Why Chingay 2015 was bigger and better than ever

Chingay 2015, Singapore’s streetparade is behind us. BUT….you can still catch it at different dates and locations in the heartlands. Find out more about that here.

We bought tickets to see the official parade from the tribunes at the F1 building AND we went to see it two days later at Orchard during the Chingay Night Fiesta. It was awesome!

The parade started at 8 pm, but we came at 7 pm when the pre-parade started. Not a good idea. More about that later in this post.

Chingay 2015: we love SG

Singapore is going to celebrate its 50th birthday in august. That’s why Chingay 2015 was bigger and better than ever!!! After all, Singapore has money and they want to show each other and the world how proud they are of their country.
My pictures in this post and in the next articles will show you how beautiful it was.

Chingay 2015 was themed completely around Singapore’s upcoming 50th anniversary. It was all “We Love SG”, “Happy Birthday, Singapore” and “Celebrate SG50”.

Now everything in Singapore has a tendency to be nationalistic and moralistic. Often it’s all about loving your country, being one nation, being a good citizen and being a good person even. It’s all about values, morals and virtues. About one national identity and about being proud to be Singaporean.

This group of ladies is wearing ribbons with texts like: “Racial Harmony”, “Clean & Green” and “Hospitality”.

For me, being Dutch, this is unusual. We don’t have that emphasis displayed constantly in our society. At least not in the way it is done in Singapore. Probably we appreciate our country as much as the Singaporeans do, and we definitely are no lesser persons, in terms of behavior, norms and values, but public displays of nationalism and moralistic or paternalistic governmental campaigns are considered uncool. We cherish our individualism very much and a paternalistic government does not fit with that.
Ah well, each country has its own ways.

So, even though I really love Singapore, I feel no affinity with nationalistic praise nor with a constant and explicit focus on social values. I accept that this is Singapore though, and do not pay too much attention to it. Instead I focus on all the beautiful visuals and the spectacle that parades before me.

Rio’s Carnaval versus Singapore’s Chingay

You could say that Chingay is Singapore’s equivalent of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnaval. A street parade, enormous floats, large groups of participants, dressed in spectacular costumes, music; both Fiesta’s have that. But there is a difference.
Rio’s Carnaval is sexy and steaming hot. The performers are not afraid to show of their beautiful bodies and you will see quite some flesh/skin. It is fun, happy and vibrant; it breathes life and lust.

You will definitely NOT see something like this at Chingay in Singapore. Source picture here.

Chingay on the other hand, is decent and organized. It is grand, charming, colorful, poetic and pretty, but sexy is not the first word that comes to mind. That’s no problem though. It’s not any less enjoyable because of that.

Performers will look nice and festive, but quite covered up, as you can see.

Another difference is, that where Singapore is very explicit in emphasizing the importance of community spirit and all, in Rio this is way more implicit. Without formalizing community-mindedness, the bonding effect of the yearly Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro on the different communities and neighborhoods is at least as big as in Singapore, I think.

Look at the texts on this float: “Our Aspirations”, “Compassion”, Active Citizen”.

To be clear: I’m not judging either of the Fiestas. Just pointing out the differences in character, atmosphere and organization.

My best pictures of Chingay 2015

Without further ado, let’s look at my best pictures from this event, while at the same time giving you an idea of how it all went down:

The tribunes are still quite empty during the Pre-Parade of Chingay 2015.

Everybody received a goodie bag with a plastic flower (more about that later), a recycled plastic bottle with two magic balls (give blue and red light when shaken) and a golden pom pom for cheering.

When it was dark and the crowd shook their bottles, it was like an ocean of little red and blue lights. Genius idea!

Normally I happily cheer along with my pom pom, but this year I was recovering from a flu, so I just held it up for the picture. No cheering for me this Chingay.

We attended the pre-parade, but regretted that, since 1. it was utterly boring and 2. it was so loud! Ear-deafening and very tiring.
What it comes down to is that there are three speakers, one for each of the three tribune-compartments.

And there are crowd-motivators; a sort of cheerleaders. Many dozens of them. And all that happens that hour is that the speakers talk, no, let me rephrase that: shout, no, let me rephrase that again: scream on the top of their lungs through their microphones. “Do we love Singapore?” “Yes, we love Singapore!” “I love Singapore!” “Chingayyyyyyyy!” “Everybody do this…. Everybody do that…. Pffff…. boooooooring! So we already decided for next year: we will take our seats 10 minutes before the actual parade starts, not a minute earlier.

Anyho, by the time the parade started the tribunes were filled and I was all set to shoot awesome pictures.

And wow, did it start of impressive!! On came an endless contingent of women in flower-dresses.

Oh, before I forget, I was supposed to tell you more about the plastic flowers. Well, this year the citizens were asked to make flowers out of recycled plastic shopping bags. And they did in masses! The flowers came back everywhere in the parade. In the decor along the street. And on the dresses of these girls and women. See for yourself:

Afterwards I took my chance to pose with one of them.

The dresses were ideal to twist and twirl.

Amidst of these hundreds of women were three grand pianos on floats and a beautiful, classical concert was given.

One of the grand pianos in the parade.

Then a ticker tape rain came down on all of us and the light scheme changed. Very pretty!

Suddenly the headgear of the ladies lit up. A poetic sight.

And this was only the beginning of the two hour lasting show!

To be continued…..