Bukit Batok East Lunar New Year Celebration Dinner

Event: Bukit Batok East Lunar New Year Celebration Dinner
Date: 16th Feb 2008
Venue: Blk 283 Bukit Batok East Ave 4
Time: 7.30pm - 10.30pm
Pax: ~300


Style! emcee:

After the Chinese New Year break, it's time to get back to emceeing! Had a great new year of foodies and goodies (angbaos aka red packet).

Lunar New Year Celebration Dinner

This event was held to celebrate chinese new year together as one big Bukit Batok East family. The evening started with the arrival of distinguished guest Mdm Halimah Yacob, MP for Jurong GRC and Advisor to Jurong GRC GROs. The lion dance troup gave a rousing fanfare for her grand entrance, together with the thunderous applause accorded by the audience and guests. Upon her arrival, she was ushered onto the stage to partake in a mega "loh hei" (tossing of the chinese raw fish delicacy) accompanied by the other grassroots leaders. Every table had a plate of "loh hei" and instantaneously at that moment when the emcee gave the signal, strings of blessings and properous words were the predominant voices heard.

The variety program unfolded with various artistes and groups. The lion dance troupe led the evening with an auspicious and symbolic performance of "cai qing" (plucking the green). This performance according to chinese, means good luck, prosperity and good fortune. The chairman of Bukit Batok East Citizens' Consultative Committee was invited on stage to receive the lucky banner.

Following the grandeur of lion dance, next was a chinese dance performance by 3 young ladies. After that, we invited our first singer VJ, who is an entertaining indian singer with his song and dance. Although majority of the crowd couldn't understand the tamil songs, however everyone enjoyed the catchy beat of the songs. The evening rolled on with malay dance titled "Joget Silat" performed by Bukit Batok East MAEC.

The second segment was simply awesome. Not only was it entertaining, it was a great opportunity for me to meet singers from various walks of life. There was an indonesian chinese (couldn't remember her name) who belted out teochew and chinese tunes. Among the few singers, Cheryl Chan caught my attention. She was tall and poised, dressed in a nice flowy tube dress. Then later did I realise that she was the cast for the movie "I Not Stupid" (a local movie production that received tremendous viewership). She sang 2 chinese and 1 english song. The crowd had a fabulous time!

Another highlight of the evening was the acrobatic show performed by Choo and Geen. The crowd was totally amazed that despite their seniority, they were able to perform acrobatic stunts and tricks to wow the audience. Their finale item was the bending of the chinese spear using the throat. My heart was held in suspense as I witnessed them accomplished the amazing feat.

The finale highlight of the evening was an unusual twist of singing performance by 圣文 aka 泰国千变王子. He came out in a clown costume and sang 奇异的约会. It was totally hilarious! Within a minute, he went off stage and came back up in a policeman uniform of the olden days in Singapore when the policemen were all wearing short. He delivered another 2 songs (Teochew and Cantonese).

To complete the event, the crowd did a cheer together with the emcee. Each time the emcee shouted "Hip Hip", the crowd would go "Huat ah!". The cheer was repeated thrice and the entire compound was filled with echoes of the word.

I am sure the crowd had an awesome time at the dinner. Throughout the evening, there were throngs of passerby standing around and enjoying the performance too!