The Mid-Autumn Festival which is more commonly known as the Mooncake Festival in Malaysia, or the Lantern Festival in Singapore, is one of the few important Chinese festivals celebrated on a large scale in this country. However, in this small town of Taiping, the Mid-Autumn festival is celebrated on a moderate scale this year. There is no processions as was done a few years ago but still individual Chinese clan associations carry on the tradition of providing the local community with some element of festivities.
Mooncakes of all tastes and shapes are promoted at all departmental stores and the prices of the "branded" ones reach the moon. For cheaper, but not necessarily less tasty ones, try the wet markets and night markets.
Thus, it is from this delicacy that the Malaysian gave the festival the name "Mooncake Festival". The arrogant Singaporeans chose not to have the festival related to the word "moon" because they argue that man has already stepped on the moon and so to have a moon festival would render themseves mentally backward. Hence, they changed the name to Lantern Festival. Classical kiasu mentality, I would say. As Shakespeare said : Giving a rose any other name, will make it just as sweet.
Now, in Taiping we have the Kwantung Association which has never failed to bring in a Chinese Opera troupe to perform for a week each year, to celebrate this festival. This year was no different, so here are some pictures of the performance:
A gathering of generals backstage
The white-faced character in Chinese opera is usually given the role of a clown or small soldier
The generals are those with flags on their backs
A short video clip of the performance
The opera was sponsored by generous donors and their names were displayed on these flyers.
It is sad to note that such cultural performances do not attract the younger people and this is why some Chinese associations would rather choose to stage modern pop concerts than traditional operas. The loss of interest in traditional arts is quite universal and something needs to be done to rekindle interest in them amongst the younger generation or else another living heritage will face extinction.
AT THE LAKE GARDENS
In the meantime, while the opera goes on, at the nearby lake gardens, lots of people gather to light up lanterns and candles. In the past, when most people lived in villages with areas where children can go around playing with lanterns, such luxury is now gone. The roads are simply too dangerous for children to walk in groups with lanterns. As a result, the lake gardens provide an ideal venue.
This lady came early with her family and prepared home-made colourful paper lamps
Here's what her lamps looked like after she has lighted them up with candles.
The younger people let off fireworks, not those expensive ones, but good enough to keep everyone happy
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People just find a place to sit on the ground while the children lighted up the place with lanterns.
Children find it fun to see and mix around with so many other people and each family or group tries to be as creative as possible with their arrangement of lanterns and candles.
Some hang their lanterns on trees while others put more effort on the ground.
All in all, the lake gardens was quite a beautiful sight to behold but then, if only there are more responsible people who will also remove whatever rubbish they have before they leave the place, it would be better. Hopefully, with all the hypes about the environment, the younger generation will not just give lip service to such ideas but put them into practice too.
