Empty Extravaganza

Snort! Grunt! Oink! Happy New Year everyone! 猪大家过个大肥年!

It's chu yi today! May everyone get big fat ang baos! May gamblers shang hua zi mo, ban ban, and royal flush!

So today, my family went to my paternal grandma's house to bai nian first and then to pray at a temple. Ok. Fast forward..

In the evening, we went to River Ang Bao. It has been our family tradition to visit this destination every year. And wow, this is actually our 13th time there. But sadly, we seem to be more disappointed with every year.

Once a grand extravaganza celebrating the arrival of the new zodiac year, the River Ang Bao has dinimished into a pitiful sillouette of its glorious past, nothing more than a hyped up, cheena fun-fair cum pasar malam. I remember the good old times, the years before 2000, where emphasis were placed on spreading the festive spirit and promoting the traditional Chinese cultures. Every year, tremendous efforts were spent on making life-like scupltures for the staple 12 zodiac animals and the God of Wealth, as well as other mythological characters like Sun Wu Kong and the Eight immortals. Creativity was abound as each year had a distinguished theme. I recall, from the Tiger year, how they set up a mini soccer field with the tiger as the coach and 11 players made up by the 11 other animals, in sync with the World Cup that year. But now, for 3 consecutive years, all the statues, entrances and buildings just have one standard build: Inferior fabric cloths wrapped on metal wire frames, lighted up by lanterns within. The designs are plain and lacklustre, and changed so sparingly that I'm not surprised they are re-used. River Ang Bao is also mainly a commercial affair now, with food stalls, apparel and souvenior stalls and the fun-fair taking up the bulk of the event. This year, the only things reminding me that this is not a pasar malam are the hanging Chinese lanterns, a pathetic God of Wealth statue, 12 even more pathetic Zodiac statues and a miniscule exhibition on some CNY traditions. It's such a drag that we left within an hour to sit at the Esplanade to wait for the fireworks.

And what a spectacular display it was! It was in fact the saving grace for the whole River Ang Bao fiasco. 8 minutes of awe and wonder. That's what it was.

And, ta-da, I have finally completed my River Ang Bao Zodiac phonecard collection which I have faithfully collected for the last 12 years. 12 years.. I'm so proud of myself.

Well, I have one last interesting incident to recount. When we went to Geylang for supper, we drove past the entrances of some back alleys. Amassed in these alleys were hordes of men, all races, all ages, same motive. It was almost like a Workers' Party rally. Anyway, as I was eating my palatable porridge later, I cant help but wonder whether they will jack up the price of each transaction just as the auntie overcharged my porridge today. But to the guys there, I guess it matters little.

Well, that's that for today. Time for my beauty sleep. More ang baos tomorrow yeah!