When The Lion Roars..

**The video has been fixed.  Everyone should be able to access it now.**

My first video post!  Like any ready reporter, my video was rolling milliseconds after it all began.  I had to duck, jump, run from security forces, and…

The real story begins like this: I was standing in line for some Ban Mian -- a delicious noodle dish with minced pork, egg, and dried fish -- dreading the impending six and a half hours of teaching when everything exploded.  Having lived in Singapore during the Chinese New Year period, I knew what was happening but I wasn’t sure why it was happening now, at 11:00am on a Sunday morning.  I watched as parents quickly grabbed their tear-prone children and tore them out of the seats and charged for the exits, leaving their plates of food behind (I briefly wondered if it would be bad taste to take their food).  Instead of the heroic and inquisitive reporter who charges to the scene, I thought to myself, “Goddamn it.  Goddamn it.  It’s 11:00am.”

A lion dance had just erupted outside of the food court.  Without warning, symbols had begun smashing and big bass drums were beaten by a cadre of red clad hooligans.  When you are quietly absorbed in a Sunday morning’s atmosphere, the last thing you want is a drum attack.  That’s exactly what it feels like.  Like your head is being attacked by drums.  Carrying my noodles, I slipped out the door to go back to work.  But then I thought, “This is pretty unusual.  I should catch it on video.”

The “drum attack” is necessary; it provides a rhythm for costumed lions to dance to.  Two lions, with teams of people inside, dance and roar in order to bring good fortune.  Evidentially, the people inside of the lions are both well trained and very fit.  The lions frequently rear up on their high legs, to a height of about 3m, and constantly jump and shake.  It’s acrobatic.

Like I said, the dance is meant to bring good fortune.  During the 15 day New Year Period, bands of lion people will drive around the city in pickup trucks, banging drums and symbols and shaking lions, meant to disperse good luck to everybody.  I had gotten quite used to this back in January, but I was totally shocked and blindsided by the Sunday morning display.  My colleague told me this: “When a new business opens, they‘ll hire a lion dance to bring good luck.”  The lions obviously bring some immediate attention -- it’s hard to not notice a maniacal pair of lions dancing inside a shopping mall -- and the dance is supposed to help the business begin prosperously.

If you pay attention in the video, you’ll see people delivering oranges to the lions.  A gift of a pair of oranges is very symbolic in Chinese culture: it is meant to wish prosperity and auspicious fortune to the receiver.  The lions will theatrically pretend to eat the oranges, and then leave a four digit number shaped of orange wedges.  My colleague told me that “then people will go and gamble on these numbers.”  I asked of her: “Isn’t it strange that everybody around will get lucky?”  

This is what I wanted...

And this is what I got...

The Strange and Silly at Haw Par Villa

It's strange.

It's frightening.

There’s nothing like spending your day off exploring the paint peeled edifices of a run down theme park, created by self made millionaires answering to no one.  There’s something about crumbling theme parks and frivolous spending that excites me.  For those of you in Asia, you may be familiar with the apparently magical properties of Tiger Balm, a muscle cream.  The two men who invented it, Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par, made gigantic amounts of money on the aforementioned balm.  One of these brothers, wanting to build a mansion, bought a tract of coastal land in south western Singapore.

Now, when you have a lot of money, and nothing to spend it on, some pretty weird stuff can happen.  For most of us, if we want to be heard, we’ll talk to our neighbour, the editor, or the internet.  But, when you have a lot of money, and you want to spread a message, you have an invariably limitless opportunity to do so.  Deciding that traditional Chinese values weren’t being propagated, our two brothers decided to build a park designed entirely to do just that.  They built their theme park -- note: not an amusement park -- to raise awareness of traditional tales and legends of Chinese morality.  Education can’t be all fun...  

Built in 1937, Haw Par Villa has many recreated scenes and exhibits mostly drawn from Confucianism and traditional Chinese folklore.  Let’s face it; everyday folklore can be have some nasty bits (see Little Red Riding Hood) and the theme park spares no exception.  Inside, you’ll see dramatic battle scenes, a massive one tonne grinning gorilla, mythological creatures ranging from frightening to farcical, a tepid turtle pond, and the coupe de grace: the violent Ten Courts of Hell.  Inside are dramatic representations of the consequences of leading an immoral life: if you are ungrateful, you will have your “heart cut out,” or, if you are a drug trafficker or a tomb robber, you will be “tied to red hot copper and grilled.”  

I had been recommended to go here by a Singaporean friend after I told her I was tired of seeing boring tourist sites.  Right away, she said this was a strange place to see.  Thinking that strange was subjective, and at best I could catch up on some folklore and legend, off I went.  She was not kidding: the place is really strange!  Years of mismanagement and plummeting ticket revenue have left it in a sorry state.  As I walked up to the gate, no one was there to charge me (free admission!).  Inside, I saw about eight other people, and two of them may have been workers.  The broken steps, the peeling paint, the overgrown weeds, and the sludge in the turtle pond are all evidence of the park’s sorry decline.  Wandering around this half abandoned park, I couldn’t help but burst out in laughter at some dioramas and stare in bewilderment at others.  The eerie emptiness that pervaded the park made me want to hurry through and get out of there, but I made sure to read each sign so that the founders could rest in peace.


When I told two friends where I had gone, they were shocked.  Both had been taken as young children to see the vicious depictions in order to learn about proper morality -- and proper punishment!  It seems the Boon Brothers’ dream lives on.  There’s nothing like a dismembered corpse to teach children not to spread rumours!

Batman, Spiderman...   Turtleman?

My Typical Saturday.

Now that I've been in Singapore for a little while, I've settled into my new place and my new job.  Life here is unlike what I am used to in Canada or what I had gotten used to in Korea.  Singapore has a big, no, a massive city feel to it, with many people going many places at all times.  Obviously, this is different than my hometown, and being the first large city I've lived in, it can feel alienating at times.  It is also very different from Pohang, in Korea.  Although Singapore is a very multipolar city with many different cultures, religions, traditions, and people, it lacks the authentic cultural exchange that Korea offered.  When I lived in Korea, I felt like I was getting a large dose of what it means to be Korean; from food, to tradition, to idioms, to habits, practices, and more.  Singapore's diversity and size mean that the heterogeneous mix of cultures blend into one mosaic, one melting pot, in which you do get exchange, but not in an authenticated form.  Instead, you experience a mix of ideas and feelings and traditions.  Oh, and delicious food.  Definitely the city with the best food I've ever lived in or traveled to.  Authentic Malay, Indian, Chinese, Hainanese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, French, Western...  a food post will come in the future! 


Below is a chronicle of this past Saturday.  See the captions for explanations.

Sunrise in Singapore, 7:15 am, from my apartment's window.

Walking to the bus station, the park near my house.

Still on the way to work...

The new complex where my school is...

The school!

My classroom!

Some incredible pepper crusted duck / mango sauce, given to me by a student's grandmother.   Food is the best.