Yes, DuanWu Festival

My church organized a Duanwu festival celebration after mass on Sunday. Just a small affair with presentations on how to make dumplings, dumpling wrapping competition, food, music and singing. The MC went on and on about the history of the festival but I don't think the audience was very interested. Everyone was hyped about the competition!

Moi: Wah, she really can talk hor?

Aunty: Sunday school teacher ma...

Lunch for me was a bit of porridge and noodles from the temporary stalls. Initially, there was a lot of confusion, but the activities went smoothly after that. They set up dumpling making stations-- tables underneath a suspended ladder. On each table was glutinous rice, fatty pork, black eyed peas, dried chestnut, dried shrimp, salted egg yolks and bamboo leaves. A bunch of ham sui chou were tied on the rungs of the ladder, suspended over each table. Mum entered the contest in the individual category and she came out with third prize. Not bad at all. Judging was based on uniformity, shape, cleanliness and other technical details. The prize was a book, a collection of essays written by a priest. The other winners got the same prize. :P.



Wrapped things up (excuse the pun) and rushed home. Just had a little time to change and go out again. KH had bought tickets to "Yes, Prime Minister" at 4:00 pm. The comedic play was held at The Temple of Fine Arts at Brickfields. A small place really, not much space for people to stand around waiting for the hall open. And boy were the ushers lousy. We went round and round trying to find our seats only to be told that it was upstairs. Can you believe that they number the seats with cellophane tape and marker pens? And when we were upstairs, they told us that it was free seating since it wasn't full house anyway. Pity the people that bought the more expensive tickets. We moved to the higher middle seats to avoid the glass bannister that was right in front of us, but it still was in the way. The usher also warned us of some possible sound disruption. When the show started, they also had to switch off some of the air-conditioning because the vents were quite noisy. Lecehnya.... Anyway, I nearly did want to fall asleep, but I didn't, much to KH's relief. Hehe. Guess the star of the play was Sir Humphrey Appleby who could spew nonsense like it wasn't. Wiki describes the character as a "master of obfuscation and manipulation, baffling his opponents with long winded technical jargon and circumlocutions". The actor who played him definitely perfected the art. No mistakes at all (most probably I just didn't notice).



During intermission, we had a short tea break at the cafeteria. The Temple of Fine Arts only allows vegetarian food and drinks. The line was really-really long and the number of tables were limited. Just ordered some hot drinks. Got out of there at about 6:30 pm. Sent KH home and I continued to MaisonSK for a dinner appointment. No extra guests, only Apollo.