For this week's adventure, we went to "Chingay 2013", one of the largest parades in Asia - The largest in southeast Asia. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint. It put any Disney parade to shame. It was like an International Cirque du Soleil performance on wheels. And speed.
I had read about Chingay on the Internet by happenstance back in November before we moved to Singapore. And I got tickets the first week we moved here. I told Mark it was what I wanted for my birthday gift. And it was SO worth it. Mark said it was the best parade he's ever been to and we should go again next year. SCORE. Win for me - yay!
The annual event dates back over a hundred years, celebrating Chinese deities and the Goddess of Mercy as part of the Chinese New Year festivities. The term "Chingay" is equivalent to the Chinese word meaning "true art" or the Penang version meaning "a decorated miniature stage" (a float) in the Singapore version.
Chingay has been taking place in Singapore specifically since the early 70's. It began here after fire crackers celebrating Chinese New Year were banned in the city. It is now the largest parade in southeast asia and is televised internationally. People from all over the world come to watch the event. My Aunt Sally lived in Singapore while working for the Peace Corps when she was younger. It's been really neat talking to her about when she went to Chingay and how much it's changed and grown.
Many cultures participate in the parade to celebrate and showcase their heritage. We got to see floats, dances and special performances from people from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, China, India and more. We saw so many cultural traditions performed - from balancing 60 lb 30 foot tall flag poles, to beautifully intricate dances specific to each country performed, to Chinese operas, to fire dancing on stilts, to traditional cooking demonstrations, to unique fireworks, to martial arts performances, to modern day asian pop groups sing and dance, to seeing various instruments played, to seeing it "snow" in Singapore - it was all so amazingly wonderful to watch.
Each year has a unique theme to the parade. Last year's theme was water and the YouTube videos were so neat! The majority of the parade was actually performed in water. This year's theme was "Fire in Snow". Most of the parade involved fire and then at the end, huge infrastructures were wheeled along that released "snow" - foam - for over 30 minutes. It was like one HUGE foam party like in a dance club. But even larger. And with Asian music. And with my two kids. Ha.
The pre-parade performance began with 1500 ukulele musicians playing songs for the us to sing - Karaoke style - to warm up the crowd. It was SO bizarre sitting in a sea of thousands of people in an Asian country, singing "Take Me Home Country Road". Or "Sweet Home Alabama". And then switching to a Chinese song with words on a screen that we are singing at the top of our lungs and have no idea what the words mean. Bizarre. And kinda funny. Did I mention over 150,000 people were there?
The actual parade started with 3000 performers lighting various fire pots along the parade route. (How an uncontrolled fire did not break out, I have no idea. I was ready for a disaster to occur and for firetrucks to arrive any minute.) A Chinese opera was performed and the parade began.
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