It’s About Time

My childhood was spent growing up in C’wealth Crescent, a subset of Queenstown.  Where my home was located, we could access Chip Bee Garden, Holland Road estate very easily.  Incidentally it is one of the oldest housing estates in Singapore. 

The block of flats where I lived is situated on a slight “hill” and that plateau was two other blocks of similar design. Together the three blocks formed a nice triangle.  Interspersed between the blocks is a field (in those days we have lots more spaces). Kids used to play football literally downstairs.  No fancy jerseys; boots. Most of us played barefooted.  No need for government’s involvement to foster racial harmony. We kids simply join in and get to know one another. In fact, I learned Malay through such activities. 

One time the folks from some govt agencies planted trees (don’t know why they need to do that), so they started digging pits so they could plant instant trees.  Once they did it then the kids came out and played war games. Actually we were simulating the scenes from the TV hit series “Combat” (Vic Morrow).  Then came rain and we played in muddy water.   Those were the days. 

During those days when firecrackers was still legal for celebrating Chinese New Year, I’ve always been fascinated by the sound, smell and sights of it all.  But the highlights is always the 15^th day of CNY. Many families would string long chains of firecrackers. Some as long as 10 stories high.  Individuals would lit the firecrackers from the ground floor while their family members would be holding the bamboo stick from way up high. It was very noisy as you can imagine when so many household firing firecrackers simultaneously. This occasion occurs in the evening. By next morning, the field would be bright red in color. It was cool!  But alas with the firecrackers outlawed such things were thing of the past. It was real and I can still picture the scene vividly in my mind.

  We spent a night at the Oriental Hotel that’s along Raffles Ave. the main reason is to watch the NDP fireworks at the bay front.  A special package was made available and my wife was keen to sign up for it.

She has always liked watching fireworks.  The one that serves as best we’ve seen was in a small town in IA. Can’t remember if that special fireworks show was in Union, or what.  That was way back in the summer of 1996 when I was doing internship at Fellowship Baptist Church in Marshalltown, IA.  Bro Katzer brought us there for that 4^th July fireworks.  A unique small town where the folks would drive a small parade through main street with town folks of all ages participating. It wasn’t anything fancy compared to any major cities’ standard but it was no less fun. The Catholic church of the town hosted the special meals where folks paid a reasonable amount. It was a festive occasion no doubt. 

The firework was held at night, and being summer, you can imagine what time it got started!  Nobody complained.   From the vantage point that we had, we could see many cars where folks from other towns drove in to watch the fireworks display. 

It appears that this town has a tradition (no idea when it started) where it puts up a show of this magnitude.  The whole fireworks lasted 45 minutes.  Before the show started, an announcer stated over the PA that they have collected few thousand dollars for the following year’s fire work display. So it appears that this fireworks is the desire of town folks (and those from out of town), and they gave generously towards it. I am sure the various fund raising acts contributed towards it too.  My wife and I felt so much a part of the fanfare.  Thanks for the memories, folks. Sorry that I couldn’t recall the name of your town!

Back to present day. The firework here however lasted only 15 minutes though not small in terms of the amount of fireworks and intensity. I think this is a South American company that produced the show.  The fire works was excellent but what made the experience new was that we viewed from 16^th floor of the hotel so that gave us a new perspective with regards to watching fire works show.  Amanda was enthralled by the show.

How many people watched last night’s show? 27,000 were what I gathered from the MC of the show, which was a downer least to say.  Thankfully, it was a short 10 minutes’ torture before the show began. By the way, those 27,000 in attendance comprise only of those who paid for tickets to see it from the viewing gallery which of course, was the best place to watch the whole shebang. Others who prefer FOC watched from buildings or along the road, and riverwalks. We saw several boats on the river that “parked” for a good view. Of course, people on board must have paid a sum for it too. It’s the best time to capitalize on the occasion for extra pocket change!

The stay at the Oriental Hotel was enjoyable albeit expensive but my wife felt refreshed by the short getaway, so that’s great.