The first thing we learned about Chinese New Year is that the celebrations last for two weeks. Before we knew this, we headed to Chinatown for New Year's Eve expecting to see lion dances and hear firecrackers. Instead, we found big crowds buying all kinds of toys and treats.
The weather was fairly terrible, which might have limited some of the plans, but we persevered. We hopped off the train and checked out the usual stalls, but really we were looking for a place to get some delicious food.
Most of the stalls' signage was in Chinese and a good number of the stalls had someone wearing a microphone describing the quality of their goods and the value of their prices, at least I think that's what they were saying, it was all in Chinese. So there were no lion dance drums or cymbals, but it was still plenty loud!
On the main road, New Bridge Road, traffic was stopped and a stage was set up for performances. We thought maybe we would last that long--they started at 9:30--but moods did not hold out. We missed the shows, but we checked out the area anyway. The lighted cubes are all the animals of the Chinese zodiac.
My favorite aspect of Chinatown is how the streets around Pagoda Street are situated. Each narrow road is filled with stalls and the architecture is very distinctive, older. But the streets give way to these jarring views of the skyline of the Central Business District. To see the old and new thrown together like that is shockingly cool.
Here are some other stalls. What we can't show you are the other streets where the shopkeepers had strung up tarps in the walkway. The idea was to keep shoppers from getting wet, but the tarps were so low even I had to bow to get around. Ted was stooped in half. And at this point it was getting so crowded, we had just about reached the end limit of my comfort threshold. So we decided to eat.
Because we all wanted different things, we thought the easiest thing to do would be to check out this food centre with a ton of choices. We found a table somehow and ordered some various Chinese breads and veggies--deep fried pumpkin! Ted bought us some Tigers. We ate some of the black peanuts we had just purchased while we waited for food.
At the table next to us, there were some Canadians who were visiting friends who live in Singapore. The two young Canadians have been living in Taiwan. Coincidentally, Ted and I had just discussed the possibility of making Taiwan our next long vacation destination. We had hoped to visit China, but had heard such nice things about Taiwan. Meeting these young women helped make our mind up. We're planning that trip now.
In this picture, you can really tell that now that I've lived here for 7 months, I have become a real Tiger mom. Joke courtesy of Ted Bach.
On the way back to the train station, we bought some more sweets and Chinese New Year decorations and headed back along New Bridge Road all lit up now, still wondering if we would see any lion dances.
It was the next day that we learned lion dances don't typically happen until a couple days later. Over the next week, we could hear them in the distance and we would run out to our balcony searching for them. Often, we would see them riding in the back of trucks playing music on their way to their next destination. Eleanor saw some lions dancing around her school during the day and Zoe even got to participate in a lion dance at her school. Wyatt watched in the audience.
The following weekend, we went to Jurong Lake Park for a hike and picnic. We snapped this picture of the God of Fortune inside the Chinese Gardens where a special event was taking place.
We had seen signs around our building announcing that a lion dance would be happening here for the whole building on Sunday. The kids were beyond excited and Saturday night it was rough getting them to go to sleep. The rain even held off until they were finishing.
When it was time, we walked down to the pool deck where our favorite guard, Mr. Mohammed told us to walk down by the guard stand for the start. As soon as we got down there, the drumming began.
I'm going to link to 4 videos here, all are brief, well under one minute. If you only want to watch one, the fourth one is best. The last one is pretty great too.
They played for a bit there but then quickly led the parade up the stairs, back where we started at the pool deck.
The lions paraded all the way around the pool.
Then, they started really dancing. This video is the best of the bunch.
And in this one, they are really dancing.
After marching around the pool, the lions rested while people set up the oranges, hung bao, and other offerings for them. We checked out their heads.
Then, one lion continued the performance. I couldn't get over how many kids there were here. We never see this many kids outside! The place was packed--and some people were swimming!
The lion slowly teased his way to where the oranges were waiting.
He danced over them, then knelt way down. Underneath, the dancers were hard at work peeling and breaking up the oranges. Sometimes, they had the lion spit out the peels and greenery to the cheering crowd who quickly picked up the lucky pieces. But a couple of times, the lion left a message written in orange slices.
Nearing the end, the lion was "fed" two whole oranges and delivered them to an important person, in the first case I think it was our building manager. He held them up and the crowd cheered. BTW, the lion teased him a couple of times by turning away as the manager was reaching for the oranges, so the crowd really cheered when he was finally given them.
For the finale, the lion shot off these confetti crackers from his mouth.
The kids grabbed the streamers from the pool, convinced that they too would bring good fortune.
Afterward, we were given our oranges and tea. Here are some kids from the building.
This is a shot of the lion dancers and performers loading up, I'm sure heading off to another performance.
Yum, green tea juice boxes.
Happy, prosperous Lunar New Year!
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