.

The nurse came out to the first man and congratulated him for having twins.
1st man exclaimed, "Such a coincidence! I am working at the twin towers."

Another nurse then came out from another operating theatre, walked up to the 2nd man and congratulated him for having triplets.
2nd man: "wah i am working at 3M!"

The 3rd man was next and congratulated for having 4 babies! He was working at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Hearing all these, the 4th man was sweating tremendously. The 3 happy fathers then asked him if he was nervous for his first time and that he need not worry as everything is going to be fine just like the 3 of them experienced.

The 4th man then told the 3 of them, "I am working at Optical 88... "

It had been fun for the past couple of days. Christmas and the new year were filled with joyous parties, concerts, countdown, etc. Hardly anything bad until now...

I was on my way home and it was rather late. It was 11pm, on the 6th of Jan, when I reached home and not long after I settled down, my parent announced the news that my paternal grandmother had passed away just in the late afternoon.

We were told that she had a fall and landed on her forehead in the kitchen. Weaken and debilitated, the poor old feeble woman attempted to crawl to the door to ask for help. With all her exertion, she only made it to the middle of hall and lost her breath forever.

At first the news didn't affect us immensely as we were mildly attached to her. But on wednesday, when we attended the wake, sending our regards at the altar and looking at her grey-scale portrait, it was hard to ignore the memories and feelings resurfacing from our hearts. We then took a glance of her through the glass of her coffin. That really arises our affections we have for her. It was way more cruel for the heart than a 42km marathon.

The funeral also drew almost all my relatives together. usually they would find excuses to avoid attending any form of gatherings and encapsulate themselves in their own private family matters. seldom you see them gather like that to have peanuts and packet drinks and all of them were in white tops(attire for the Chinese wake). The last time we have similiar turnout was when my grandfather passed away 4 years ago. Unfortunately isn't it.

I once saw a movie about an old woman in her 80s, who lived in loneliness after her husband had passed away. After turning her grandson over to a new leaf, she passed away. The drama then portrayed the after life scenario of her husband's soul appearing in his 30s to fetch the old women, who also reemerged in her 30s, to the other side. When they both first met each other and fell in love, they were in their 30s.

I wondered if that is really happening to my grandmother after she left us. If it is, i would be happy for the both of them.

She was cremated on Saturday at 5pm, 10th January 2008 .

Time for another of my ugly drawn cartoon haha..


( click the picture to enlarge it so that you could read the words. )

Well I think you can say that i am lucky for NYE because my friend happened to have some free tickets to the Marina Bay countdown and the seats were even the better ones.

The general entry started at 7pm but the show only kicks off at 9pm. There wasn’t a specific seat number on the ticket but different pricing were assigned to different area. So if you want a better seat, you will have to enter earlier to your area to find one.

Most people wanted to enter early near 7pm although the fireworks only go off at midnight. There were 5 hours that you will be staying inside that place so you can predict that people would want to get some food in just in case you start to get hungry. My friends and i too were afraid of that and we got 2 bags of food and mineral water before heading for the entrance.

We were excited about enjoying ourselves at this privileged countdown programme. However, the fun was torn apart when we were told that food weren't allow in the stadium. Most people who came have either drinks or food too. They didn't even allow those people who brought their own water bottles to enter.

Therefore the entrance area was piled with all the food that people had discarded. Btw, SISTIC was the bloody organizer again (same as the farenheit concert).

And this was the menu that they have in there.


And another rant, though they have got about 3 booths selling food and drinks, the queue was so long that would take you 15minutes to get something.

SISTIC is really just some hungry money makers. In events like this, they never make exceptions from earning extras from you. If those people, like me, were allowed to bring our own food in, there wouldn't be more people queuing than there were watching the performance.

Never mind, new year must be happy. So forget about that(but i am not going to folk out my own money for SISTIC tickets, i rather catch a movie) and let see how things looked like from the stadium.











The Fireworks

Actually i wasn't very enthusiastic with anything else apart the fireworks. There were only basically singing by Mediacorp celebrities throughout the performances and from where i was sitting, they looked better on television. Also i honestly believe that the singing was pre-recorded(they appeared to be only moving their mouths and the singings was too flawless to be live). Therefore i didn't bothered to take any photographs.

Here are some static displays of the 2009's fireworks.













For the finale of this post, here is 2 videos of the fireworks. One is from my phone's camera and the other from my friend's digicam(which is obviously clearer but taken from midway of the fireworks onwards whereas the phone's has the entire presentation).

Watch out for the last few seconds of the fireworks. Absolutely stunning. They even managed to portray them to lightning flashes.