Chingay Experience

The Chingay Experience

Breathtaking. It is the one word that sums up the Chingay experience. Since it was my first time experiencing the Chingay performance, I was very much looking forward to it. Indeed, it did not disappoint me. Instead, I was very taken aback. Every performers were wearing very fancy costumes, and I even saw ethnic costumes that I had never seen before. In contrast with all the fascinating things, it was raining quite heavily that day. Being the first class to arrive at the venue, we had to sat under the rain for much longer period of time as compared to the others. It even took the second class fifteen minutes to arrive after us. The poncho that were given to us were not big enough to cover our entire body and some of us were wet here and there. "Although the weather was wet, our spirits were not dampened," as said by one of the female emcees. The rain did not make me any less excited, instead, it warmed my heart seeing how every audience was persevering through the rain to watch the performance.

The Purpose

Although Chingay started off in 1973 as a all Chinese event to compensate for the ban of firecrackers due to injuries and deaths caused, but it became multicultural in 1976, including all the Malays and Indians in the performances. By 1987, Chingay had featured its first foreign group, Japanese. Chingay now includes many different racial groups such as the Chinese, Malay, Indian, and other international groups. Chingay is a performance which showcases the examples of how Singapore's is a vibrant and multiracial society. Multiracial as in racial acceptance, and not racial tolerance.  Even in Singapore itself, many have the thinking that being in a multiracial society, one would have to tolerate others' cultures and believes. However, it is definitely not true. Being in a multiracial society means that one needs to accept and understand other cultures and religions that are different. If not, conflicts and riots might take place again.

Did it fulfill its purpose?

The first performers that came out, were ladies dressed in white and blue, dragging along a platform which was a crescent base with 5 stars at the tip. It reminded me of the Singapore flag, where the crescent represents rising young nation, and the 5 stars represents democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality. I thought to myself, how do these qualities help to contribute to a multiracial society? After thinking through, I came to a conclusion. With these qualities in mind when we act, we are able to build a cohesive society that includes every race and religion and where everyone is equal, and have a say, regardless of race, language or religion.

Ladies dresses in white and blue with crescent and 5 stars platform

There were also many showcases of the different races and religions, such as the Chinese, Malay, Indian, Japanese and Eurasian. The Singapore army also came out and the popular song from "Ah Boys To Men" were also played through the speakers when they were entering. Following that, were groups from the various religions, and participants from the community centres. After observing very carefully, I realised that even though it was a Indian showcase, Chinese were performing in it as well. It was the same for many other performances. The middle-aged performers from the various community centres were also of mixed races. This signifies the unity of the people as the different races in the same item would have to work together and accept each other's differences, if not, the performance would not be a success. Thus, acceptance and understanding are very important in building harmonious relationships among different races and religions.

Participants from community centres

Our Roles

"Come rain or shine,let us stay together. Chase the rainbow, and make Singapore a better home for us." 
As students and the younger generations, we can apply what we learnt in our daily lives and accept and understand what the other races and religions are all about to make the society more harmonious. This is also to ensure that the future generations would also be able to do the same and maintain this multiracial society of Singapore.

Forces of Culture

1)
Some of the forces that shape Singapore's culture would be Language, Food and Multi-Racialism.
Singapore is a multi-racial country, where people of many different races and religions live and work together.
The language of Singapore became very special because of the multi-racialism where the different languages, mainly Mandarin, Malay language and Indian language, are used by the locals freely, for example, a Malay stallholder may just ask her customers whether they want to makan(eat in Malay language) or dabao(take away in Mandarin). This mixed language is also known as "Singlish"(Singapore English), with the "Lah", "Leh", "Horh" used within conversations as well.
There is a wide variety of food available in Singapore such as, Char Kuay Teow(Chinese food), Roti Prata(Malay food), Curry in cuisines which originated from India, and many other traditional foods.

With the understanding of what these forces are, we are able to understand China's culture better. Although China is not a multi-racial country, but besides Mandarin, there are many other dialects used within the many different provinces in China as well. This is one of the forces that shape China's culture. When we know what the forces are, we are able to investigate straight into the forces and combine the forces together, and have a better knowledge on what China's culture is about as a whole.

 2)

It shows the drawing of a young child who also knows about how Singapore is a multi-racial country through the different skin coloured humans drawn. It is a widely-known fact throughout the entire Singapore. Multi-racialism has been existing here since generations ago. It plays a huge role in our culture.

Introduction

Hi! My name is Goh Yee Xin from class 2B. I am often known for my emotionless face because I do not smile easily. However, my closest friends would know that I am straightfoward with my feelings and laugh a lot with them.
My hobby is reading Chinese novels. It is because of this hobby, that made me grew a huge interest towards China. To be more specific, the history of China. The different kings that ruled the country from year to year did certain actions, be it good or bad, that made China what it is today. For example; the first king of the Qin Dynasty sacrificed many of its people to build the now very well-known Great Wall of China. Previously, I did not know much about CID2 except that we would get to go for OELP during the June holidays. But during the first CID2 lesson, Ms Ho mentioned that we are going to study about the relationships between Singapore, Taiwan and China. Although it is not exactly what I am interested in, but being able to learn more about China and Taiwan still excites me as much. In all, I am certainly looking forward to CID2! :)

Table on the perceptions about Singaporean and PRC Chinese