Animal Kingdom: Watching Getai Performance at Tebing Lane(near Punggol Plaza) - 10/10/2009 农历8月22日, 圣家庙

Jennifer say:

***Photos uploaded at 17/10/2009, time @ 1220pm***

10/10/2009 (Sat) 农历8月22日-Today, dad,mum and Iwent to Tebing Lane to watch getai. Today is the second night of the getai. This is the first time i went to Punggol area esp near 圣家庙. The nearest Punggol area i went is Punggol Beach duno how many donkey years ago with mum and sister. We went out at around 640, took bus 159 and Bus 83 to reach there. The getai actually begins at 6.45pm and today it ended at 11 plus with Xiao Feng Feng 小凤凤 being the last singer of the day. We left the area at 1050 but when the bus passed by the getai at 11 pm,Xiao feng feng was still singing. Tonight event is in celebration of 齐天大圣千秋 - live band from 白狗骨乐队. Host today is 郭敏 but she only appeared a short time during the intervals. The singers do the introduction for the next singer themselves.

Mum was offered a seat by a uncle. Strange uncle told me i am blocking his view but i already standing at the last row liao so i asked him to shift his chair instead. In the end, he offered the seat to Mum. I was scanning the area for empty seat, saw one chair available so the kaisu me went ahead to ask for the chair (yah, must be fast or someone will take the chair). One thing i learnt about finding seats is to scan the area from behind and ask politely to the next chair person if the seat is empty. Poor dad is unable to 'master this skill' and ended up standing for almost 3 hours. Anyway dad vanished into the back of the crowd saying the area is very warm. not accurate lor as the whole tentage area is filled with fans. As i am at the last row of the whole tentage area, i cannot really get any clear shots. The whole area i think can take around 5000 ppl. There are two wide screen projector that capture the singer's every movement to ensure ppl in the last row like me can view the performance.

This is the first time i saw such a grand getai. The stage and mus. ic is supreme. It is almost like attending a concert. But one thing about this getai is we are not very familiar with the Malaysia singers from 丽声唱片公司. A few of them like 周慧敏, 刘燕华,侯美仪 belong to the same company and they are here tonight promoting their own songs. Mum had just feedback to me that the Malaysia singers were singing like 6 songs at one go- a bit sian to hear so many songs from one singer. Mum liked something more connected to audience like little comedy plot and some silly jokes. In fact, each singer took almost 30 min to finsh 6 songs at one go. I am familiar with only Hao Meiyi but not the other two singers. The whole getai supporting dancers are from 爱舞者 and 黑猫组合 - real professional dancers from Malaysia.

When we reached there, 林诗玲 was already singing halfway - i liked her songs, connected with me very well as the songs are oldies hokkien songs. In fact, the Hokkien songs in my MP3 player are mostly Hokkien oldies songs sing by Xiao feng Feng and Malaysia singer, Kelly Chua. I heard the latest songs sung by Xiao feng feng, still prefer her oldies songs actually. Today singers listed that i saw are 林诗玲, 周慧敏, 刘燕华,侯美仪, 李宝恩(saw her yesterday too, the clothes she wore today is the same set as the Boon Keng getai), 珍妮, 林玮华,小凤凤. I quite liked xiao feng feng, very conservative dressing with a strong powerful singing.