The Mid Autumn Festival

With the ghosts all now safely back in heaven and hell and the children back at school, we're into the Mid Autumn Festival. To celebrate all the above, I took a tour around China Town to learn about the area and festivals just finishing/starting.

Our guide was Geraldene, who is quite simply the best tour guide in Singapore and she is a walking encyclopedia.

This was my second tour with her, the last being tour of Black and White colonial houses on which we got to go inside 4 houses, plus we received a constant and often entertaining stream of every kind of information along the way. Meanwhile my friend, Pippa, and I, muttered about the furniture and mosquitos etc (it helped us cope with the fact that we were never going to live in one these beautiful places).

This time, we walked all over China Town, learning the history of the area, people, architecture and the culture. We learned that in Chinese culture, on death everyone goes to hell. Here, you go to a court where your earthly crimes and sins are listed for you and a fine given out. On payment, you get to go to heaven. To ensure that their deceased relatives can pay their fines, the locals burn special paper money (Hell Money) and in case they're already in heaven, they also burn Heaven Money to ensure they can live comfortably until reincarnated later on.

We visited a range of shops, chinese pharmacies (more sea slugs, but dead this time), pawn shops etc, and also learned about the mid autumn festival. There is an ancient story of course, but it is celebrated when the moon seems to be at its largest, so all things round and moonlike are popular. Mooncakes are made and consumed and despite being of numerous flavours (lotus paste, red bean paste etc), they're an acquired taste that we haven't yet acquired and, I suspect, never will.

Our condo management held a Mid Autumn Festival Party, so, we went along. We didn't eat first as we saw them laying out lots of food. There were various competitions for the children, including a national dress competition. As us Brits are a bit short of a national dress we only observed. Having a large number of Japanese here, the place was a sea of gorgeous little girls in kimonos. (Hannah says that next year she is going to change nationality to become Spanish and wear her Flamenco dress).

After some very good displays of Japanese dancing by both children and adults, it was onto the "pomelo peeling competition" - a team event for children. For anyone who isn't familiar with the pomelo, it is a large citrus fruit fairly similar to a grapefruit but about twice the size. The skin is really thick, as is the pith and skin of each segment, but if you can be bothered to get at what is inside, they are very tasty.



The pomelo skins were slit by a knife to give the groups of kids a place to start, then the rules were that they had to peel them (removing as much pith etc as possible) and arrange them on the plate, within a time of 5 minutes. As frantic peeling took began, we checked out the food. It was pomelo - nice, but not filling, cold potatoes and, yes, mooncake. We really should have eaten first!



Judging followed and marks were awarded for peeling skills, beautifully arranged segments and extra marks for having a clean table. Then, following the judging of the latern making competition and just before the lantern parade (which nobody saw because they went round the outside of the condo grounds) it was the grand finale. Now there are some things that have to be seen to be fully appreciated, and this was definitely one. It was billed and the floating of the laterns across the pool.



In the event, an elderly man got into the pool and assumed a floating position. He was then handed a stick with two lighted lanterns on it. He then proceeded, with this free hand, to propel himself feet first around our end of the pool. I have included a photo because a description can never do a sight like that justice.



At least this provided an explanation, as, over the course of the previous two weeks, we'd all seen him floating around the pool, totally straight and rigid, just one hand propelling him along feet first carrying an empty stick. Finally we understood the reason for this new and unusual swimming style.