Decorations in Chinatown.
People talked about their plans for going away to their homes in Malaysia, Thailand, and the like for the holiday weekend, but it didn't sound like there were too many parties or crazy activities that were going to happen. We tried to ask several people where we could see a lion dance or a parade, and were always given some ambiguous "don't know" kind of answer. It started to sound like it was going to be more of a Thanksgiving-type weeked, rather than a 4th of July atmosphere.
That worked out ok, though, and I ended up having a really relaxing weekend; a nice mix of sleeping, beaching, clubbing, and frisbee. Since Monday and Tuesday were officially holidays, and moreover, since my adviser was in the U.S., I took half days both days and on Tuesday played in a mini beach ultimate tournament. Team Men's Health kicked some major booty and went 3-0:
Team Men's Health (it was on someone's shirt). Yay for shirtless beach ultimate in February!
Content with that, I was prepared to conclude the Chinese New Year (or CNY, as Singapore appears to abbreviate it) had come and gone, to little fanfare. (I did get a red envelope from my parents though, thanks Mom and Dad!) Tuuuuurns out though, that CNY actually just started on the 14th and since then there have been lots of both small and large events. So last night (Friday) Levi, Sharon and I went down to the Chingay CNY Parade, which was being held on Singapore's brand new F1 track. (Sharon is one of our Singapore-based postdocs.) It was a pretty sweet parade that definitely included full fanfare; I think something like 7000 people participated in it!
I've uploaded a whole bunch of photos to my Picasa Album, but some of the highlights were:
1. Lots of firecrackers! The parade kicked off with stilt walkers, but as soon as they passed by, the next thing that happened was the lighting of who knows how many thousands of firecrackers. The noise was deafening, much like the macletada in Valencia's Las Fallas celebration, and the smoke was so thick that we actually had to walk away from the parade front for a little while:
2. There also, of course, lion and dragon dances, although it's more traditional for impromptu dances to pop up in front of storefronts, where owners hang red envelopes for the lions to take. I actually just got back from lunch at the Tiong Barhu market, where we got to watch a couple of these dances.
3. Two of the most amusing floats for me were (a) Joseph and the Multicolored Dreamcoast and (b) The HDB float. The former struck me mostly because, just in case you didn't know, the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors is a Torah/Old Testament story, involving Joseph (who was a Hebrew) making a prophecy to the Pharaoh and basically saving his land. What this has to do with Chinese New Year, I have no idea. Furthermore, as the float was going by, the announcer actually said, "All you Egyptian girls and boys, let me hear you make some noise!" Hahaha whattt???
And ya, they're drumming on gold-painted trash cans.
The HDB float was more of a Singapore affair. HDB stands for Singapore's Housing and Development Board, which is responsible for building cheap, high-density housing for Singapore just after it became a country in the 1960s. As a result, something like 90% of Singapore residents lives in fairly cookie cutter high rise buildings, but I suppose it works for them. In any case, the HDB float was, well, a mini apartment building.
So that was that. I guess last weekend really was family time and now the celebrations are getting rolling. Which is good; to be honest, I had been feeling a little let down, after hearing so much hype. :)
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