Today, mum and i went to Cheng Huang temple( 韭菜芭城隍廟) , the one near Geylang Police station to see the temple celebrations. Mum said that the gods at the temple would went out on tour（游巡）to five different temples today, the last temple is at the one at Jurong temple before all of the temple representatives will return to Cheng Huang temple again. There are a number of temple representatives from Countries from Fuijian, Taiwan，Hong kong and our own, singapore.
We arrived at the temple @ 9.40 am. We managed to see this Gaint Lion. It took 2 strong guys to hold the gaint head. I am not too sure where this gaint lion is from. I think this does not looked like a made- in -singapore product as i did not often seen this gaint 舞狮 before but this is definitely a eye-opening for me.
This is the banner of the Cheng Huang Temple.
Next, we saw the 大头娃娃. I had not seen big head wa wa for so long.
The next representatives is from the Singapore Opera, called '筱麒麟‘ Mum had said that the Singapore opera group had beautiful clothing but i do not like to watch Singapore Opera, ge zai xi. The main reason is because i find it funny that a 50 plus woman can act as maiden in the opera. Since young singaporeans today do not enjoy opera and not to say enter this line, the opera in singpore is a dying culture. So auntie need to be maidens all the time. In the photos below, they are acting as 八仙.
The next temple representatives are from taiwan. I find their representatives to be the most special. Mum had said that those guys are acting as a messenger of god as they had painted their faces and holding some scroll.
The last is the gods inside Cheng Huang Temple. The gods will be taking a tour outside the temple and returning again at night time.
We left the temple after eating some bee hoon and soya bead drink that are given free. We returned home at 1 plus.
We returned to the temple at night to watch taiwan opera. In celebration for their 90th anniversary, The temple had invited two Taiwan troops. 新櫻鳳歌仔戲團 will be preforming from 10 December to 29 December, ticket is $5 and $10. 明華園戲劇團 will be performing for eight days from 31 December to 7 Jan 2008, ticket is $10 and $20. I remember 明華園 performed last year at the esplanade and received good reviews from the media but i never went to watch any opera performance at the esplanade as the tickets are too expensive.
Below is some of the photos that i captured. I did not get a good view as i am sitting at the 'T' seat and my ticket is only $5. Tonight performance is "画皮".
The story if u love laozai story should be familiar: scholar met ghost, ghost try to murder him, priest caught the ghost. For the taiwan opera today, the ghost become a thousand old vixen whom attacked the scholar because the scholar brother had killed one of the male fox.
The opera ended at 11 pm. When we went out of the opera area, we saw that the very last of temple representatives had came back from their tour. We only saw the taiwan temples representatives and the Cheng Huang temple gods.
1 comment:
I love to watch "wayang" aka chinese opera since young as their intricate costumes and headgears intrigued me, especially at night when the lights make their costumes very shiny :-)
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