Chingay Reflection 2016

What is Chingay all about? Before I even attend the talk on Chingay and watched the Chingay parade on the on 30 January 2016 at F1 pit building, I thought that Chingay parade is just a normal street performance with not much purpose, a parade with lots of lights, numerous floats and lots of performers.
The word Chingay is equivalent to the Mandarin zhuang yi (妆艺), which means "the art of costume and masquerade" in the Hokkien dialect. Firecrackers is a traditional New Year practice to drive away evil spirits, however, it caused deaths and injuries from fatal explosions in the past, hence, it was banned in Singapore. The absence of traditional firecrackers to celebrate the Lunar New Year caused unhappiness among people and they felt that the ban would result in a much dampened festival mood for the Chinese New Year period. As an alternative, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew suggested the staging of a Chingay parade similar to those held in Penang.

The first ever Chingay parade in Singapore took place in 1973 from Jalan Besar to Outram Park. The earliest Chingay parade only involved Chinese to perform for it. However, The parade had became muti-racial in 1977 when Malay and Indian groups joined the performances. I think this is because of the multiracial society in Singapore, hence, different races are involved in this performance so as to enhance the relationship with other races. Not only different races in Singapore are involved in Chingay,  there are also performers form other countries involved in this performances so such to build a closer friendship with us.

The purpose for the Chingay parade 2016 is to remember our past, mark a beginning of the first year of the next 50 years and also encourages performers and participant volunteers from different races and country to come together to carry out this spectacular street parade. The theme for this year is " Lights of Legacy, Brighter Singapore 智 慧 灯 海, 璀 璨 新 加 坡". The theme is inspired by the legacy of our Founding Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, and the values demonstrated by our Pioneers such as Racial Harmony and Social Cohesion, Caring Community, Resilience as a Nation, Can-Do Singapore Spirit and Uphold high moral values. Though learning this core values, we can work together as one United people and make Singapore a better place as we head towards SG100.
Even though the purpose of Chingay changes from a celebration of the festival so as to replace the ban of firecrackers into a carnival-like parade which is used to promote racial harmony and friendship with other countries, I think that organisers had achieve their original purpose as the recent parade brings out the mood of the festival which is part of their original purpose. Furthermore, this parade bond people from other races and countries, allow them understand what is teamwork and by working together, they could bring out such a stunning performance.

The first performance is 'VoyageSG100' . There are more than 800 people dressed in shiny blue costumes followed by a float which have the words 'VoyageSG100'. The performers marched into the 'stage' orderly and neatly. I am amazed that how could they marched into the street so neatly while we need a lot of efforts to do the exactly same action neatly for 24 festive drums. After that performance, we gave our loudest applause as they must have put I much more efforts than us so as to put up such an extraordinary scene. The purpose of this performance is for us to remember the milestone that our founding fathers had faced and overcome, we should not take their efforts for building a wonderful homeland for granted. We should improve our country by contributing and put in our efforts so as to build a better country in the future.

After that opening performance, there are cultural performances put up by various races , such as 'firecraker' dragon dance, 'kampong spirit' Malay dance and Indian dance. Through Chingay, we learnt to respect and appreciate one another's culture and religion, so as to bring people from different backgrounds together, regardless of their race, language and religion, so as to promote racial harmony.
' Friendship all over the world'  was to the invite performers from other countries like Japan came to perform in this performance, 'United and Vibrant communtiy' had performances of pole dances, ballet, wushu, Ho la hoops and other dancing performances showing what people in our community will be doing from various ages. The finale 'Lights of Legacy' involved 3,000 performers lighting-up Singapore's city skyline with bright bulb-shaped Sky Lanterns that carries the commitment of the people. Many people are involved to design on the bulb-shapes lanterns. At the ending part of the finale, there are four people with long white dress being pulled up, displaying their beautiful white dress. However, we did not have a good view of the fireworks as it was behind of us, hence we need to turn our heads to watch them.

 

Despite of these, I still fully enjoy myself through watching Chingay at the F1 pit building as it allow us to understand the history of Chingay and it also demonstrated our Singapore Spirit. We can feel the sweat and hard work put in by the performers. Even though it is a pity that firecrackers are absent for Chinese New Year, but I think that having such a extaordinary performance is enough to replace the absence of firecrackers, proving the organisers had achieved their original purpose.