Experience of Chingay:
The chingay performance was truly fantastic. Along with the planning of the whole programme itself, the volunteers were uncountable and they were very helpful. Dancers, back-up dancers, ushers, cleaners and other volunteers fulfilled their job and i could see their smiles when they know they have done their jobs perfectly. I believed that some performers and ushers was unclear of their moves or their on role in the whole chingay itself, but they still tried their hardest and make it a fulfilling event for us students and fulfilled their jobs perfectly which they perserveared through. Just in the opening act itself, it displayed different types of values they wanted us to learn from chingay. Teamwork: there were about 600 performers spreaded out 400m of walking space standing on crescent shaped platforms attached with 5 stars which represented the singapore flag, dancing in complete Unity and perfect Synchronization. Care and perseverance : Caring for one another is very important and it was displayed not on purpose but it happened accidentally. In the opening act there were different men and women standing on high wooden sticks and one of them accidentally fell down. Not surprised by the accident, the volunteers and performer when to help him up and he continued to Persevere through the rest of the lane.
picture of the first act
Chingay was also indeed heartwarming. Before the show even started it already started raining and the rain got worse just when the performances started. Even though there was a heavy rain, the volunteers did not had a thought of giving up, did not care about getting sick but only care about continuing the show wore a tiny sheet of poncho to cover themselves from the rain and continue the show. In the first act itself, they stood under the rain for almost 20minutes just to wait for the performance to start. It was really unfortunate as it dampened the mood of the audience including me as we forced to a lot of inconvenience but just thinking about it, the performers would have more difficulties than us, so i decided to not care and just enjoy the beautiful performances and songs. Most of the students expressed their feelings with enthusiasm which cheered the performers on and we decided to shout and respond to the emcees.
The Purpose of Chingay:
Before we even went to chingay, they sent representatives to our school to hype us up for chingay and explain to us how chingay came about. It was to cover up the banning of fire crackers back in the olden days where firecrackers were used to celebrate chinese new year but it causes injuries and even deaths.However, the ban caused unhappiness among the chinese and reduced public enthusiasm, and then Chingay, originally featuring aspects of Chinese culture by the Chinese only, came about as a kind of compensation. However, after some performances in Singapore, it included other races like malays,indians and slowly Japan and Australia joined in Chingay and the values of Chingay evolved around multiracialism, unity, inclusive and caring in Singapore.
Did Chingay fulfill its purpose?
Foreigners may think that we Singaporeans treat racial harmony as racial tolerance as we truly do not understand other race's culture but we are being forced to tolerate with one another and celebrate each other's festivities. Racial harmony means that we truly understand and trust each other and we have no disagreement with the culture of other races. This was what chingay wanted to teach singaporeans and i think they did their job perfectly as they had many performance of each individual cultures and dances of respective race group but they dancers of other races to perform and understand each other's culture with their heart. This shows that even though you are not part of the race, it does not stop you from helping or even joining and learning the dance like a chinese learning indian dance and vice versa.
this is a picture of the volunteers dancing for the malay cuktural contigent and it has some chinese dancers in it. This shows inclusiveness and racial harmoy as it takes time for people to understand and learn what they are foreign with.
